Larry Kudlow: Biden has thrown a heavy wet blanket over the entire fossil fuel industry

Yes Virginia, there is a higher power. 

The anti-capitalist, anti-fossil fuel, Sarah Bloom Raskin, has withdrawn her nomination to be the Federal Reserve's vice-chair for bank supervision. Ms. Raskin tried the old Biden ploy of lying her way through her Senate confirmation hearings, skewing falsehood after falsehood. 

During the height of the pandemic in 2020, she wrote that the Fed should do all they can to allocate capital away from carbon and fossil fuels. She put this in writing and in speeches, and yet during her recent confirmation hearings she tried to falsehood her way through it. 

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She's exactly the sort of person who should not have even been nominated for that position but in the Biden administration, key appointments are judged on one's radical zeal against fossil fuels. Climate extremism permeates every single Biden policy, both domestic and foreign. 

Bravo to Senator Pat Toomey, who led a walkout of 11 GOP Banking Committee senators so a vote couldn't even be taken. 

Raskin also had some ethical problems being on the board of a Colorado fintech company that was the only such firm to get access to the coveted Fed master account, meaning the transactions wire. She used her pull from prior government positions and the Kansas City Fed besmirched themselves by trying to stall the release of that information. 

Then finally, Joe Manchin, who has been so good on so many issues, essentially ended her nomination by declaring a 'no' vote with the statement: 

"Ms. Raskin's previous public statements have failed to satisfactorily address my concerns about the critical importance of financing and all-of-the-above energy policy to meet our nation's critical energy needs." 

So, Toomey and Manchin—a good team. But the bigger problem remains. 

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Biden's war against fossil fuels will continue. He never misses an opportunity to accuse them of excess profits and price gouging. His press secretary doesn't understand the importance of pipelines that are necessary to transport the supply of oil and gas from point A to point B. 

Biden's regulatory octopus centers on climate change zealots in charge of FERC, the Interior Department, Energy Department, EPA, and the White House. 

He's thrown such a heavy wet blanket over the entire fossil fuel industry, that we're still producing a million and a half barrels a day less than two years ago and that shortfall is the principal reason why world oil prices and gasoline prices at the pump shot up well before Vladimir Putin's invasion of the Ukraine. 

Biden has amnesia about that first year, which now includes an 8% consumer price index and a 10% producer price index. 

Biden blames the pandemic, supply chains, Putin, and the man on the moon for the inflation that was supposed to be temporary, but the reality is his own deficit spending policies and easy money from the Fed, along with energy supply shortages are the real homegrown Biden policy-driven causes of inflation. 

Meanwhile, at the Fed, they'll probably raise their target rate by a quarter of a percentage point tomorrow, but that's a futile gesture for a basic inflation that's no less than 6% and may be moving toward 10%. 

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Biden's other nominees to the central bank will probably get through. 

Jay Powell will continue as chair and will be as confused as ever about inflation or economic growth incentives, or the importance of quantitative easing and the money supply. 

The new vice-chair will be Lael Brainard, who repeatedly in Congressional hearings refused to accept the label of a capitalist and then Lisa Cook, from Michigan State, believes America is racist, White supremacist, and she pushes for slavery reparations. So, I'm not expecting much out of the Central Bank. 

We're in the middle of an international crisis over Ukraine. We're going head-to-head with Russia, which is our enemy. We should be using every means at our disposal to defeat the enemy. 

We don't need troops on the ground. We need to drill, drill, drill. We need to lift all the restrictions on oil, gas, LNG exports, pipelines, and financing. 

In the middle of this crisis, climate czar John Kerry speaks to a big energy confab in Houston and talks about the urgent need to spend the next 10 years ending fossil fuels. He fretted publicly about his concerns that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would somehow slow his climate crusade. 

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This isn't national security; this is inanity. Pure, dumb, contrary to American interests. Betting against our national security. 

It just can't be that hard to understand—an all-of-the-above energy policy that seeks to expand our energy base, not to destroy 80% of it. 

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Nothing wrong with wind turbines and solar panels, but almost every serious person knows that in the next 50 to 100 years or so, the energy solution is natural gas and nuclear power. The Bidens are opposed to both. 

So, I'll ask: Are they trying to help America or harm it? That's my riff. 

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow's opening monologue on the March 15, 2022 edition of "Kudlow."