The Colonial Pipeline, which runs 5,500 miles from Texas to New Jersey and transports more than 100 million gallons of petroleum per day, has been shut for more than ten days now. Panic buying and huge lines are clogging gas stations along the Southeast coast. The suspension of the country’s major oil pipeline owing to a crippling cyber attack thought to be orchestrated by a Russian-based criminal has raised the national average gas price to more than $3 per gallon, according to the Automobile Association of America.
Gas prices are rising, and increased travel this summer is expected to keep them there. Long gas lines spanned the East Coast has shut down as a result of a ransomware attack on a major US pipeline, causing some fear at the pump during the pipeline’s closure. But Biden is relatively comfortable because neither does the gas pipeline shutdown hurt his green and clean energy agenda nor is the effect felt irrevocably across states with Major Democrat support.
The White House was forced to ask Americans in states affected by the Colonial Pipeline shutdown not to stockpile gasoline, with energy secretary Jennifer Granholm referring to the issue as a “supply crisis” rather than a “gasoline crisis.” Governors across the southeast proclaimed states of emergency and took steps to make fuel deliveries easier and safeguard customers from price gouging.
Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia were particularly heavily impacted, with 42 to 65 per cent of gas stations depleted in each state. Gas costs are also on the rise, with the national average reaching $3.00. A one-week waiver and a temporary hours-of-service exemption were approved by the White House, allowing select states to utilise non-compliant fuel to alleviate shortages.
When asked whether the White House is “rethinking their opposition to new pipeline projects since one really important one goes offline and gas stations start running dry.” “I wouldn’t say we look at it through that prism…,” press secretary Jen Psaki said, “We look at it we analyze both the economic impact as well as the environmental impact. And that will certainly remain the case, but we look at each pipeline project individually.”
The three states; North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia are dominant republican states. Except for Georgia, where Biden won by the finest of margins during the presidential elections even though the state has had a long history of voting Republican, the other two voted for Donald Trump.
The Pandemic has hit the United States hard and now the rising fuel price is another problem that Americans in these states are having to endure and the Democrat President does not care. The slump in supply due to the shutdown of one pipeline is hurting Americans. But Biden doesn’t care as it not only plays right into Biden’s push for clean and green energy but Biden does not expect to win in these states again with the mid-term elections on the horizon and thus has not put in any efforts to address the issue or to safeguard gasoline if a similar situation arises in the future.
Moreover, this is not just a ransomware hack that occurred and now has been fixed with the US twisting some arms. On the contrary, the company which owns the pipeline paid the ransom to the tune of $5 million to the hackers. DarkSide, a ransomware group, was behind the attack, according to the FBI. Colonial reportedly used cryptocurrencies to pay a $5 million ransom to hackers. President Joe Biden said on Thursday “We do not believe the Russian government was involved in this attack, but we do have strong reason to believe that the criminals who did the attack are living in Russia.”