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Yes, gas prices have been steadily rising ever since Joe Biden came into office and immediately shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline to satisfy the left.
Of course, the Biden administration would rather not talk about the consequences of shutting down the pipeline, or the fact that gas prices are rising. In fact, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm would like people to blame COVID for the rise in gas prices. Um, what now?
Video: pic.twitter.com/Dfcxv2o5zA
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) May 7, 2021
Yeah, well, now Jennifer Granholm can blame the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline for what is coming next. Last Friday night, Colonial Pipeline was hacked, allegedly by a Russian criminal group that calls itself “DarkSide.”
While the U.S. government investigation is in the early stages, a former U.S. official and three industry sources said the hackers are suspected to be a professional cybercriminal group called DarkSide.”
DarkSide is one of many ransomware gangs extorting victims while avoiding targets in post-Soviet states. The groups gain access to private networks, encrypt files using software, and often also steal data.”
They demand payment to decrypt the files and increasingly ask for additional money not to publish stolen content.”
In the Colonial attack, the hackers took more than 100 gigabytes of data, according to a person familiar with the incident.”
And not only was there data theft, the pipeline itself is now shut down. This is a HUGE problem because Colonial Pipeline supplies 45% of the oil in the eastern United States. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo tried to calm concerns during her appearance on “Face The Nation” on Sunday, when she claimed that it was an “all hands on deck effort” to get the pipeline open again.
Well, it’s a little more serious than Secretary Raimondo wanted to let on in her interview. Sunday evening, the Biden administration issued a federal emergency declaration in an attempt to keep oil that is stuck at refineries moving through the East Coast.
The regional emergency declaration from the U.S. Department of Transportation lifts restrictions for motor carriers and drivers who are providing assistance to areas that are suffering a shortages of “gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other refined petroleum products” in the wake of the Colonial pipeline shutdown.”
The regional emergency declaration affects the following territories: Alabama, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.”
Will waiving restrictions on tanker truck driver hours be able to alleviate the need for all those different fuels up and down the East Coast? I know Millennials and Gen Z don’t remember the days of gas lines in the 70’s, but we might be headed there really quickly if Colonial Pipeline is out of commission for much longer.
Experts say fuel prices are likely to rise 2-3% on Monday, but the impact will be far worse if it goes on for much longer.”
Independent oil market analyst Gaurav Sharma told the BBC there is a lot of fuel now stranded at refineries in Texas.”
“Unless they sort it out by Tuesday, they’re in big trouble,” said Mr Sharma. “The first areas to be impacted would be Atlanta and Tennessee, then the domino effect goes up to New York.”
He said oil futures traders were now “scrambling” to meet demand, at a time when US inventories are declining, and demand – especially for vehicular fuels – is on the rise as consumers return to the roads and the US economy attempts to shake off the effects of the pandemic.”
Bottom line – if you are reading this post, GO GAS UP YOUR VEHICLES AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Even if you don’t live in the affected areas, prices are likely going to rise because of the market demand. We are already beginning to see the inflation creep begin in consumer products, and if Colonial Pipeline can’t get itself sorted out and flowing again, then watch those prices begin to rise faster due to the cost of shipping. Meanwhile, Team Biden and the Congressional Democrats want to spend TRILLIONS of dollars in order to “recover” from COVID. Imagine what happens to the value of the dollar if even one more of these spending bills goes through.
The Biden administration has claimed that they aren’t the third term of Barack Obama. They might be right. They are looking more and more like the second term of Jimmy Carter. I know that this is hard for people under 40 to realize, but Jimmy Carter was a failure as a president. The only good thing about the Carter administration was that it gave us President Ronald Reagan. How much financial pain are we going to have to live through to get to the next Reagan?
Featured image via jotoya on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license
[…] post Colonial Pipeline Shutdown Means Trouble For All appeared first on Victory Girls […]
JAW3 says: And I’ve heard that the trucker rules are affecting the supply chains all over the country for all comodities.
Darleen Click says: and just wait until the Dems get the PROAct shoved through and destroy and independent owner-operator truckers.
