“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.

American energy producers and consumers would be well served by a new turn toward energy pragmatism. But the truth is that the president does not have an energy policy and it shows. On the same day that the White House demanded that oil companies begin investing billions to increase oil production and refining capacity Mr. Biden’s Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, suggested that the administration did not even want more fuel production five years from now.

Just the week before, his climate envoy, John Kerry, said the administration “absolutely” did not want more oil production. Incoherence has been the one consistent theme of the Biden Administration’s energy policy.

In November 2021, Ms. Granholm famously laughed when she was asked if the administration had a plan to increase oil production to address high fuel prices, suggesting the notion was “hilarious.” But three weeks later, she said the administration was encouraging oil companies to drill. And by April 2021, as prices rose, the president himself began criticizing oil companies for not drilling enough.

If the administration really wanted more drilling, it would simply lease more land to oil companies for drilling. But it did not even announce a plan to offer federal lands for oil leasing until April 2021, by which point it was facing a federal court order to restart oil leasing. And even then, the administration only offered a small fraction of the land that was under consideration.

When asked whether the leasing plan was really intended to encourage new drilling, the White House press secretary suggested that they were only complying with the court order and hoped to prevent the land from being drilled by appealing the court decision. Then, just last month, the White House simply canceled all pending lease sales.

In the meantime, the White House keeps telling the press it is considering destructive and contradictory new proposals that reflect its failure to take energy policy seriously. According to a member of the President’s National Economic Council, the White House is considering a special tax on oil profits. And now the White House is reportedly considering cutting American refiners off from global markets.

Raising taxes on oil or placing an embargo on American fuel production would, of course, reduce exactly the oil investments the President says he now wants. And even suggesting such economically destructive policies discourages investors from considering the president’s request that they sink billions into raising America’s future fuel production.

It is high time that Mr. Biden decides what he wants on energy policy. If he wants more investment in American fuel production, he will ensure that his whole administration is aligned with that goal in both rhetoric and substance. That means dropping the policies that are restraining oil production, abandoning the unrealistic promises of his campaign, and a stop to floating destructive proposals that frighten off investment.

No politician likes to apologize, but investors and consumers both need an end to the chaotic shifts of rhetoric and policy, and the President needs a new, consistent, and reasonable energy policy going forward.