Tag Archives: The Biden administration

The Latest On The Federal War Against Internal Combustion Vehicles

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From Manhattan Contrarian

By Francis Menton

I’m old enough to remember a time when there were serious environmental concerns with internal combustion engine vehicles. NOx and SOx emissions caused a thick layer of brown smog in the atmosphere during calm weather spells in summer and winter; and a layer of black soot would cover the snow along the roadside in the winter. But gradually that all got cleaned up. Today the bona fide serious environmental concerns about internal combustion engines are far in the past. But the war to eliminate them — supposedly on environmental grounds — is just ramping up.

The Biden Administration is all in with the plan to get rid of the ICE car. Why? It seems to have something to do with the non-existent “climate crisis.” Meanwhile, Congress has passed no legislation authorizing the executive agencies to force ICE vehicles off the market. Nor is the Administration honest enough to admit that they are engaged in outlawing the vehicles that 90+% of the people drive.

Instead we get massive and thoroughly dishonest regulations effectively forcing the approaching end of the ICE vehicle without ever directly saying so. All with effective dates far enough into the future that the public will not notice that anything is happening in time for the upcoming election.

Two big new regulations on this subject have just gone final. First, there was EPA’s “Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light- Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles,” issued on April 18. And then yesterday from the NHTSA (part of the Department of Transportation) we get “Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards for Passenger Cars and Light Trucks for Model Years 2027 and Beyond and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Heavy-Duty Pickup Trucks and Vans for Model Years 2030 and Beyond.” The first is 373 pages in the three-column, single-spaced format of the Federal Register. The second is 1004 pages in standard double-spaced typing.

If you should take the time to read some or all of the 1377 pages of text, don’t expect to find anywhere in all of that an admission that the plan is to suppress and ultimately eliminate the internal combustion car. Instead it’s happy sweet talk about the supposed “health” benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Here is an example from among many, this from page 27,844 of Volume 89 of the Federal Register:

EPA is establishing both criteria pollutant and GHG standards in this rulemaking given the need for additional reductions in emissions of these air pollutants to protect public health and welfare and based on EPA’s assessment of the suite of available control technologies for those pollutants, some of which are effective in controlling both GHGs and criteria pollutant emissions. Under these performance-based emissions standards, manufacturers have the discretion to choose the mix of technologies that achieve compliance across their fleets. EPA’s modeling provides information about several potential compliance paths manufacturers could use to comply with the standards, based on multiple inputs and assumptions (e.g., in what we have termed the central case, that manufacturers will seek the lowest cost compliance path).

“Manufacturers have the discretion to choose the mix of technologies that achieve compliance . . . .” Right. Everybody knows that the point of this is to force the majority of new car sales to be EVs or plug-in hybrids by some time in the early 2030s. But they’ll never say it straight.

And it’s the same with the new NHTSA Rule. This Rule sets new fleet-average fuel economy standards. NHTSA — aren’t they supposed to be in the business of “Highway Traffic Safety” (that’s the “HTS” part of their name)? Yes, but in the ultimate mission-creep, they are now the people behind the so-called “CAFE” (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. Obviously, the people cannot be expected on their own to make appropriate trade-offs between fuel economy and other transportation needs (like carrying capacity). Thus, NHTSA now determines that beginning in the early 2030s, manufacturers must achieve average fuel economy for their fleets of 50+ miles per gallon.

But, you say, vehicles with internal combustion engines can’t achieve that figure if they are bigger than a thimble. Exactly. So here is a small piece of NHTSA’s justification:

Reducing gasoline consumption has multiple benefits – it improves our nation’s energy security, it saves consumers money, and reduces harmful pollutant emissions that lead to adverse human and environmental health outcomes and climate change. NHTSA estimates that relative to the reference baseline, this final rule will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 659 million metric tons for passenger cars and light trucks, and by 55 million metric tons for HDPUVs through calendar year 2050. Again, these relative reductions are greater if the rule is compared to the alternative baseline, but demonstrating a similar level of absolute carbon dioxide emissions.

You say that you have a need for a vehicle that can actually carry a couple of passengers and maybe a few suitcases? What kind of a traitor are you? Your options are to buy an EV or hire a ricksha.

The agencies know full well that they are forcing a transition to EVs that customers do not want. How fast must the forced transition be? This piece from Atlas EV Hub from March 25 estimates that EPA’s Rule by itself will force EV sales to be up to 69% of new vehicle sales by 2032:

The regulation is set to bring significant changes to the auto industry, potentially putting the United States on the glide path to full electrification. Manufacturers have several options to meet the new standards, and electric vehicles (EVs) will play a pivotal role in ensuring manufacturer compliance with these regulations. Under this final rule, battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric light-duty vehicles could make up 32 percent of all new vehicle sales in model year 2027, increasing to 69 percent by model year 2032.

The NHTSA CAFE Rule would require comparable, or perhaps even higher, percentages of EVs in manufacturer sales to achieve compliance.

Do you believe that the U.S. new vehicle market will switch over to mostly EVs so quickly over the next several years? I don’t believe it for a minute. So what happens when manufacturers produce mostly EVs to comply with these Rules, and then nobody will buy them? This could be very entertaining.

Drill, baby, Drill: Trump Raises $12 Million in Silicon Valley, by Promising Cheap Energy to Power the AI Revolution

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From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Big Tech is openly rebelling against Biden’s roadmap for energy destitution.

Inside Silicon Valley’s $12M Trump fundraiser with Winklevoss twins and venture capitalists

By Lydia Moynihan
Published June 7, 2024, 5:11 p.m. ET

Silicon Valley insiders told The Post they were impressed by “eloquent and articulate” Donald Trump at Thursday night’s presidential fundraiser in the posh, stereotypically progressive San Francisco neighborhood of Pacific Heights.

