New York has finally solved its diesel crisis. All it took was a phone call to Vladimir Putin and a two-week boat ride across the Atlantic.

According to Reuters, the Malta-flagged tanker Agioi Fanendes loaded about 40,000 metric tons of Russian diesel at the Baltic port of Primorsk on Oct. 22 and is headed for New York, expected to arrive Nov. 7. It's the first Russian diesel cargo bound for the U.S. under the deal President Trump announced this month to bring down prices. Meanwhile, AAA's national average for diesel hit $6.32 a gallon Friday, up from $3.63 a year ago.

So the Russian fuel is going to New York. Of course it is. Because New York is sitting directly on top of the biggest natural gas field in America and has been refusing to touch it for 12 years.

The New York Post editorial board pointed out this week that the state's fracking ban, put in place under then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has left Southern Tier towns rotting while their neighbors across the Pennsylvania line get rich off the same Marcellus Shale. Bradford County, Pa., and its municipalities collect over $10 million a year from gas companies, according to the Post. Across the border in Chemung County, N.Y., the Post says the poverty rate is around 30%. Same rocks. Same gas. One side has royalty checks, the other has a lecture from Albany.

And Gov. Kathy Hochul refuses to lift the ban. Bruce Blakeman, her Republican opponent, has vowed to allow fracking. Hochul's position is basically, "We'd rather import it on a boat from the same guy Democrats have spent years using as a swear word."

Think about what's happening here. There's natural gas under New York. Real, physical, American gas. And New York's leadership looked at it and said, "No thanks, we'll wait for the Russian stuff. It has more character."

It's like starving to death on top of a buried Costco.

Analysts aren't even pretending the boat will fix anything. Max Pyziur of the Energy Policy Research Foundation told the Daily Caller that the roughly 300,000-barrel shipment is "minute" compared to the roughly 3.6 million barrels of diesel Americans use every day. In other words, the tanker will cover America's diesel habit for about two hours. That's not an energy policy. That's a snack.

But New York Democrats have perfected the art of outsourcing their problems. Don't want power plants? Import electricity from Canada. Don't want pipelines? Truck it in. Don't want fracking? Wait for a tanker from a Baltic port while truckers on the Thruway pay over $6 a gallon and the price gets baked into every bag of groceries in the state.

The Rat reached out to a fictional Albany energy official, who said, "Our goal is a carbon-neutral future powered by wind, sun and sending the bill to Pennsylvania."

Here's our free economic advice to the Empire State, and unlike your consultants, we won't charge $460,000 for it: The gas is right under your feet. Pennsylvania figured this out. Texas figured this out. North Dakota figured this out while it was 40 below.

Until then, New York will keep doing what it does best: paying more, producing less, and calling it progress.

Satire disclaimer: The Demorat is a parody and satire publication. This article is comedy commentary based on real news reports. The Albany official's quote is invented for laughs.

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