Russia’s Aggression Against Ukraine is Being Fed by America’s Lack of Energy Independence

As Biden’s disastrous retreat from Afghanistan fades in the rearview mirror, the question of national security has returned to the spotlight, pushed this time in the “front burner” by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Casualties, both civilian and military, are on the rise; and the Russian president referred to Western sanctions imposed on Russia as “a declaration of war.”

When it began, it was tempting to see this crisis as unrelated to American affairs. Many question whether a conflict confined to Eastern Europe involves the vital national security interests of the United States. Yet at least one major factor inevitably entangles America’s interests with those of the other parties involved:  our embarrassing need for foreign oil and gas, which means that the administration’s laudable embargo on Russian oil comes at a significant and wholly unnecessary cost to Americans.

Last year, the United States imported over 245 million barrels of oil from Russia. That was an increase of nearly 25 percent (more than 47 million barrels) since President Biden took office, marking an all-time recorded high. 

Behind this dependence has been a shallow insistence on attaining “net zero” carbon emissions at the expense of employment, political stability, and—as is now brutally self-evident— national security. The U.S. is neutering its own energy capabilities in favor of relying on unreliable renewable resources and foreign adversaries. Perhaps most damaging were Biden’s executive order revoking the permit for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and his ban on new leases for oil and gas development on federal lands, which is the subject of ongoing litigation.

We’re shooting ourselves in the proverbial foot, and doing it on the world stage. 

What makes things worse is that the federal government controls around a quarter billion acres of resource-rich land upon which very little, if any, development of natural resources is allowed. In other words, there are nearly 300 million acres of federal land where oil and gas drilling is prohibitively regulated, if not completely banned. 

Consider the 111.7 million acres of “Wilderness Areas,” sprawling across 44 states and Puerto Rico. Five percent of Wyoming, six percent of Colorado, and over one out of every ten acres in Washington and California are set aside as “wilderness,” which means they’re unavailable for any socially beneficial use.

Add to that the 58.5 million acres of federal land deemed “inventoried roadless areas,” wherein road construction is strictly prohibited. That effectively denies energy producers the chance to cultivate the land’s oil and gas reserves.

Even more restrictive are “critical habitat” designations made in conjunction with endangered species listing decisions. As of 2021, just shy of 112 million acres had been designated as critical habitat, along with nearly 4 million more currently being proposed by the federal government, upon which economic use of land is extensively regulated, and most times effectively banned, under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. 

Making matters worse, the federal government can easily claim as critical habitat lands not even inhabited by a “threatened” species. All it must show is that such lands outside the species’ actual habitat are “essential to the conservation of the species,” a phrase that can be construed in any direction. 

Vague does not begin to describe this provision: it is a direct invitation for federal land-grabbing, plain and simple. In 2020, the Trump administration attempted to improve the decision-making process on these issues with clearer definitions and a requirement that agencies consider essential data, but last October Biden moved to reverse the change.

This is just one critical reason why the Northern Spotted Owl alone gets 9.5 million acres to itself, at the expense of—among many other things—Americans’ energy independence. 

Biden’s refusal to leverage the country’s bountiful oil and gas resources is also a missed opportunity for potential revenue – something we shouldn’t ignore at a time when the country is mired in over $30 trillion of national debt. Before Biden took office, in 2020 alone, the federal government earned $2.4 billion from oil and natural gas leases on public lands, representing a whopping 83.8% of total federal revenues earned from energy and mineral leases on federal lands. Many communities across the American West, including some that are very poor, also rely on a share of those payments to fund critical government services. They, too, have been left in the lurch by this Administration’s indifference to the local and regional impact of its repeated halts to public lands energy leasing.

The lands shut off from development could thus serve not only to alleviate our dependence on rival nations, but as a critical source of government revenue, especially at a time of uncertainty in defense policy. This lost revenue is another a hefty opportunity cost to pay in the name of climate activism. 

But viewed through the green-tinted lens of our governing elites, such an opportunity cost, combined with our increased dependence on a foreign adversary for fuel, is one worth paying. To Biden, depending on other countries to power our economy and military makes perfect sense. And he is perfectly willing to gaslight the American public, claiming that “It’s simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production.” The White House fact sheetaccompanying announcement of the embargo on Russian oil, natural gas, and coal, wherein Biden had his staff write that “[t]he only way to eliminate Putin’s… ability to use oil as an economic weapon, is to reduce our dependency on oil.”

Unfortunate pun notwithstanding, this is pure gaslighting. Better solutions exist: namely in tapping into hundreds of millions of acres of untouched federal lands for resources, greenlighting new oil and gas drilling leases, and lifting restrictions on the Keystone XL pipeline. So yes, the administration is inarguably “holding back” energy production stateside.

Biden’s embargo on Russian energy kicked the price of Brent crude up to $133 per barrel and the price of gasoline up to a nationwide average of $4.17 per gallon, an all-time high since 2008. 

Even worse, Biden is sending officials down to Venezuela to talk face-to-face about consuming its crude oil again, apparently preferring to buy from any corrupt despot if it lets him avoid creating wealth for Americans. Indeed, transportation expert Pete Buttigieg recently let it slip that the option of becoming a customer of the Iranians is “on the table.” And Jen Psaki just admitted that Biden has sent Americans to Saudi Arabia to talk about “energy security.”

Are we really willing to become more reliant on some evil foreign regimes, just to pretend that carbon neutrality is feasible at the moment? Are we willing to drown in inflation and insecurity, refusing to save ourselves with our own natural resources? 

Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with pursuing cleaner sources of energy and preserving America’s beauty. But when close to 300 million acres of federal land are barely touchable, and Russia’s influence over the U.S. and Europe is tied to its energy exports, national security should take precedence. Biden’s recent promise to augment natural gas exports to the EU is a step in the right direction, yet the amount promised (15 billion cubic meters) pales in comparison to Russia’s 155 billion cubic meters of gas exports to the EU alone in 2021, and is the mere equivalent of slapping a Band-Aid on the issue of capped gas production capacity.

Unrestrained federal land use prohibitions, ranging from the establishment of wilderness areas to the designation of critical habitats, are severely ill-considered, and are a critical reason why Russia’s energy dominance is such a major issue in Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

America’s unnecessary reliance on its enemies for energy makes us less safe, less prosperous, and hurts our allies. Restricting domestic energy production is an unforced error—and it’s never been clearer that it’s a dangerous one.

Jason Siegelin is a Communications Fellow at Mountain States Legal Foundation.

Joe Bingham is Senior Attorney at Mountain States Legal Foundation.