…

More than 100 people paid as much as $300,000 a head to attend the fundraiser hosted by venture capitalist David Sacks at his multimillion dollar home, sources confirmed.

…

The Post is told that Trump opened his nearly 45-minute speech by talking about his late uncle John G. Trump — an engineer who was an MIT professor for nearly four decades — and joking that he should’ve followed in his uncle’s footsteps as a way to connect with the largely techie crowd.

But he quickly turned to serious topics like the importance of unleashing artificial intelligence innovation and why the US needs to be prepared to provided the massive energy AI will require.

“Fossil fuel is the only way to do it … solar and wind just can’t cut it,” the source said of Trump’s remarks.

…Read more: 

https://nypost.com/2024/06/07/us-news/inside-silicon-valleys-12m-trump-fundraiser/

A CNBC video about the fundraiser;

WUWT predicted this shift in tech company support from Biden to Trump two weeks ago. But I underestimated big tech’s desperation for affordable energy. I expected something more covert, I didn’t expect them to go so public before the 2024 election.

https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/trump-rally-1-e1501165683970_thumb.jpg?resize=768%2C322&ssl=1

What is driving this sudden tech industry panic, what is stampeding tech giants into turn their backs on President Biden?

The CNBC video above offers some insight. Trump is seen as more business and tech friendly. The Biden administration has strained relations with Silicon Valley since 2020 with regulatory crackdowns on AI and cryptocurrency.

But I believe there is another threat helping to drive this switch in big tech allegiance from Democrats to Republicans, a concern we may be heading towards a new Sputnik crisis – a foreign scientific breakthrough which threatens the tech dominance of the United States.

Except this time the Sputnik moment could be China building the world’s first superhuman AI.

I don’t have proof China is on the verge of a major breakthrough, though there is plenty of evidence China is trying hard to develop advanced AI. But right now, China is the only nation which has the energy surplus required to attempt to create an AI which has more than human capabilities using today’s technology.

Imagine trying to build a modern desktop computer using primitive 1930s vacuum tube technology. Such an effort would require a vast acreage of machinery, big teams of scientists and engineers, and gigawatts of energy to power and air condition billions of vacuum tubes, along with a crazy amount of funding to pay for everything. When completed the vacuum tube system wouldn’t be exactly the same as a modern computer. But with sufficient political will and investment of effort it would have been possible to build a machine which rivalled the capability of modern desktop computers, a computer with capabilities decades more advanced than anything which was actually built back in the day.

Right now, today, we are in a similar position to that hypothetical 1930s supercomputer project when it comes to possible paths towards rapid development of an AI superintelligence – but only China currently has the surplus energy and manufacturing capacity to attempt such a brute force approach to building a superhuman AI.

The USA is not currently in a position to attempt such a project, because green energy policies have robbed the USA of its once bountiful energy surplus, by driving chronic underinvestment in new dispatchable grid capacity. Biden’s energy starved USA is a hostile environment for energy hungry tech entrepreneurs, there are major political upheavals whenever a tech giant tries to draw more power from the grid.

If China succeeds in creating a machine which can outthink humans, or worse has already succeeded, the USA will only have a narrow window of opportunity to catch up before it is all over – like maybe four years with a president in charge who understands the issues.

The longer China preserves its advantage, the worse things would become for the USA and anyone else who tries to compete. If China is able to iterate enough improvements into their artificial intelligence system, without anyone else being in a position to play catchup, very quickly the AI itself would start playing a major role in its own improvement, and we could face an exponential surge in intelligence capability, with each 6-12 month upgrade cycle doubling the capability of the previous system, which then harnessed that greater capability to design the next upgrade. In less than a decade China’s AI advantage could become insurmountable.

Trying to beat China in business or geopolitics would become like trying to beat that chess app on your PC which always kicks your butt. Whoever had access to that super intelligent AI would always make smarter moves than the competition.

Am I right about an approaching Chinese AI Sputnik moment? I just don’t know. But one thing for sure, something has spooked US big tech. It might just be concerns over Biden’s regulatory crackdown and looming energy shortages putting them at a competitive disadvantage. Or maybe I’m right about the risk of a Chinese breakthrough. Even without a Sputnik level breakthrough, China’s energy surplus, electronics industry, and political will to prioritise realising China’s potential as a global superpower has put the USA’s commanding position in this space at risk.

President Biden is not in a position to deliver the 10s of gigawatts of affordable new generation capacity US tech giants desperately need to challenge China’s credible bid for global tech dominance. Biden’s renewable energy obsession and heavy handed approach to tech regulation are hobbling the US tech industry, just when they need every resource they can muster to compete.

My prediction – President Trump is about to reap the reward, for being the right man in the right place at the right time.

Update (EW): Updated the “surplus energy” link from a link about excess renewable energy to a link about China’s coal boom. AI needs real energy, not fake energy.

Dems Who Back Biden’s Crackdown On Fossil Fuels Suddenly Worried About High Gas Prices

From The Daily Caller

By NICK POPE

CONTRIBUTOR

Numerous Democrats who have helped the Biden administration restrict fossil fuel development and production are now concerned about high gas prices as the 2024 elections loom.

A group of 23 Senate Democrats — including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Massachusetts Sen. Liz Warren and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey — signed a Thursday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to have the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigate major energy companies for allegedly colluding to raise gas prices for Americans and fatten their bottom lines. The suggestion that oil companies are illegally collaborating to rip off American consumers is not new to Democrats, who have revived the narrative as prices at the pump tick up ahead of the 2024 elections.

