This New York Times Poll Shows Trump Leading in 5 Battleground States. A Point In Time Not Election Day Certainty. Nevertheless! Never Ever Trumpers Should be Concerned.
Bibbo then brought in some historical analysis:
In 2016 The Democratic Brain Trust saddled Hilary with a Clean Power Plant 1 War on Coal. Krugman opines 2x (NYTs) that CPP 1 delivered PA, MI & WI (46 EC votes) to elect Trump45. In 2020 those 46 votes elected Biden. Heading into 2024 the Brain Trust has saddled Biden with a Clean Power Plan 2 War on Fossil Fuels. Add the reasonable chance of midwest grid failures Trump Again is much too real. A Clean Energy Transition should be occurring but not with the RECKLESS STUPIDITY enhancing the possibility of Trump Again! And just like CPP1, CPP2 has no chance to become law.
There is a bit of a civil war with some climate alarmists warning to go slow for political reasons. But doesn’t Bibbo know that the climate is in crisis and the emergency is HERE? Biden, Kerry, and Gore said it. The United Nations said it. Scientist Andrew Dessler said it….
But maybe climate politics is about more that just ‘saving the planet’. Maybe it is about money and power, the Climate Industrial Complex, bleeding prosperity but at a pace that the subjects do not rebel.
Ending the transition with an apology would be the best course of action for the Democrats. After all, wind, solar, and batteries are hardly environmental, not only uneconomic.
There is no way your “Clean Energy Transition” can occur without “reckless stupidity.” … Add in the fact that the economy will be in FAR WORSE shape one year from now, together with the fact that pollsters like Times/Siena routinely over-sample Democrats in their raw data adjustment process, and these polling disadvantages will likely only grow.
No response from Bibbo, but I think he is on to something that will fully germinate in November.
Climate action on the other side of the Atlantic flourished after the “green wave” and “quiet revolution” of the 2019 elections elevated the Green Party into a force in the European Parliament.
Five years later, a reversal of political fortunes in Europe could upend the move to zero-carbon energy and a hard shift toward electric cars by 2035.
In a continent-wide election that ended Sunday and left Europe’s political establishment in tatters, political support for green policies was undercut by the rightward tide. The center-right European People’s Party will have the highest number of seats in the European Parliament, while far-right parties gained significant ground. Green parties lost almost a quarter of their seats, and support cratered in France and Germany.
Our reporting team in Brussels noted it marked a reversal after climate activists marched in the streets before the last election.
Parties on the left are sure to come to the defense of climate policies. But a fight among factions on the right could also be on the horizon if far-right politicians attack the European Green Deal and its goal of zeroing out climate pollution by 2050.
EPP leader Manfred Weber told POLITICO the European Union’s ban on the sale of combustion engine cars after 2035 was a “mistake” and promised the party would discuss rolling it back in “upcoming days.”
That would mean a split with his party’s lead candidate, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has backed the ban on the campaign trail.
Sound familiar?
Other than the parliamentary aspect, this all might strike a chord.
In November, American voters face a similar choice: Endorse four more years of a clean energy-driven U.S. industrial policy that took shape under President Joe Biden that aims for a zero-carbon economy in 2050, or return Donald Trump to the White House. If Trump is elected and the federal government takes a far more skeptical viewpoint of the climate problem, hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for clean energy technology could wither on the vine.
To get in front of this new wave beating against the political establishment, Biden, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron are taking dramatic steps, John Harris and Alexander Burns write. On Sunday night, after the strong showing of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party in France, Macron called for snap parliamentary elections. Sunak has also called for a new U.K. election in early July to shore up support for his beleaguered Conservative government, if possible.
And Biden, who’s struggling to get a handle on worrisome poll numbers, got Trump to agree to the earliest-ever general election debate, scheduled for June 27.
For climate and energy policy in the United States, instability is par for the course.
“Thus, as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune.” – President Trump, below
President Joe Biden should immediately announce that the U.S. plans to withdraw from the United Nations Paris Climate Accord. Just put it in his teleprompter someone, and it will happen. But short of this, a new President should withdraw from the Treaty–again.
On June 1, 2017, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would exit from the Paris Climate Accord. Formal withdrawal began on November 4, 2019, with notification to the UN. Effective one year later, the withdrawal was reversed by the Biden Administration on his first day in office, January 20, 2021.
The reasons for a US withdrawal were given seven years ago this month by President Trump. The logic holds with ever more reason.
