US energy policy set for deadlock

A divided Congress leaves President Biden with few options for pushing through his energy agenda

The anticipated ‘red wave’ in the US mid-term elections turned out to be little more than a ripple. The Republican Party failed to take control of the Senate and won only an extremely narrow majority in the House of Representatives. Nevertheless, after the new Congress is sworn in on 3 January, President Joe Biden will struggle to continue the legislative activism that has defined his first two years in office. “There will be political deadlock and it will be very hard to find common ground,” says Akan Kadyrbekov, oil markets analyst at consultancy Rystad Energy. “The room for major legislation just shrunk significantly.” The US oil and gas industry can breathe a sigh of relief that Biden wi