“The federal government must use every tool to prevent and prosecute collusion and price fixing that may have increased gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, and jet fuel costs in a way that has materially harmed virtually every American household and business,” the letter states. “We therefore urge the Department of Justice to investigate the oil industry, to hold accountable any liable actors, and to end any illegal activities.” (RELATED: Democrats Up Pressure On Big Oil To Answer For Alleged Profiteering As Americans Blame Biden For Gas Prices)

Big Oil – DOJ Letter by Nick Pope

The letter references ExxonMobil’s recent acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources and amplifies the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) allegation that Chris Sheffield, the founder and ex-CEO of Pioneer, tried to organize collusion between American and OPEC energy producers to artificially inflate profits. Sheffield, however, has strongly contested this allegation, saying that the “FTC is wrong to imply that [he] ever engaged in, promoted or even suggested any form of anti-competitive behavior” in a statement.

Beyond Warren, Schumer and Casey, other signatories include Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Each Senator who signed the letter also voted for the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s flagship climate bill, and have also supported many other facets of the Biden administration’s efforts to move the U.S. away from fossil fuels.

Warren’s voting record has earned her a 95% lifetime approval score from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), one of the country’s largest influential environmental groups that openly rejects fossil fuels, and a 100% score for 2023. Last year, Warren voted against an attempt to rein in the government’s push to regulate a wide array of consumer appliances, a bill promoting the Mountain Valley Pipeline and to protect a Labor Department rule pushing asset managers to incorporate climate risks in their investment decisions.

Casey voted in favor of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, but joined Warren on the other two votes. He also voted against a 2022 effort to increase the number of government-issued oil lease sales and opposed another 2022 move that would have prevented federal permitting or regulatory actions from hindering fossil fuel development.

Schumer also voted to support the Mountain Valley Pipeline in 2023, but he has voted in line with what LCV advised in every other instance since Biden took office in 2021, with one exception. He has opposed four legislatives proposals that would have made it easier or less expensive to produce oil and gas throughout Biden’s first term.

Murphy voted against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and also opposed legislation that would have increased offshore and onshore oil and gas development.

Whitehouse voted against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, as well as numerous legislative efforts to enhance oil and gas leasing activity. Markey, meanwhile, has consistently voted against legislation intended to make it easier to produce oil and gas for his entire career.

Brown voted to support the Mountain Valley Pipeline, but he has opposed four initiatives meant to boost oil drilling through Biden’s first term. Sanders, one of the most left-wing lawmakers in Washington, also voted against the four same legislative efforts and has consistently opposed bills designed to make drilling easier throughout his career.

Gas prices are increasing as the pivotal 2024 elections approach on the calendar. In January, the national average per-gallon price of all formulations of gasoline was approximately $3.08, a figure that has increased to $3.60 as of May, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The administration is moving to release about one million barrels of gasoline from the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve to try to bring down prices this summer. The administration also released 180 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) ahead of the 2022 midterms, selling several million barrels to Chinese companies and leaving the SPR at its lowest levels in decades.

Numerous economists and analysts, and even the CEO of Chevron, have credited the price increases in part to the Biden administration’s $1 trillion-plus climate agenda.

The administration has made many decisions that restrict domestic oil and gas production, pushed aggressive environmental regulations impacting energy producers and established massive subsidy programs to favor sources of green energy like wind and solar. These choices have the combined effect of driving up prices that consumers pay at the pump and elsewhere over time, according to the American Energy Alliance, a right-leaning energy advocacy group.

In January 2020, just before the onset of the pandemic, Americans paid an average of $2.55 per gallon for all types of gas, according to the EIA. Those figures have grown considerably since November 2020, the month that President Joe Biden won the presidential election; the average price sat at $3.61 per gallon in April 2024 after peaking at $4.92 in June 2022.

Democrats pushed similar messaging about major energy companies and collusion in 2022, when gas prices were causing political headaches for Biden and fellow Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. However, analysts from the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve argued at the time that corporate collusion was not one of the factors driving up retail gasoline costs, pointing out that energy producers actually have almost zero control over the prices set by gas station operators.

The offices of Schumer, Warren, Casey, Brown, Murphy, Durbin, Whitehouse and Sanders did not respond to requests for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Massive Utility Trade Group Reportedly Taking Biden Admin To Court Over Green Power Plant Rules

From The Daily Caller

By NICK POPE

CONTRIBUTOR

A massive trade group for utility companies is reportedly poised to sue the Biden administration over one of its most ambitious climate policies, according to E&E News.

The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) — a trade group that represents all investor-owned utility companies in the U.S. — will soon file a legal challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently-finalized regulations for power plants, according to E&E News, which cited four unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter. The trade association did not sue the Obama administration when it promulgated its similar and since-overruled Clean Power Plan, but it is now taking a more confrontational posture to battle the Biden administration’s power plant rules.

The EPA finalized the regulations in question in April; the rules effectively require existing coal-fired plants and new natural gas plants to use costly carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to control 90% of emissions by 2032 if plant operators want to keep the covered facilities online past 2039, according to the agency. EEI reportedly plans to angle its lawsuit around the EPA’s reliance on CCS to meet emissions reductions targets, according to E&E News. (RELATED: ‘The Swamp Is Getting Deeper’: EPA Awards Billions From Biden’s Landmark Climate Bill To Orgs Loaded With Dem Insiders)

A spokesperson for EEI indicated that a decision about a lawsuit has not yet been made.

“EEI and our member companies continue our efforts to evaluate EPA’s final power plant rules and their impact on electricity customers,” a spokesperson for EEI told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We take all potential litigation decisions seriously and are still considering our options.”

Critics of the EPA’s power plant regulations — a group that includes some Biden administration officials — have pointed out that CCS is not close to ready to play the major role in the U.S. power grid that the agency envisions. Technologically, CCS is still in its early stages and not yet energy efficient, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, while other challenges, such as a major permitting backlog, persist.

