As residents of Great Britain suffer from soaring natural gas and electricity costs, new Prime Minister Liz Truss sounded the call for producing more energy through opening the North Sea for oil drilling and building more nuclear power plants.
Unlike American president Joe Biden, who was sued by North Dakota in a lawsuit for halting oil and gas leases on public lands, who, in one of his first acts as president, revoked a permit from the Keystone XL Pipeline project to cross over from Canada into the United States, and suspended oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 1002 area in June 2021, Truss embraced her nation’s need for domestic energy production.
“I understand that people across our country are struggling with the cost of living and they’re struggling with their energy bills,” Truss told the House of Commons. “And that is why I, as Prime Minister, will take immediate action to help people with the cost of their energy bills.”
“And I will be making an announcement to this House on that tomorrow and giving people certainty to make sure that they are able to get through this winter and be able to have the energy supplies and be able to afford it,” she continued, before she offered her solution to solving the problem for the future.
“But we can’t just deal with today’s problem,” she said. “We can’t just put a sticking plaster on it. What we need to do is increase our energy supplies long-term and that is why we will open up more supply in the North Sea, which the honorable gentleman has opposed; that is why we will build more nuclear power stations, which the Labor party didn’t do when they were in office, and that is why we will get on with delivering the supply as well as helping people through the winter.”
Newly appointed UK Prime Minister @trussliz: "We can't just deal with today's problem. We can't just put a sticking plaster on it. What we need to do is increase our energy supplies long term and that is why we will open up more supply in the North Sea." https://t.co/8Jkhdn4zGv pic.twitter.com/uf8QTKJqpO
— The Hill (@thehill) September 7, 2022
Natural gas prices in much of Europe have increased more than tenfold in recent weeks compared to normal levels, prompting various nations to encourage lower usage among households and businesses. Truss is reportedly weighing an energy relief package worth £40 billion, the equivalent of $46.1 billion, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. While the policy would be geared toward businesses, a second proposal would fix electricity and gas bills for a typical household at or below the current level of £1,971, equivalent to $2,283, according to another report from Bloomberg.
Ben Zeisloft contributed to this article.