“Look at my eyes. I guarantee you: we’re going to end fossil fuels.” That was President Biden’s dramatic 2020 campaign promise. On his first day as president he began to fulfill that promise, pausing oil drilling and leasing on federal lands and killing the partially-built Keystone XL pipeline. And investors took him seriously. Even as fuel demand and prices rose, they shied away from making proportional investments in oil drilling and the refineries needed to turn oil into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. 

Now that fuel prices are threatening the American economy and Mr. Biden’s political future, he seems inclined to take back his words. On Wednesday, he wrote to oil companies, demanding that they produce more more oil, more diesel, and more gasoline. The White House press secretary even said that oil companies have a “patriotic duty” to produce more fossil fuels to keep the economy going.