“While we appreciate and support EPA’s work to develop a clear, continued path for the transition to cleaner resources, we are disappointed that the agency did not address the concerns we raised about carbon capture and storage,” EEI President and CEO Dan Brouillette said of the final regulations when they were made public in late April. “CCS is not yet ready for full-scale, economy-wide deployment, nor is there sufficient time to permit, finance, and build the CCS infrastructure needed for compliance by 2032.”

EEI officials reportedly made the decision to sue on Thursday, but the organization has yet to formally announce that it is taking the federal government to court. More than two dozen Republican state attorneys general have already filed their own lawsuit against the rules.

The administration has hailed the rules as a major step toward decarbonizing the American power grid and wider economy in the coming decades, both of which are key goals of the Biden administration’s sweeping climate agenda. The agency has expressed confidence that the rules will be able to withstand incoming legal challenges and will not impact grid reliability when enacted, but power grid experts previously told the DCNF that the new policies are probably beyond the agency’s statutory authority and also likely to diminish grid reliability in the long-term.

EPA declined to comment, citing its policy of not weighing in on pending litigation.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comment from EEI.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Biden Administration locking up public lands from West to East

From CFACT

By Gabriella Hoffman

America’s public lands should be conserved and remain open to the public for shared uses.

Although most public lands lie west of the Mississippi River, there are several sites here in the Eastern U.S. managed by the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service. The Biden administration, however, is targeting millions of acres for permanent protection in the name of “conservation” to bolster its America the Beautiful (or 30-by-30) initiative–a dangerous rewilding plan masquerading as conservation.

Should the Biden administration get its way, two places — Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah and Big Cypress National Preserve in South Florida – will see areas closed off to most users going forward.

Bears Ears National Monument

The Bears Ears National Monument saga continues with the new Draft Management plan unveiled on March 14th, 2024. In December 2016, former President Obama created the 1.35 million acre national monument before leaving office and without consulting Utahns. During the Trump administration, former Interior Secretary and now Congressman Ryan Zinke announced a national monument review of 27 sites, including Bears Ears, citing overreach by the previous administration. It resulted in the shrinking–not elimination–of the monument down to about 200,000 acres. Then President Biden restored the monument to its original size in an October 2021 proclamation, disregarding stakeholder input again.

The nearly 700-page Draft Management Plan contains five plans. The White House favors Alternative Plan E, the most extreme plan of the five. Plan E places a strong emphasis on indigenous knowledge (IK), noting, “This alternative is meant to emphasize resource protection and the use of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge and perspectives on the stewardship of the Bears Ears landscape. This includes consideration of natural processes and seasonal cycles in the management of BENM and collaboration with Tribal Nations to incorporate those considerations into BENM day-to-day management.” Indigenous knowledge is extremely subjective and not scientific because it generally favors progressive notions. But that isn’t stopping the Biden administration from implementing it across all federal agencies.

Equally concerning with Plan E is the proposal to restrict multiple uses across these lands managed by both the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. Recreational shooting would be prohibited outright throughout the entire area. Grazing will be barred in 170,000 of 1.36M acres, while 570,000 acres would be off-limits to vehicles, and 795,000 acres would be designated as “OHV limited areas.” This isn’t the wise use of natural resources; it’s radical preservation.

Large national monument designations are questionable under Section II of the Antiquities Act of 1906, which says presidents can only protect objects of scientific, cultural, or historical significance “confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.” The nearly 1.4 million acres comprising Bears Ears today hardly fit the definition of “smallest area compatible.” That’s why Congress must clarify presidential powers and prevent future abuses like this from occurring again. Reforms are long overdue to make the monument designation process democratic and reduce the influence of radical preservationist groups.

Big Cypress National Preserve

In South Florida, a portion of the 720,000 acres comprising Big Cypress National Preserve could soon be declared a wilderness area.

Wilderness areas boast the highest degree of protection, are off-limits, and quite difficult to traverse. Under the Wilderness Act of 1964, Congress created a National Wilderness Preservation System that, today, manages 800 areas to be “administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness, and to provide for the protection of these areas…”

Native American tribes, hunters, and other recreationists relayed their concerns about the wilderness designation to the Miami Herald, arguing the designation, if approved, would restrict access to scientific inquiries, air boating, hunting, and vehicles. A Native Organizers Alliance Action Fund petition also warned closing off Big Cypress like this would restrict “Tribal citizens’ right to move freely about their homeland” and fail to “accommodate Tribal rights to permanent residence in those spaces.”

These stakeholder concerns prompted Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rick Scott (R-FL) to express their dismay to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

“Big Cypress is a cherished natural resource, and its proper management is crucial to preserving its ecological integrity while maintaining access opportunities for the public,” the Florida senators wrote to Haaland. “We are deeply concerned about the potential hindrance of natural resource management, especially regarding prescribed fire, invasive species control, and the maintenance of native fish and wildlife habitats.”

The letter added, “In light of these concerns, we respectfully request that you do not move forward with any proposed wilderness designation that will hinder the proper management of public access and natural resources within the Big Cypress National Preserve.”

Public lands are for all Americans to enjoy and cherish, not just the Biden administration’s preferred environmental buddies. This isn’t conservation; it’s a land grab.

This article originally appeared in Town Hall

Rockefellers Have a Bad Day at The Senate Budget Committee

From Watts Up With That?

Reposted with permission from Energy In Depth – a research, education and public outreach campaign of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA).

Mandi Risko

The Senate Budget Committee took the House Democrats’ political-theatre-esque investigation into energy companies and turned it into a complete political dud. At a hearing Wednesday intended to build off of the House Oversight Committee’s (HCOR) failed investigation into energy companies back in 2022, Democratic politicians and activist witnesses failed to produce anything of substance to support their decades-long campaign aimed at taking down the American energy industry.

