Jamie Dimon, the Chief Executive Officer of JP Morgan Chase, has made a habit over the past several years of speaking out in defense of America’s oil and natural gas industry as a key contributor to energy security.
One such instance happened in December, 2022, when he reminded a CNBC interviewer that “we need cheap, reliable, safe, secure energy, of which 80% comes from oil and gas.”
A few months earlier, in August of that same year, Dimon again stood up for U.S. natural gas, saying it is a crucial tool in the drive to lower emissions. “We should focus on climate. The problem with that is because of high oil and gas prices, the world is turning back on their coal plants. It is dirtier. Why can’t we get it through our thick skulls, that if you want to solve climate, it is not against climate for America to boost more oil and gas?”
A month after he had made those remarks on an investor call, Dimon repeated similar pro-oil and gas messages during a congressional hearing. “Investing in the oil and gas complex is good for reducing CO2, because as we have all seen, because of the high price of oil and gas, particularly for the rest of the world, you’ve seen everyone going back to coal,” he said. “Not just poor nations like India, Indonesia and Vietnam, but wealthy nations like Germany, France and the Netherlands.”
One might think that comments like these coming from the leader of one of the country’s leading financial institutions might eventually start to sink in among the policymakers in Washington, D.C. Since taking over as the CEO at JP Morgan Chase, Dimon has worked cooperatively with Democrat and Republican administrations alike. In doing so, he has shown no real political preference for either party, thus upsetting ideologues on both sides of the equation. But if his advocacy for common sense in the policy realm has had any impact, it has not been evident as the Biden regime has continued to pursue a suite of actions that constitute a withering daily assault on America’s oil and gas industry.
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