The current crisis can be told in a tale of two pipelines – Keystone and Nord Stream 2
When it comes to both foreign policy and his liberal energy agenda, President Joe Biden has embarrassed our nation. I can sum up President Biden’s incompetence in these areas with one simple story: a tale of two pipelines.
On one hand, Biden blocked the crucial Keystone XL Pipeline, signaling to the world that American energy independence is no longer a priority. On the other hand, he green-lit the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, strengthening Russia’s energy hold on Europe. And in the process, he gave Russia the leverage to create the crisis that we are witnessing unfold in Ukraine. Let me begin with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and Biden’s policy failure on that score.
Until last year, getting tough on Russia was one of the few issues that seemed to unite conservatives and progressives. When I served on the House Armed Services Committee, my colleagues all recognized the real threat that Russia poses to our nation. In 2019, Congress passed a bipartisan measure to impose sanctions on the Russian company that is building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany. The sanctions had strong support from both Democrat leadership and the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump signed the sanctions into law after pointing out that the pipeline “really makes Germany a hostage of Russia if things ever happened that were bad.” He wanted to contain the Russians, not empower them to overrun Europe. Maintaining Trump’s sanctions should have been an easy call for President Biden. Polish President Andrzej Duda told Trump that he fiercely opposed Nord Stream 2. The head of Naftogaz, a Ukrainian energy company, called the pipeline Russia’s most “dangerous geopolitical project.” And thanks to America becoming a net exporter of energy during President Trump’s administration, the United States had created the capacity to sell our gas to European allies and reduce the reliance on Russian energy.
Handed away leverage
However, last May, the Biden administration waived those bipartisan sanctions, allowing Nord Stream to move forward. In doing so, they handed away leverage to the Russians and doomed Ukraine in the process. Some theorize that President Biden simply reversed an important accomplishment of the Trump administration for spite. A more sinister theory suggests that because his son, Hunter Biden, served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, President Biden had, at a minimum, the appearance of a conflict of interest. To make matters worse, Hunter “received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow,” according to a Congressional report.
Biden’s shortsighted approach
Unfortunately, President Biden took a shortsighted approach to appease his liberal base. Americans are seeing the results at the pump. Gas prices continue to rise. And we have lost our ability to counter Russian energy policy because we are significantly weakened from an energy production standpoint. Here in South Dakota, high gas prices are hurting everyone. It is a long way to drive anywhere in our rural state. Our long, cold winter is far from over. And thanks to Biden’s inflation, fuel costs continue to rise. Keystone would have helped ease those fears while giving America the flexibility to counter Russian aggression by expanding energy exports to Europe. I hope that Biden will someday explain why Canadian oil causes global warming, but Russian gas doesn’t.
Biden lost the confidence of the American people thanks to the chaotic manner in which he withdrew American troops from Afghanistan. As bad as the optics were in Afghanistan, the current Ukraine crisis may be worse because he is emboldening Russia, our longtime geopolitical foe. In this tale of the two pipelines, President Biden’s disastrous foreign policy and energy agenda intersect. His twin failures are putting our nation, and the entire free world, at risk.