The hearing comes just a day after the Senate Budget Committee and the House Oversight Democrats issued a joint report and a trove of documents alleging that oil majors deceived the public about climate change. And, even though Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) stated the documents “exposed” the industry, there was little mention of their contents – because they, like the numerous other documents analyzed by the HOC, are a complete nothingburger.

Putting a finer point on it, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told E&E News that “the hearing might be the end of the line for the investigation for now.”

Whitehouse’s Fishing Expedition Bound to Upset Other Democrats

While some politicians have hijacked the Senate Budget Committee far beyond its purview to focus almost exclusively on climate change, other Democrats are surely rolling their eyes at today’s political performance. In the wake of the Biden administration’s LNG pause, numerous Democrats have called out the importance of natural gas and rebuked their own party for turning against a needed economic and energy security powerhouse. Most recently, Jennifer Granholm thanked the industry for its extraordinary work supplying much-needed clean energy to the American people:

“You have helped us meet the moment when our energy and national security have needed it most [and] we will be counting on you again.”

Much like the House investigation, Sen. Whitehouse’s hearing – while also totally snooze worthy – was out of step and out of sync with the American people. Instead, it was used primarily for “political theatre,” a point Ranking Member Senator Chuck Grassley took issue with, arguing that committee has broken historic precedent in the production of its report and release of documents:

“The Majority could have been transparent with the Minority many months ago, as is normal course of business. The Majority chose not to do so. This unfortunate series of non-transparent events have undone years of investigative precedent.” (emphasis added)

Notably, this isn’t Sen. Whitehouse’s first swing at reviving the House’s flawed investigation into energy companies. Last June, he held a hearing featuring anti-industry activists Naomi Oreskes and Christine Arena who again failed to provide any momentum for this flailing campaign. This time, Sen. Whitehouse invited Oreskes’ former colleague Geoffrey Supran, former Department of Justice (DOJ) Attorney and La Jolla attendee Sharon Eubanks, along with Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD).

Supran, the “Academic,” Didn’t Even Do His Homework

Geoffrey Supran, a self-described “disinformation scientist” funded by the Rockefellers who was intimately involved in the House Oversight Committee’s investigation, didn’t even do his homework. When asked by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) about the internal industry documents that were intended to be the topic of discussion at the hearing, he admitted:

“I have yet to review the documents themselves, they were only just released. I have reviewed the reports that accompany them, so forgive me for having only a superficial understanding of them.” (emphasis added)

Comically, it was Supran and Oreskes who bragged about their document reading abilities back in 2017 when they embarked on their Climate Change Communications study aimed at American energy companies.

In fact, experts such as Roger Pielke Jr., have pointed out that Supran has a record of identifying a conclusion with no data only to then morph his evidence in a fashion that makes oil and gas companies look bad – all in the name of taking down energy companies.

Underlying this bias, a noteworthy exchange occurred when Supran became noticeably uncomfortable when Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) exposed him for endorsing fringe views on X. Sen. Kennedy pointed out that Supran couldn’t possibly be an unbiased witness when he endorses the dishonest and disruptive tactics used by activist group Climate Defiance:

The Link Between “Big Tobacco” and “Big Oil” Was Completely Debunked

Throughout the hearing, Democrats had little success in their attempts to create a link between the Big Tobacco lawsuits in the 1990s and the cases against energy companies. Even Sharon Eubanks, former director for the tobacco litigation Team at DOJ, didn’t provide this much sought after link. Instead, Eubanks opined about the good ol’ days and closed out the hearing by stating:

“There was more than one statute [supporting the DOJ’s lawsuit against Big Tobacco], that we went forward with. RICO was one, then we had the Medicare Reimbursement Act and the Medicare Secondary Pay and Provisions of the Social Security Act of 1930-something.”

While an interesting history lesson, Eubanks’ testimony didn’t advance the fringe narrative that energy lawsuits and Big Tobacco lawsuits are somehow analogous.

Ariel Cohen, a witness invited by the Senate Republicans, gave the clearest answer:

“The fundamental difference between tobacco and the fossil fuel industry is the fossil fuel industry brings a tangible economic good to the economy. Without it, we cannot have our transportation, or deliveries, our military…so I hope nobody in their right mind is advocating immediate cessation of fossil fuels.” (emphasis added)

Even James Hansen, a former Exxon employee and NASA scientist that supports a fossil fuel phase out has acknowledged that tobacco and hydrocarbons are entirely different products with drastically different values to society:

“Let’s be clear: the frequent comparison of the fossil fuel and tobacco industries is nonsense. Fossil fuels are a valuable energy source that has done yeomen service for humankind.”

Bottom line: Anti-industry advocates have tried for more than a decade to take down the American energy industry with no success and the Senate Budget Committee hearing was no different. After yet another allegedly “groundbreaking” document release, nothing new came to light. While politicians entertain these destructive games, American energy companies remain hard at work to ensure families and business have a reliable source of energy to power their homes and companies.

The Biden Administration Ever More Delusional On Energy

From The Manhattan Contrarian

Francis Menton

Three and a half years into the Biden Administration, and to an ordinary citizen on the ground it might seem like not that much has changed as to energy. Despite hundreds of government actions and initiatives in an all-of-government regulatory onslaught to transform the energy economy, the important things have been remarkably stable. Production of oil and gas are actually up, and prices increases have been relatively modest — far less than one might have anticipated from the extreme regulatory hostility to production. The percentage of what is called “primary energy” (that is, energy for everything, not just electricity) coming from fossil fuels has remained nearly unchanged. EIA data here for 2022 (latest I can find) show about 79% of U.S. primary energy from fossil fuels, barely changed since Biden took office, and indeed very stable for decades.

