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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics and life.

My name is Freddie Gray.

I'm the deputy editor of the spectator.

I am very honored to be joined today by Michael Schellenberger, who is an author and a political campaigner.

Michael, you sadly, as far as the Americano podcast is concerned, you are not going to be the next governor of California.

You lost to Governor Gavin Newsom, or you lost the primary recently, commiserations on that.

Well, don't rub it in.

Sorry.

I thought we'd get that a little bit out of the way.

I think you should say I'm the bronze medalist of California gubernatorial competitors.

Well, it was a very audacious campaign, and we think you deserve better.

But let's talk about California in a bit.

I want to start by asking you about a subject you write quite a lot about, which is energy.

And clearly America is in a grave energy crisis, as is quite a lot of the democratic world.

And you feel,

do you not, that Joe Biden is aggravating the crisis rather than addressing it. How is he aggravating it? How could he resolve it? And why do you think he is not taking the steps to resolve

it that he could take? Sure. Well, yeah, I mean, this is a very

interesting subject that's been badly covered by the media. The conventional story is that Biden is

kind of helpless. There's not much he can do. That, you know, sure, he'd love to produce more petroleum and he's doing his best,

...