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If there is one thing the Republican Party loves, it is easy-to-remember catchphrases that oversimplify complex national policy goals into something a third-grader might say after being left to play with Lego bricks in front of the TV with Fox News on all day. The modern classic is, of course, “Lock her up!”
One must go all the way back to 2008, however, to find the origins of the GOP mantra, “Drill, baby, drill.” It seems the phrase was coined by ex-Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele for the 2008 party convention. It was later popularized by 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin (who was probably more famous for, “I can see Russia from my house,” although it was Tina Fey spoofing her on SNL who uttered this memorable paraphrasing).
We are well into the second decade of Republicans repeating their “Drill, baby, drill” slogan. As professional defendant Donald Trump runs for president yet again in 2024, he is still using the phrase, and, of course, kind of claiming he invented it even though he very much did not.
Hold your horsepower though: some of you may remember that that big orange lunatic was already president, and had four years to implement his supposed drilling agenda. Did he follow through?
In a very out-of-character maneuver, sort of! The U.S. did indeed become the world’s top crude oil producer in 2018 during Trump’s presidential term. Domestic oil production went on to reach a record high in 2019.
Of course, Trump can’t legitimately take much credit for that. From 2009 through 2019, annual oil production went up nearly every year, mostly thanks to increasingly cost-effective drilling technology. Production also cratered in 2020 during Trump’s tenure, primarily because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and falling demand. Domestic production dropped again in 2021, even as in both 2020 and 2021 the United States still pumped more oil than any other country in the world.
So, fine, maybe a president does not have very much direct control over oil output compared to technological advances and global market forces. Surely, however, there was a lot going on behind the scenes with the “Drill, baby, drill” president — indirect policy decisions which tangibly helped boost U.S. oil production, perhaps?
Well, if so, it turns out Trump cannot hold a candle to whatever Joe Biden is doing (though, please, for the love of God, ask the man who thinks maybe we should inject bleach into us to keep his candle as far away as possible from America’s massive ocean of crude oil). With an average of 12.9 million barrels produced per day in 2023, the U.S. shattered the previous oil production record of 12.3 million barrels per day set in 2019.
Early signs point to even more crude surging to the surface in 2024, with production in December 2023 reaching a monthly record high at over 13.3 million barrels per day. Growth in U.S. oil production is projected to slow somewhat in 2024 and into 2025, but when you’re growing from what is already a record high, any growth is going to set even more new records.
There are a handful of things an American president can do to tinker with oil production (thankfully starting a new war in the Middle East no longer seems to be one of them). For instance, a president can approve well permits for oil and gas drilling on federal land. By that measure, Biden has approved nearly 50% more such permits than Trump did in his first three years.
Really, though, how much oil gets drilled is a lot more about how much petroleum we are all using than about whatever the president is doing. If you want to dispense blame or claim credit, depending on your perspective, for the recent surge in U.S. oil production, the best place to look is in the mirror.
In the meantime, recognize that Trump saying, “Drill, baby, drill,” is just another small addition to the constant gusher of lies erupting from his mouth. Trump both had less domestic oil production during his term than has Biden, and demonstrably did less to promote oil production on federal lands during his term than has Biden. Stick that in your tailpipe and smoke it.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
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