Larry Kudlow: Is Biden serious about stopping record gas prices?

Is Joe Biden at all serious about stopping record gas prices at the pump? Here's all you need to know. 

At 10:15 this morning, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm met with seven major oil company CEOs. At 3:30 this afternoon, President Joe Biden met in the Roosevelt Room of the White House to talk about windmills with labor leaders, governors and various green windmill makers. 

PRESIDENT BIDEN: And together, we're about to build a better America. I really mean that. I mean a better America.

Wait a minute. Let's roll that tape again. Afternoon meeting with the president, the boss, in the Roosevelt Room, energy fossil CEOs meeting with the underboss in the Energy Department. What's wrong with this picture? 

GRANHOLM MEETING WITH OIL INDUSTRY LEADERS DEEMED 'CONSTRUCTIVE' BUT NO MAJOR BREAKTHROUGHS 

Since Uncle Joe is in Washington, not Rehoboth Beach, might he have sat around the table with the energy people who could actually solve his oil and gas problem? Nah, much more fun to talk windmills. It's a question of priorities, right? 

By the way, I am reliably informed. The energy CEOs did not know about the afternoon windmill meeting with the boss. So, I think that says it all. 

The Bidens actually believe that $5 gasoline and $100 oil and 10% inflation is going to be solved by wind turbines and solar farms. This is not science. This is not common sense. This is left-wing ideology, radical climate obsession, and American working folk will continue to suffer with high food and grocery prices, along with outrageous gasoline and diesel costs. 

If the president had attended the oil and gas CEO meeting, it might've been a very important meeting, but he didn't and it wasn't. Participants tell me it was polite and in that sense "constructive." 

At least Granholm didn't insult the CEOs the way Biden has, but when they talked about pull-backs in regulations, restrictions, permitting, Jones Act changes for transportation, even short-term waivers of overly restrictive environment regulations – on each of these points, that would increase supply and therefore reduce price, the energy secretary was not able to satisfy the concerns of the oil people. 

So, nothing happened and nothing is going to happen, except the American economy is going to continue to suffer along with the American workforce. 

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There is no give in Biden's rigid climate ideology. He's held hostage by the woke greenies, the labor unions and some of their allies in the renewable fuel subsidy and tax credit game. 

He's not going to give an inch to fossil fuels. Biden is completely isolated. I think he's afraid to go and face the oil people after his recent insults and blatant, factual, misstatements. 

In the Energy Department press release, it says "The secretary made clear that the administration believes it is imperative that companies bring supply online to get more gas to the pump at lower prices." 

And how exactly are they supposed to do that when they can't get permits for new drilling, or refineries, or pipelines? Exactly how are they supposed to do that? Burdened by extremist regulations from Ms. Granholm's Energy Department and the Interior Department, and the EPA, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (that thinks it's now the Securities and Environmental Commission), how exactly are these oil companies going to produce more? Somebody explain that to me. 

By the way, if you have a president and an energy secretary among many others in the administration who are constantly telling us that the solution to record gas prices is solar and windfarms and that the ironclad policy is to abolish fossil fuels, why would these companies mount any expansive investment campaigns when they know they may be out of this fossil business altogether? 

After all, the cavalry is coming and Congress is going to go Republican this November, but the Biden White House and executive branch can just keep issuing these anti-fossil fuel regulations. 

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These big fossil companies report to their shareholders who own the companies. These investors will want management to deploy their capital in the most efficient, highest return rate possible. 

Joe Biden's telling them: do not invest in fossil fuels, even though that used to be your business. It's over. It's good for Russia, which is now back to peak pre-war oil production, good for the Saudis, the Iranians, the Venezuelans, but it's not good for American companies. 

You can't just order more gasoline. There's a process with a long lead time and this SPR business has failed. 

A federal gas tax holiday is dead on arrival. Gasoline rebates of some kind are a laughingstock, so the president and his energy secretary just decided to order the CEOs. Remember immaculate inflation? This is immaculate refining. 

I trust the Lord in all things, but it's not clear to me that he's going to magically produce new supplies of refined gasoline. That's a little bit too earthly and material, I suspect, for him. 

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Final point, I don't understand the politics of this. If I were Joe Biden, and I were getting absolutely clobbered in the polls, and my party is cruising toward a major election defeat under these greenie policies, I'd probably want to change, reset, show flexibility, so something that makes consumers, motorists, and workers think "there's somebody in the White House who has eyes and ears," but no, the Bidens double down, or triple down, same old failed policies, not even one little meet-and-greet cup of coffee with some of America's biggest CEOs.  

I'll just conclude: what a terrible story.  

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow's opening commentary on the June 23, 2022, edition of "Kudlow."