Perhaps this situation of stable energy production and consumption results because it reflects what markets and consumers want and need to satisfy their demand for energy. So do you think that the hyperactive regulators might just relax and let the consumers have what they want?

Unfortunately, that is not how this works. Even as the energy producers and consumers have figured out endless workarounds to avoid the fossil fuel suppression that the Bidenauts attempt to impose, the little regulatory tyrants have been busy preparing new bouts of punitive restrictions. Last week saw a round of some of the most sweeping regulatory edicts yet. The regulators really plan to put the people in their place this time.

In the new round, the regulators have gotten farther and farther away from anything realistic, anything consistent with the laws of physics or thermodynamics, anything that might actually work. We are now well into the world of fantasy and delusion.

On last Thursday (April 25), the Administration, via the EPA, announced a suite of no fewer than four final rules “to Reduce Pollution from Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants.” Essentially, this is the replacement for the Obama Administration’s so-called “Clean Power Plan,” that ordered a complete re-do of the electricity generation system to gradually shutter fossil fuel plants and replace them with unworkable “renewables.” That Plan got struck down by the Supreme Court in June 2022 for being far beyond anything the EPA was authorized to do under its statutes.

So here is the new Rule covering the comparable subject. The title is “New Source Performance Standards for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from New, Modified, and Reconstructed Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; Emission Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Existing Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; and Repeal of the Affordable Clean Energy Rule.” The document is 1020 pages long because, hey, we’re the EPA, and anything worth doing around here deserves a Rule of at least a thousand pages.

And how does this new Rule achieve the goal of reducing “greenhouse gas emissions”? You could probably spend all week trying to read the thing without ever figuring that out. EPA’s press release makes the following claim:

“EPA’s final Clean Air Act standards for existing coal-fired and new natural gas-fired power plants limit the amount of carbon pollution covered sources can emit, based on proven and cost-effective control technologies that can be applied directly to power plants.”

And what is the “proven and cost-effective control mechanism” they are talking about? The AP summarizes it here in a few words:

Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

It’s the “capture of smokestack emissions” — otherwise known as carbon capture and storage, or CCS. I had a post last August at the time this Rule had been proposed and comments were being received. In my August post I highlighted some of the comments, including those from the states of Ohio and West Virginia. Those comments made mincemeat of any possible claim that CCS technology was either “proven” or “cost-effective.” Not only has it never been proven, but it’s impossible for it ever to work economically. There are many long quotes from comments in that post. Here are just a few.

From the Ohio comment, page 4:

A study of 263 carbon-capture-and-sequestration projects undertaken between 1995 and 2018 found that the majority failed and 78% of the largest projects were cancelled or put on hold.  After the study was published in May 2021, the only other coal plant with a carbon-capture-and-sequestration attachment in the world, Petra Nova, shuttered after facing 367 outages in its three years of operation. . . . [T]his [SaskPower] facility is the world’s only [remaining] operating commercial carbon capture facility at a coal-fired power plant.   And it has never achieved its maximum capacity.  It also battled significant technical issues throughout 2021—to the point that the plant idled the equipment for weeks at a time.  As a result, the plant achieved less than 37% carbon capture that year despite having an official target of 90% . . . . 

From the West Virginia comment, pages 24 – 25:

Take efficiency to start. CCS units run on power, too. An owner can get that power from the plant itself. But this approach makes the plant less efficient by increasing its “parasitic load”—and CCS more than triples combustion turbines’ normal parasitic load. . . . This is the cause the Wyoming study analyzed that showed installing CCS technology would devastate plants’ heat rates and lower net plant efficiency by 36%.

There is endless more of same. The fact is that CCS technology is neither “proven” nor “cost-effective.” It is nowhere after 30 years of trying because it cannot be done economically. It cannot be done economically because it is, in effect, a war against the Second Law of Thermodynamics. To capture more and more of the CO2 from the plant takes more and more of the plant’s output of energy, until in the limiting case you use all the energy of the plant and still some small amount of the CO2 escapes. The whole idea of CCS is to avoid having the disorder of the universe increase by the method of putting sufficient energy into trying. Won’t ever work. See also, perpetual motion machines.

Well, the sensible comments have all been rejected and EPA has just gone ahead and done what it was always planning to do, which is to order up something that can’t ever work economically and can only result in forcing the closure of an energy system that works without any idea of something realistic to replace it.

The deadlines for this start around 2030. Most likely between now and then either the Supreme Court will strike this down, or we’ll get a Republican administration that will sweep it all away. In the meantime we have completely ignorant and tyrannical regulators ordering up an energy system that can’t possibly work and heedless of the enormous destruction that they will likely cause if not stopped.

And that’s only part of what these fools were up to last week on the energy front. Here from Wednesday (April 24) is a “Fact Sheet” issued by the White House on another totally delusional effort: “Biden-⁠Harris Administration Sets First-Ever National Goal of Zero-Emissions Freight Sector, Announces Nearly $1.5 Billion to Support Transition to Zero-Emission Heavy-duty Vehicles.”

I’ve got some news for them: the freight transportation sector (trucks and railroads) is not going to convert to electricity any time soon. At least this announcement was not a regulation mandating the conversion, but only the supposed setting of a “national goal,” with no idea of how it could possibly be achieved or at what cost. The $1.5 billion mentioned is an irrelevant rounding error of a figure that maybe could buy 10,000 new electric trucks (in a sector with at least 3 million existing non-electric ones), and the 10,000 trucks would be mostly useless for the purposes in question.

These people become more and more detached from reality with each passing day. They seem to have no idea how much damage they are doing, and they don’t care a bit. Somehow they have convinced themselves that they are “saving the planet,” when if they could do even a little arithmetic they would know that their efforts cannot possibly move the needle on that effort. It’s just another week in the Biden Administration energy clown show.

