Trump Energy Secretary, Rick Perry gave energy companies a pass for their role in higher prices in order to blame President Joe Biden. Host Sandra Smith said nothing to correct the record.
You may recall Perry’s famous “oops” moment when he forgot that the Department of Energy was on his list of departments he wanted to eliminate. That didn’t stop Perry from serving as Trump’s energy secretary, though.
That Rick Perry visited Fox News’ Your World show yesterday to blame Biden for higher oil and gas prices.
Host Sandra Smith set the stage for the Biden bashing by asking, “Is this the administration’s fault, why we continue to see sky high gas and oil prices?”
Before settling into attacking Biden, Perry made a point of wishing Smith a “Happy Columbus Day.”
Rick blamed “austere conditions in the country, because of policies that this administration’s been involved with, particularly the oil and gas industry. They started sending a message on Day One we’re going to try to bring the fossil fuel industry to its knees, and they basically are doing a pretty good job of that. They’re overtaxing, over regulating, over litigating.”
“Shutting down pipelines, not allowing the off-shore drilling, not allowing federal leases,” Perry added.
“A lot of this recession that’s happening is driven by the cost of energy,” Perry continued, “and America was independent for the first time in 67 years in 2019 because of the policies that President Trump put into place. We were producing, we were doing a great job, we were working with our foreign partners.”
That claim was rated “half true” by PoltiFact at the time.
Perry went on to plug fossil fuels and “small monitor reactors” to “send the message around the world that America’s going to get back into the energy business in a big way.”
Perry forgot to note that OPEC is cutting oil production by two million barrels daily.
FACT CHECK: In July, the Biden administration opened new public lands and waters to fossil fuel drilling. Furthermore, CNN reports that it’s the energy companies, themselves, that have paused drilling and it’s not because of Biden’s “green” policies:
New exploration for oil and gas has fallen sharply worldwide this year. Still bruised by an oil-price crash prolonged by the Covid pandemic, fossil fuel companies are now focusing on areas they know will make money, and far less on exploring for new locations to drill.
“I would say it’s 60% financial markets are telling them ‘no,’” said Robert McNally, president of energy consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group and an energy adviser to former President George W. Bush. “It’s 30% they’re still fearful of another bust, and then 10%, ‘the politicians, they’re not going to make it easy for me.’”
Smith said nothing to correct the false picture for viewers.
You can watch the Murdoch-funded Blame Biden propaganda below, from the October 10, 2022 Your World.