Staff Reports
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum didn’t pull punches when he went after California’s energy circus on the Hill, bluntly calling the state out for turning itself into an “energy island” by shutting down domestic supply lines and embracing unreliable green policies. That’s the kind of plain talk Americans want to hear — someone in Washington naming the problem instead of apologizing for it.
While political elites lecture hardworking families about emissions, Californians are paying the price at the pump with state averages surging into the stratosphere as global disruptions tighten supply. The spike in California prices isn’t an abstract talking point; it’s real pocketbook pain that voters feel when they fill their tanks and stretch their budgets.
The choke point at the Strait of Hormuz has made the whole world painfully aware that whoever controls energy supply can weaponize it, and U.S. and allied efforts to reopen the strait have dominated recent policy debates. When foreign actors can halt shipping and send crude markets into a tailspin, it exposes how dangerous it is to leave our fate in the hands of distant regimes and narrow maritime chokepoints.
Burgum has also reminded skeptics that the United States can — and must — act to protect its energy security, even as he notes the obvious: some states have made themselves uniquely vulnerable by cutting off domestic pipelines and capacity. The administration’s work to shore up domestic production and coordinate responses reflects a simple conservative principle: national security begins with energy independence.
Make no mistake, California’s self-inflicted isolation didn’t happen by accident; years of political decisions to block pipelines and constrain refining capacity have left the Golden State importing far more than it produces. That isolation — applauded by coastal elites as virtuous sacrifice — has real consequences when the world’s markets wobble.
This is the moment for conservatives to press the case for common-sense energy policy: build infrastructure, open markets, and unleash American production so consumers stop getting held hostage by foreign actors and partisan virtue signaling. Voters of all stripes will reward leaders who deliver lower prices and secure supply rather than lectures and bans.
Hardworking Americans deserve leaders who put their interests first instead of bowing to activist dogma that sacrifices livelihoods for headlines. If Washington wants to fix this mess, it should back policies that restore domestic energy reliability, push pipelines and refining capacity where needed, and stop pretending that moralizing can replace muscle and markets.
