Welcome to Fort Worth, Mr. President. Now, can we talk about these insane gas prices?

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President’ Biden’s visit to Fort Worth

Presient Joe Biden visited Fort Worth on Tuesday to promote health care for veterans.

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Welcome to Fort Worth, Mr. President. Now, can we talk about these insane gas prices?

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President Biden, welcome to Fort Worth.

We’re glad you’re coming to tour the Fort Worth VA Clinic and speak at the Tarrant County Resource Connection about the need to expand health care for veterans affected by environmental exposures.

But we’ll be honest with you: The things that are on everybody’s minds are inflation, Russia’s war on Ukraine and, most of all, gas prices. Why are they already so high and rising so fast, whose fault is it and, most importantly, can anyone lower them?

As we’re recovering from the pandemic and watching with horror as Russia invade Ukraine, and enduring massive inflation, it’d be tempting to blame you, Mr. President, for the increase.

Data shows gas prices have been slowly climbing the last year: From Jan. 4, 2021, to Dec. 27, 2021, retail gasoline prices increased by $0.88/gal in the Midwest and $1.20/gal in the Rocky Mountains. In December, the average price of regular gasoline in Texas was $2.87. As soon as sanctions were placed on Russia, oil spiked, thus affecting gas prices, and today it’s nearly a dollar higher, $3.72.

“Can’t do much right now,” you said upon landing at Naval Air Station Fort Worth. “Russia is responsible.”

It’s true that gas prices, like inflation or the bloated housing market, aren’t the fault of one leader — this is much too nuanced, particularly in the middle of a war. Yet at the same time, Mr. President, your hands aren’t tied. There are a few things you could do to lower the prices, and there are definitely steps you should take to ensure affordable, reliable energy produced by domestic sources

Texas prides itself on a thriving oil and gas industry. In fact, for Texas, high oil prices signal good time for businesses and state government, even if it stretches our individual pocketbooks.

The two most compelling solutions are to shift our energy dependence away from foreign entities and to allow American innovation in oil production to thrive. By ending our dependence on other countries, particularly Russia, we limit future spikes due to war. And we can stem anxiety about our own national security being at risk when a country like Russia goes rogue.

Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, along with Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, are encouraging you to reduce dependence on foreign oil, whether from Russia, Saudi Arabia or, as the U.S. is reportedly contemplating, Venezuela or even Iran.

“Why don’t we boost our own production from here in the United States and sell it across the globe?” Cornyn said in a written statement Monday.

One way we could facilitate more long-term domestic oil production is to reinstate and complete the Keystone XL pipeline that you halted in January 2021 and that President Barack Obama stymied, too. We won’t go so far as to say if it had been operational, prices wouldn’t have gone up, but think of it this way: Could a functioning Keystone pipeline hurt future gas prices? No.

After all, if we’re going to contain Russia, we’re going to see diminished supply, and thus even higher prices.

“The United States imports nearly 600,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia — an amount that could have been made up for by the more than 800,000 barrels of oil the Keystone XL pipeline is capable of delivering each day if the Biden administration hadn’t stood in the way,” Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina wrote this week. “As Vladimir Putin conducts his evil and unprovoked attack on Ukraine, now more than ever, we must cut off our energy dependence on Russia while turning up our energy production here at home.”

Jason Modglin, president of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, told Fox Business that opening up the Keystone XL pipeline would “ have absolutely made a difference because it would have lowered the cost of Canadian crude to get to the markets that it needs to get to in order to be refined and shipped to be utilized here in the United States.”

We can carefully open up more federal land to drilling, too. No one should cavalierly endanger our national parks and shorelines, but smart, focused production is a must.

We understand the need to confront climate change and reduce use of fossil fuels. But it’s going to take decades, and if we’re going to use foreign oil, let’s make sure it comes from reliable allies such as Canada.

No one leader bears full responsibility for an economic crisis such as surging oil and gas prices. The economy rumbling back to life after the pandemic started the surge in gas prices, and war will only drive it further.

But let’s not naively claim there’s nothing you can do, Mr. President. It’s time to take steps to cut off dependence on foreign oil and rely more on our own production.

Time and again, American innovators thrive when given the opportunity. Let oil production be among those.

Updated to reflect Biden’s comments upon arriving in Fort Worth.

This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 11:21 AM.