Biden White House starts end run around Supreme Court WOTUS ruling

From CFACT

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

At an April 23 “Water Summit” at the White House, the Biden administration announced a multi-agency plan reasserting the federal role in determining the future of wetlands in the wake of last year’s landmark Supreme Court Decision limiting Washington’s authority to regulate “waters of the United States” (WOTUS).

The administration’s move on wetlands appears to be part of a concerted effort to get as many rules and regulations as possible in place by the end of the year, in the event there is no second Biden term.

In April alone, the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued new rules setting stricter emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks, buses, and other vehicles by 2027, mandated steeper emissions cuts from new natural gas power plants and existing coal plants, and approved a California plan to mandate zero-emissions locomotives on all rail lines in the state by 2030, a move that could be adopted by like-minded states thereby crippling the nation’s vast freight rail network. Zero-emissions locomotives simply do not exist and are not likely to be by the arbitrarily set deadline.

To these emissions-related climate policies can now be added to the White House’s effort to tighten federal control over lands and bodies of water. (RELATED: Biden’s EPA Says Sweeping Power Plant Regs Won’t Harm America’s Grid — Experts Are Saying The Exact Opposite)

“The America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge: A Partnership to Conserve and Restore America’s Rivers, Lakes, Streams, and Wetlands sets a bold, new national goal to protect, restore, and reconnect 8 million acres of wetlands and 100,000 miles of our nation’s rivers and streams,” the White House said in a Fact Sheet.

“To achieve the new national freshwater protection goal and to ensure that our freshwater resources are protected for current and future generations as part of the America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge, the Biden-Harris administration is also launching a new initiative that calls on states and other governments and entities, including Tribes, interstate organizations, cities, and local communities to advance their own policies and strategies for conserving and restoring America’s freshwater systems,” the White House said. “Over 100 inaugural members from across the country have signed on to support freshwater restoration in their communities, including ten states, eight Tribes, and 24 local governments.”

The initiative can be seen as part of the administration’s larger “30X30” plan, a scheme unveiled in January 2021 to “protect” at least 30% of the nation’s land and water by 2030. That plan was later dubbed “America the Beautiful,” a phrase that has now been incorporated in the new “America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge.”

The 30X30 plan has run into stiff resistance at the state and local levels, where many rural community leaders fear it will bring federal control over land and water use decisions, as well as pose a threat to property rights.

For its part, the White House makes no secret that its latest wetlands initiative is in response to the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Sackett v. EPA, “which dramatically reduced federal protections for wetlands in one of the largest judicial rollbacks of environmental protections in U.S. history.”

In truth, the High Court clarified — at long last — the vague language of the 1972 Clean Water Act that had hitherto allowed EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to claim regulatory jurisdiction over millions of acres of wetlands and other isolated bodies of water with no direct connection to ”navigable waters of the United States.” The Supreme Court’s decision pulled the legal rug out from under the Biden administration’s plans to impose federal zoning on millions of acres of private and public land across the U.S. under the guise of protecting wetlands.

Other than announcing it will spend over $1 billion to improve drinking water quality on Tribal lands, $11 million to combat Western megadroughts, $70 million to upgrade dams, culverts, levees, and other water infrastructure, and $123 million for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to expand its coastal management programs, the White House was vague about how it plans to reassert jurisdiction over wetlands. Administration officials must know that any move they make that violates the Supreme Court’s Sackett ruling will invite a flood of lawsuits.

Having proclaimed it is taking an “all of government” approach to what it says is a “climate crisis,” the Biden team is simply practicing what it preaches. All these moves will face stiff legal challenges in any event, so why not push the envelope on putting wetlands back under EPA’s control?

This article originally appeared at Daily Caller

Offshore wind is gearing up to bulldoze the ocean

From CFACT

By David Wojick

The Biden Administration has recently produced a wave of plans and regulatory actions aimed at building a monstrous amount of destructive offshore wind. No environmental impact assessment is included.

Time scales range from tomorrow to 2050. Here is a quick look at some of it, starting with the Grand Plan.

“Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Offshore Wind” is the grandiose title of the Energy Department’s version of Biden’s vision. Their basic idea is that having successfully traversed the unexpected cost crisis, offshore wind is ready to take off.

They point out that even though costs quickly jumped an average of 65%, the boom market is unchanged. The coastal States are raring to go with huge offshore wind targets and laws. In short, it is a seller’s market. Cost is no object.

They note that State mandates and targets already exceed the Biden goal of 100,000 MW by 2050. But why stop there? They say that Net Zero requires an incredible 250,000 MW of offshore wind. At 15 MW a turbine, this is just under 17,000 monster towers.

The word “environmental” occurs frequently in this 62-page grand vision but it is always about environmental justice.  The cumulatively destructive environmental impacts of lining our coast with towers and cables are ignored apparently not worth mentioning. Neither is cost.

Next comes transmission, where we have “AN ACTION PLAN FOR OFFSHORE WIND TRANSMISSION DEVELOPMENT IN THE U.S. ATLANTIC REGION“. While the Pathways plan covers the US, this one is just about the Atlantic because that is where the big action is now.

This 110-pager is from the Energy Department and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is actually building the offshore wind monster.

The basic idea is simple. Instead of bringing the juice ashore individually from each giant wind facility, we will build a massive high-voltage grid in the ocean. This way, we can move the energy up and down the coast from wherever it is generated to where it is needed.

In the Plan, there are actually three backbone grids: northern, central, and southern, but this detail need not concern us. There is, of course, a huge network of feeder lines connecting the backbones to the legion of individual giant generation facilities.

Given the incredibly huge generation numbers in the Liftoff Plan, this is a very big grid indeed. It is a DC grid, so I guess the juice gets turned into AC onshore, where it then ties to the suitably beefed-up land grid. Beefing that up is another huge unknown cost.

