OPEC May Have Just Delivered the October Surprise
If there is anything we have learned about electoral politics, it's that every month before an election there is some sort of "October surprise". OPEC may have just delivered it.
Be prepared to see fuel prices jump again.
Be ready once again to start seeing these annoying stickers as you stand there pumping gas:
Don’t be surprised to see gasoline soar to over five dollars a gallon or higher again as they where this spring.
In some places, like California, Nevada, and Hawaii, they already are.
While there are steps Congress can take and has taken, and decisions the president can make regarding how we navigate the Faustian milieu multi-billion-dollar fossil fuel corporations control, the fact is the President of the United States does not control global gas prices.
That is not something most people know or choose to acknowledge, especially when there is a wealthy corporate media infrastructure beholden to fossil fuel interests refusing to dispel the assumption.
The international fossil fuel puppet master is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the timing of its decision this week to cut two-million barrels a day from production is likely not a coincidence.
Congress and the Biden administration successfully drove down fuel costs this summer.
The recently signed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) seeks to invest about $385 billion in energy and climate change incentives that include tax credits for solar and wind energy equipment production and electric vehicles purchases, and will create up to nine million new good-paying union jobs in the renewable energy field to reduce carbon emissions 40% by 2030.
The landmark legislation is also requiring companies that report more than $1 billion in profits (including those that deal in fossil fuels) to pay a 15% minimum corporate tax rate, and wealthy shareholders will pay a 1% tax on stock buybacks.
Do you believe the powers that be controlling our energy supply are eager to see any attempts to cut into their profits?
Do you think they aren’t aware their days are numbered?
Do you assume they’re seeing countries’ efforts to reduce carbon emissions as benign?
Can you imagine they’re excited the United States finally has a leader seriously confronting the climate crisis?
Not on your life.
They’re aware the United States’ republican party works solely for the corporations, especially those engaged in our environmental demise.
So why would those same corporations and countries loyal to them refuse to assist the party working on their behalf?
The November 8th general election is a month away, and if there is anything we have learned about electoral politics, it’s that every month before an election there is some sort of “October surprise” that threatens to tip the scale in favor of the party struggling to gain or maintain power.
OPEC may have just delivered it.
There are 9,600 active leases on fed lands where oil companies, sitting on record profits of $46 billion and using 40% of it to buy back their own stock to enrich their executives, could be drilling and aren’t.
Now republicans can resume their jeremiads against high fuel costs and blame them all on Joe Biden and the Democrats.
But here’s the thing: Republican politicians and pundits know Biden and the Democrats don’t control gas prices. They also know most people aren’t aware of this.
Since republicans have nothing to run on except grievance and outrage, what better gift can they receive than a conglomerate of oil-exporting nations agreeing to reduce their output a month before a crucial mid-term election?
The outrage has already begun.
Right-wing hate media internet site Breitbart ran a piece this week titled, “Rising Gas Prices Plague Democrats Five Weeks From Election.”
It’s interesting, though, how not a single corporate media outlet, even the so-called “liberal” ones, aren’t saying a word about the kingdom of Saudi Arabia — a member of OPEC — handed $2 billion to Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s new private equity firm, Affinity Partners.
While it may appear as though we are powerless to the petroleum behemoths, we aren’t.
Vt. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, called this week for an end to U.S. military aid to Saudi Arabia.
Mass. Sen. Ed Markey announced he will be reintroducing legislation calling on U.S. officials to “initiate dispute proceedings” against OPEC members at the World Trade Organization (WTO) for violating price-manipulation rules.
He explained:
“As we build our clean energy future, we must stand up to the oil-soaked global cartel that seeks to abuse its power to raise prices and boost their profits. Today’s OPEC announcement is a reminder that as long as the United States is dependent on foreign oil and on domestic oil that is priced on a global market, the supply and cost of the energy Americans use to operate our cars, heat our homes, and power our economy is reliant on decisions made by and for hostile fossil-fueled regimes.
“We must hold OPEC and its allies accountable for colluding to hike energy prices on working families, and we must accelerate our transition to clean energy to free ourselves from their profiteering, colluding grip once and for all.”
According to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) study, between fiscal years 2015 and 2021, the Pentagon delivered at least $54.6 billion in military aid that included missiles, helicopters, and bombs to Saudi Arabia and OPEC member the United Arab Emirates.
We have also spent hundreds of millions over years of refueling Saudi and UAE jets as they continue to engage in their war against Yemen that has created one of the world’s most devastating humanitarian crises.
NJ Rep. Tom Malinowski, Ill.’s Sean Casten, and PA’s Susan Wild presented legislation to require the US remove its soldiers from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Calif. Rep. Ro Khanna added in an op-ed titled “Saudi Arabia’s October Surprise For Business”:
“By siding with Russia in hiking oil prices and sabotaging our economy, the Saudis have really outfoxed themselves this time — it was a time for choosing, and they picked the wrong side.”
Moreover, we currently export 800,000 barrels of refined gas a day to Brazil and Mexico.
Maybe it’s time to also open negotiations with Venezuela.
Get ready for day-and-night ads from republican candidates about how “Joe Biden and the Socialist Democrats are hiking gas prices.”
That explains why they’re hiking them again to hurt themselves on election day after driving them down all summer, right?