[…] the problem with the NY Slimes reporting as they did. Not only did the Biden Administration, as Deanna reported, declare an emergency across seventeen states, North Carolina has declared its own emergency. […]
GWB says: A few things a day out from this piece….
First, “shutting down the Keystone XL Pipeline” is not what Biden did. He shut down ongoing construction on it. It didn’t have any impact on current gas inventories, and only impacted current prices because the folks who trade in gasoline and such build in future uncertainty to their prices. That might not have been clear from your first paragraph.
I know Millennials and Gen Z don’t remember the days of gas lines in the 70’s
Heck, I know people who lived through it who evidently don’t remember it, since they immediately ran out and topped off their 7/8 full tanks. While sitting in an hour-long line. Which burned a gallon or two of gas.
And, yes, the gas lines are forming all over the place. People are filling up their cars … and their gas cans, legal or not.
As to the actual hacking….
Well, first of all, this shows us yet again* that Just In Time delivery is DUMB unless you live in a beautiful world with no adversity anywhere. Of course, that’s what so many do believe. Even those who lived through obvious and actual scarcity often think we can just science/technology our way through it, or are rich enough we will never be visited by the consequences. Yes, JIT is “more efficient” – unless you have to deal with scarcity (like, say, one produced by a major hit to your distribution network).
(* Anyone else remember the initial scarcity of just about everything, not just TP and PT, in the wake of the initial Wuhan Flu shutdowns? If not, you’re part of the problem.)
Also, this shows how stupid any focus on a single transport method for our critical infrastructure is. This single pipeline delivers 45% of an entire region’s mobility juice. (And, no, electric cars would NOT solve this. Especially since the electrical grid has a bunch of the same stupidity going on.)
Also, and this one is explosive, WHO THE F*** PUTS THEIR G**D*** INFRASTRUCTURE CONTROL SYSTEM ON THE MOTHERF****** INTERNET?! I’ll tell you who: lazy-a** bean counters who don’t want to spend the extra million to build their own d*mn infrastructure, and who are the sorts of people who don’t think anything bad will ever happen to them, that’s who. I would fire every one of the lazy &#!@*s and make sure that everyone everywhere knew about their poor decision-making and risk-management abilities. And, yes, that includes the CEOs and CIOs who signed off on it.
Also, who the hell doesn’t patch their network infrastructure when it’s running a critical system?! I would fire the entire IT department, unless someone had done the proper CYA paper trail. “I keep bringing up that if we’re going to use the internet for our control infrastructure, then we need to be patching it at least monthly and should be doing cybersecurity penetration testing, but no one will listen.” THAT guy I keep and promote. Everyone else should be flipping burgers. And no, they should NOT be in charge of updating the computerized ordering kiosks. If I came across one of these folks begging on a street corner I’d hose him down with pepper spray before I gave him a dime.
Also, have none of these folks heard of “redundancy” as a way to sustain resiliency? “It costs too much!” Yes, but in the case of the increasingly common ransomware attack, you simply switch to your other infrastructure, isolate the problematic one, then slick it and reinstall.
These folks need to be held accountable for their idiotic decisions. But I don’t see that happening. (Know where Al Gore keeps a bunch of his money? Yeah, gas companies,) And we’ll continue to face panic situations every time there’s a hiccup. Dang right I’m pissed.
GWB says: I should clarify on the patching bit. I will guarantee you that when the details finally come out this will NOT have been a Zero-Day exploit. This will be something they should have known about (maybe that software update vulnerability a few months back).
dave b says: Your pipeline picture is probably of the Trans-Alaska pipeline, those fins above the supports are part of a system to keep the ground around the support frozen. This system is only used where permafrost is found (ie arctic or near arctic).
[…] that Russia was also credibly accused of taking part in the hack that shut down the Colonial Pipeline and has sent gas prices climbing around the country, this move is jaw-dropping. Calling a lid on […]
[…] cyber security systems should be alarming to us all. We all saw the results of the attack on the Colonial Pipeline. They were shut down for over a week, even after they paid the ransom right away. The corresponding […]
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