The Biden administration is crafting a narrative that paints the gasoline crisis currently enveloping the United States as not the result of a fuel shortage, but merely the byproduct of a “supply crunch.”
Biden Secretary of Energy said Tuesday, “Because of the fact that there’s not a whole lot of other supplies, now this particular pipeline also supplies other states, but there are other pipelines that supply other states as well so there’s more diversity. In this particular region, that’s where we’re gonna see the crunch. Um, and this is why we are, we know that we have gasoline, we just have to get it to the right places.”
“And that’s why I think these next couple of days will be challenging,” Granholm continued. “And we want to encourage people, it’s not that we have a gasoline shortage, it’s that we have this supply crunch, and things will be back to normal soon, and that we’re asking people not to hoard.”
Millions of Americans are sitting in wait lines at gasoline stations around the country, unable to access fuel.
Gas lines in N Myrtle Beach, most stations are out of gas. Is this our new America? pic.twitter.com/UOs0luLn22
— Kim S (@KSS141) May 11, 2021
Gas lines all the way down to the expressway. pic.twitter.com/D38kfpABuj
— Lo Keys (@LoKeys910) May 11, 2021
I’ve visited five gas stations this morning and the Costco one is the first to have gas.
The line is insane. pic.twitter.com/fMfuIMNlJ7
— Alicia Devine, Photojournalist (@alicia_c_devine) May 11, 2021
Biden administration officials had previously stated that the decision whether or not to obey the demands of hacker who seized control of Colonial pipelines is a “private sector decision”:
When the Biden administration was asked if they would provide advice to Colonial Pipeline at a White House press briefing, Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber & Emerging Technology Anne Neuberger said it’s a “private sector decision” to determine if the company should pay the ransom.
“We recognize that victims of cyber attacks often face a difficult situation and they have to just balance often the cost-benefit when they have no choice with regard to paying a ransom. Colonial is a private company and we’ll defer information regarding their decision on paying a ransom to them,” said Neuberger. “So typically, that is a private sector decision and the administration has not offered further advice at this time.”
“Given the rise in ransomware, that is one area we are definitely looking at now to say what should be the government’s approach to ransomware actors and to ransoms overall,” she added.
