A year after he entered the White House with a vow that fighting global warming would be a driving priority for his administration, President Joe Biden clearly finds his climate agenda delayed and beset with legal, legislative and political issues that could diminish or dismantle it entirely.

His two main paths for significant climate action are legislation and regulation. But even Biden’s top aides and closest allies are now admitting that the legislative centerpiece of his climate plan is unlikely to become law in the face of steadfast Republican opposition .

What’s more, regulations that are now being developed — strict limits on the pollution from cars and power plants that is dangerously heating the planet — could be curtailed or blocked by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

With gasoline prices surging after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and images receding of last summer’s climate disasters — wildfires that raged through seven states, heat waves and floods — Republicans and oil companies are newly emboldened in calling for more drilling and less emphasis on climate change.

“The U.S. oil companies are like a prisoner that was condemned to death, and suddenly the warden of the prison lets them out and wants them to produce as much oil as quickly as possible,” said Robert McNally, a consultant who was a senior energy and economic adviser to President George W. Bush. “Now, the president is saying to them, help me out of a jam. It’s a panicked response to high oil prices.”

On March 31, Biden said he would release one million barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for as long as 180 days to help bring down global oil prices. The scale and duration of such a release would be — to say the least — historic. The United States also plans to increase exports of natural gas to help Europe wean itself from Russian supplies. 

While we favor clean energy, there are a lot of hurdles to be crossed before we can rely on it. And, as U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said in a March 3 statement, “It’s a disservice to the American people to pretend otherwise.

“The more we rely on foreign sources of energy, the more vulnerable Americans are to energy price spikes and global shortages,” Thune said. “And it’s a problem because relying on foreign sources of energy often means relying on energy from tyrannical governments and volatile areas of the world...

““I hope he (President Joe Biden) will rethink his hostility to conventional energy production and spend the next year of his administration embracing the kind of all-of-the-above energy strategy our nation needs,” Thune asserted.

We heartily agree with Thune’s suggestion that his aforementioned course is the best Biden could take “for American families struggling with high energy prices.And it’s the best decision he could make for the long-term security of our country.”