Fuel Issues Due to Ransomware Attack, Panic, and Hoarding

Colonial Pipeline Company, which supplies almost half of the East Coast's oil, announced a shutdown due to a cyber attack. The shutdown continued into the second week of May, causing more shortages, panic, and speculation. 

Misbar delved into the videos and found that the fuel shortage and temporary price hike along the East Coast of the U.S. is due to a combination of three factors: a ransomware attack, panic, and hoarding. The situation itself was caused by Colonial Pipeline Company shutting down some of its operations on Friday, May 9, after a ransomware cyber attack from the group DarkSide, not Joe Biden's policies. The resultant shortage is due to panic and hoarding.

Colonial, the nation's biggest pipeline, resumed some of its operations on Monday and said it is making more decisions about opening up more operations on Wednesday, but shortages will continue. The shortages are affecting several mid and south eastern states, including North and South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida. A growing number of other eastern states could be affected if the shutdown continues for another week. 

In the affected states, Forbes reported that "gasoline demand increased 20% on Monday due to reports of the outage," but then "jumped 40% in [the] states most likely to be affected by Colonial."

Politico reported on Monday, May 11, that the "industry estimates indicate that about 8 percent of gas stations in Virginia and North Carolina are out of fuel." By Wednesday, “17.5% of stations  [in Georgia were] out of gas, according to Gasbuddy.com. In Virginia, 17% of stations were out, and in South Carolina, 16% had no fuel.” 28% of North Carolinian gas stations were likewise empty by Wednesday. 

Hoarding is likely the main culprit in multi state-wide gas shortages. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told a press pool on Tuesday, "It’s not that we have a gasoline shortage. We have a supply crunch.” People across the region, fearing that they won't be able to get gas, have flocked to the pump en masse to fill up. With everyone trying to get gas, and hoard it, it's causing widespread shortages. 

Patrick De Haan, a market analyst with advisory service GasBuddy, likened the situation to what happened with toilet paper and sanitizer at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, "The [toilet paper] shortage comes up in my mind. People just freak out. They don’t listen."'

Some people, though, recognized the cyber attack but continued to say that this wouldn't have happened if Biden hadn't canceled the Keystone XL pipeline. The Keystone pipeline, as well as other pipeline projects, would not have helped get oil to the east coast during Colonial's shutdown.

The Biden administration is trying to mitigate the damage and the EPA "waived gasoline volatility requirements across 12 states and Washington, D.C., to help bring more fuel to areas normally well supplied by the Colonial Pipeline." The Department of Transportation is also looking into waiving the 101 year old Jones Act to allow "foreign tankers to transport gasoline and diesel to East Coast ports."

The main issue, however, with the Colonial shutdown is cybersecurity. 

Biden entered office amidst the U.S. dealing with constant cyber attacks from Russia and China. It took the new administration almost three months to fill key cyber security roles, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which was headed by Chris Krebs until Trump fired him "for debunking election-related conspiracy theories."

Even though cybersecurity has been a growing concern for a number of years, and intelligence agencies repeatedly warned the Trump administration and now the Biden administration to take effective measures, Congress continues to drag its feet on drafting policy. U.S. intelligence has stated that "Russia [as well as China and Iran] continues to target critical infrastructure, including underwater cables and industrial control systems," and will continue to ramp up their efforts going forward. 

Putting cybersecurity and any individual administration's policies aside for the moment, the gas crisis that is continuing to evolve on the east coast was and is, more or less, a direct result of panic, misinformation, and subsequent hoarding of the available supply. Therefore we rate the original claim as false.