Trans-Alaskan oil pipeline in the north slope of Alaska. (Shutterstock: Kyle Perry).

National Security, Fossil Fuels, & America's Priorities
5/18/2021

President Biden has once again shown that America's direction-- his direction is headed into a state of weakness.

This month the Colonial Pipeline was breached, a pipeline responsible for 45 percent of gasoline on the East Coast. This hack shows America's vulnerabilities and the importance of energy which will become more apparent as time goes on.  President Biden fails to provide the strength that America deserves.

On President Biden's first day in office, he declared war on the fossil fuel industry by canceling the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which increased the cost of distribution and made our nation more vulnerable to attacks on energy. The Colonial Pipeline attack has made it obvious that America needs more than one pipeline responsible for supplying nearly 50% of fuel on the East Coast. We cannot have all of our eggs in one basket; we cannot have all of our fuel in one pipeline.

The President, along with the DOJ, failed to address this vulnerability with the seriousness it deserves. When reporters pressed the President on whether or not he was aware of the ransom paid to a Russian hacking group, he responded, "I have no comment on that." If President Trump were in office and gave that answer, the media would rightfully grill him, but this Administration gets a pass. The analogy is difficult to imagine because enemies were afraid to attack our nation when Trump was in office.

This attack has been dismissed by many in the White House and the media as nothing more than an attack by a private entity on a private company. However, it could be much more. According to the Hoover Institute, authoritarian regimes often outsource their dirty work to decrease liability. The Russian government is probably involved in the attack committed by DarkSide. President Putin, a former KGB officer, knows precisely what he's doing; President Biden does not.

There are a five things the President can do to decrease the possibility of this happening in the future:

1. Fulfill his responsibility by defending America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Just because a private company was hacked doesn't mean it's independent of the United States.

2. Make ransom payments illegal. A company should not be contemplating a cost-benefit analysis of whether they should pay a ransom. It's not exactly clear how they would label this transaction in their financial statements. When a company is a victim of a ransomware attack, it should rely on the DOJ to bring justice to the wrongdoers.

3. Companies should be mandated or incentivized to have up-to-date security measures in place. This is especially the case when an attack on them would affect the lives of millions of Americans.

4. Restart the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. There is no excuse for the Federal government to put the populace at risk by limiting quick distribution of fuel.

5. Recognize this attack for what it is: an act of international terrorism. According to 18 U.S.C. § 2331, if an entity, individual, or group intentionally intimidates or coerces a civilian population, they have committed international terrorism. This group deliberately coerced Colonial into paying a $5M ransom.

By looking at his actions, President Biden does not want the United States to be energy-independent. His actions could be the result of being compromised by a foreign nation that is interested in exporting their energy to the United States, but time will tell.

This security threat is a manifestation of Biden's climate demands. The problem with the climate change theory is that we do not know how much humans contribute. The climate projections become less and less reliable as time is projected outward. Climate change has occurred for as long as the earth has existed. Switching to renewable energy will cause an incredible surge in electricity prices, and the consequence of doing that is unknown. Nobody is against clean air. Coal has become cleaner, and Ultra Clean Coal reduces ash to below 0.25% and sulfur dioxide to very low levels.


Certain companies like Apple are entirely carbon neutral and get great PR among liberal talking heads for doing so, yet they're using slavery to build their products.  The real focus of the entire world should be to promote peace through democracies' military strength and promote Western values across the globe. The world has been on the right track to ending famine. Of course, there is always a bump in the road when a totalitarian socialist rises to power, but the primary reason for hunger over the last 40 years is either war or politics.

The priorities of the current Administration are out of line, and their solutions are incoherent. The 2022 election will be another moment of reckoning that will decide the future of our country.