There are many issues with this grand design, including legal and policy ones, and many of these are mentioned. How this ocean-going grid ties into State utility law is an interesting example.

Environmental impacts are only addressed as a research topic, not as a potential problem, except for floating wind, where some big problems are mentioned in passing. The feel-good idea of minimizing impact occurs frequently, but what those impacts might be is not said.

As is typical for BOEM, they talk about monitoring a good bit. Their approach to environmental impact is let’s build it and see what happens as though extinction of the North Atlantic Right Whale was reversible. The concept of cumulative impacts is not addressed.

Cost allocation is a major economic topic, but there is nothing whatever on what this underwater monstrosity might cost.

Returning to today, several things have happened. First, BOEM has announced a lot of new lease sales over the next five years (the Biden II years?). These run from Maine to Oregon, fixed and floating, with five scheduled for this year alone.

Some are in new places, while others are in already crowded areas like the New York Bight. As always, there is no cumulative environmental impact analysis. It’s like BOEM never heard of that, even though the law clearly calls for it when piling on the projects.

More ominously, there are new regulations governing the permitting of offshore wind projects. The developers love these new rules, which tells us they are not designed for environmental protection. This is from the BOEM press release:

“”The final modernization rule will streamline the permitting process and reduce regulatory barriers for developers. It will also lead to greater collaboration between federal, state, and local stakeholders, ensuring that offshore wind projects are developed in a sustainable and responsible manner,” said Anne Reynolds, the American Clean Power Association Vice President for Offshore Wind.”

The primary “regulatory barrier” is environmental impact analysis. The new rules require agencies to rush these, which means glossing over them with no time for serious analysis.

Today’s actions may seem small, but given the long-term Plans, they are anything but. It is all part of a huge rush to do something enormously expensive and environmentally destructive for which there is no need whatsoever.

This offshore bulldozer must be stopped before it is too late.

Biden subsidizes Carmageddon

From CFACT

By Lloyd Rowland:

The Biden administration is pushing extremely costly policies that encourage the adoption of Low Carbon Fuel Standards and force the production of electric vehicles under the guise of reducing carbon emissions. However, these measures would have a very small impact on emissions. Rather than improving the capabilities and efficiency of vehicles on our roads, these measures empty Americans’ pockets and upend consumer choice.

Restrictions on carbon dioxide have caused significant pain at the pump for all Americans. California and Washington are leading the charge on these restrictions, and their residents are paying the price. Low carbon fuel standards in these states have driven fuel costs to over $5 a gallon. According to the Institute for Energy Research, the passage of Washington’s Climate Commitment Act resulted in a whopping 45-cent-per-gallon increase in gasoline prices.

That number is almost four times the increase promised by supporters of the Low Carbon Fuel Standards, which was supposed to be no higher than 12 cents per gallon. When reporters dug into the story, they learned that Washington director for Climate Solutions, Kelly Hall, stated that increasing the cost of gasoline as a means of encouraging “the transition away from fossil fuels” was always “part of the point of this policy.”

Unfortunately, policies mandating electric vehicles are also predicted to raise the costs of vehicle ownership. Currently, electric vehicles are substantially more expensive than gas-powered cars. The Heritage Foundation explains that the 2023 Ford F150 Lightning costs around $10,000 more than a comparable gas truck.

Higher per-vehicle prices for electric vehicles are largely due to the costs of materials such as lithium and cobalt, which are essential in the production of EV batteries. Battery cost and the difficulty of screening for damage following an accident also mean that electric vehicles are more expensive to insure and repair. Recent studies undermine the common claim that — with fewer parts to maintain — electric vehicles will be easier to repair and maintain. A November study published by Solera explains that “on average, EV repair costs are 29% higher than internal combustion vehicles globally.” The study also notes a distinct “parts cost disparity: EV parts are, on average, 48% more expensive, including components like high-voltage batteries and control units.”

Large-scale adoption of electric vehicles could also drive up the prices of standard vehicles as manufacturers attempt to recoup losses incurred by sluggish EV sales. According to Road & Track, Ford alone is set to lose $4.5 billion on electric vehicles this year. Lagging EV sales would seem to indicate that customers do not want fully electric vehicles. Traditional vehicles are more affordable, possess a longer range, and lose less mileage in cold weather. Consumers are understandably hesitant to make the switch to an electric car, and manufacturers are increasingly hard-pressed to offset these losses.

Facing growing resistance, the Biden administration has resorted to subverting consumer choice with incentives and mandates for buyers and manufacturers designed to get the public on board with the electrification agenda. These take several forms, including credits toward the purchase of electric vehicles. According to the Internal Revenue Service, these credits add up to a maximum of $7,500 and apply to vehicles up to $80,000 MSRP. Qualifying households may make up to $300,000 in certain cases, meaning federal policy supports the regressive plan of taxing the poor and middle class to subsidize electric vehicles for wealthy car buyers.

According to the Heritage Foundation, proposed EPA regulations constitute a backdoor mandate that two-thirds of new cars sold in the United States must be electric by 2032. The Biden Administration is also paying auto and battery manufacturers a combined $15.5 billion to produce electric vehicles, although consumer demand appears to be plateauing and EVs are piling up on dealer lots.

Under normal market conditions, these EV ventures would likely be short-lived, given the billions of dollars in losses they incur. However, the existence of subsidies encourages automakers to continue working on unpopular products.

With policies like these in place, Americans will increasingly find themselves priced out of vehicle ownership as government overreach undermines consumer choice. Dealerships and manufacturers will find their lots overflowing with vehicles that consumers either do not want or cannot afford. To stave off this carmageddon, our country should prioritize an economically sound policy that makes cars and fuel more affordable and puts consumers back in the driver’s seat.

This article originally appeared at Mackinac