(NewsNation Now) — Vice President Kamala Harris has previously warned that if Russia attacked Ukraine, U.S. citizens would need to accept higher energy prices. But after Putin’s military advance Monday, market experts are saying the impending economic hit should not be a responsibility for Americans, but rather a chance to change the nation’s energy policy..
“We have an energy issue. That’s not going away if Russia and Ukraine go away,” commodities trader and RFD TV markets anchor Scott Shellady told NewsNation’s “Donlon Report” on Tuesday.
Unlike Harris and President Joe Biden, who reiterated that “defending freedom will have costs” in his news conference outlining the U.S. sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, Shellady maintains that the European crisis is a sign to go energy independent and that instead of demanding more from it’s citizens, the government should “step up and start using some fossil fuels.”
“It’s all of our own doing,” Shellady says. “Interest rate hikes (are not) gonna make it go away. What’s going to make it go away is going back to using fossil fuels for the time being so we can get on our feet,” he continued.
While the notion of using fossil fuels is a hot-button topic in it’s own right, it’s true that economic turmoil did not start and will not end with Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
Prior to Putin recognizing the two separatist-held regions in Ukraine as independent states Monday and sending, as he calls them, “peacekeepers” to the contested region, America had been facing stressed supply chains, a tight labor market and high inflation.
Additionally, gas prices are up 39% over the past year and 50% during the Biden administration, with 8-year highs on gasoline averages. That’s why Shellady says the Ukraine crisis is merely exacerbating an issue that has been looming.
In the meantime, Biden has pledged to use “every tool” at his administration’s “disposal” to limit the effect on gas prices, including coordinating with oil producers to secure stability in global energy supplies and tapping into the oil reserves. In fact, they’ve already authorized the release of 50 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Additionally, Democrats suggest suspending the federal gas tax to give Americans some badly needed alleviation, but even that plan has not received the necessary congressional support.
Shellady says the U.S. should look at Germany as a case study in what could happen should we completely abandon fossil fuels.
“When granny starts to freeze herself to death and she can’t eat anymore, watch how that energy situation turns around in Germany,” he told Donlon when asked about Germany’s decision to end the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline with Russia.
The marketing TV isn’t a pessimist when it comes to the overall markets, though. With Wall Street down, Shellady says now’s the time to go all in.
“If you’ve got some stocks, you’d like to own it, you see the stock market start to crash, you got to rush out and buy those things just like you would a pair of pants or a new car or anything else that’s gone on sale and has been heavily discounted,” he said