THE PRESIDENT: One by one, we are keeping the promises I made to the American people during my campaign for President …. I am fighting every day for the great people of this country. Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord — but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers. So we’re getting out. But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine.
As President, I can put no other consideration before the wellbeing of American citizens. The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production.
Thus, as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune.
Compliance with the terms of the Paris Accord and the onerous energy restrictions it has placed on the United States could cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025 according to the National Economic Research Associates. This includes 440,000 fewer manufacturing jobs — not what we need — believe me, this is not what we need — including automobile jobs, and the further decimation of vital American industries on which countless communities rely. They rely for so much, and we would be giving them so little.
According to this same study, by 2040, compliance with the commitments put into place by the previous administration would cut production for the following sectors: paper down 12 percent; cement down 23 percent; iron and steel down 38 percent; coal — and I happen to love the coal miners — down 86 percent; natural gas down 31 percent. The cost to the economy at this time would be close to $3 trillion in lost GDP and 6.5 million industrial jobs, while households would have $7,000 less income and, in many cases, much worse than that.
Not only does this deal subject our citizens to harsh economic restrictions, it fails to live up to our environmental ideals. As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States — which is what it does -– the world’s leader in environmental protection, while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters.
For example, under the agreement, China will be able to increase these emissions by a staggering number of years — 13. They can do whatever they want for 13 years. Not us. India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid from developed countries. There are many other examples. But the bottom line is that the Paris Accord is very unfair, at the highest level, to the United States.
Further, while the current agreement effectively blocks the development of clean coal in America — which it does, and the mines are starting to open up. We’re having a big opening in two weeks. Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, so many places. A big opening of a brand-new mine. It’s unheard of. For many, many years, that hasn’t happened. They asked me if I’d go. I’m going to try.
China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So we can’t build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement. India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020. Think of it: India can double their coal production. We’re supposed to get rid of ours. Even Europe is allowed to continue construction of coal plants. In short, the agreement doesn’t eliminate coal jobs, it just transfers those jobs out of America and the United States, and ships them to foreign countries.
This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States. The rest of the world applauded when we signed the Paris Agreement — they went wild; they were so happy — for the simple reason that it put our country, the United States of America, which we all love, at a very, very big economic disadvantage. A cynic would say the obvious reason for economic competitors and their wish to see us remain in the agreement is so that we continue to suffer this self-inflicted major economic wound. We would find it very hard to compete with other countries from other parts of the world.
We have among the most abundant energy reserves on the planet, sufficient to lift millions of America’s poorest workers out of poverty. Yet, under this agreement, we are effectively putting these reserves under lock and key, taking away the great wealth of our nation — it’s great wealth, it’s phenomenal wealth; not so long ago, we had no idea we had such wealth — and leaving millions and millions of families trapped in poverty and joblessness.
The agreement is a massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries. At 1 percent growth, renewable sources of energy can meet some of our domestic demand, but at 3 or 4 percent growth, which I expect, we need all forms of available American energy, or our country will be at grave risk of brownouts and blackouts, our businesses will come to a halt in many cases, and the American family will suffer the consequences in the form of lost jobs and a very diminished quality of life.
Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree — think of that; this much — Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100. Tiny, tiny amount. In fact, 14 days of carbon emissions from China alone would wipe out the gains from America — and this is an incredible statistic — would totally wipe out the gains from America’s expected reductions in the year 2030, after we have had to spend billions and billions of dollars, lost jobs, closed factories, and suffered much higher energy costs for our businesses and for our homes.
As the Wall Street Journal wrote this morning: “The reality is that withdrawing is in America’s economic interest and won’t matter much to the climate.” The United States, under the Trump administration, will continue to be the cleanest and most environmentally friendly country on Earth. We’ll be the cleanest. We’re going to have the cleanest air. We’re going to have the cleanest water. We will be environmentally friendly, but we’re not going to put our businesses out of work and we’re not going to lose our jobs. We’re going to grow; we’re going to grow rapidly.
And I think you just read — it just came out minutes ago, the small business report — small businesses as of just now are booming, hiring people. One of the best reports they’ve seen in many years.
I’m willing to immediately work with Democratic leaders to either negotiate our way back into Paris, under the terms that are fair to the United States and its workers, or to negotiate a new deal that protects our country and its taxpayers.
So if the obstructionists want to get together with me, let’s make them non-obstructionists. We will all sit down, and we will get back into the deal. And we’ll make it good, and we won’t be closing up our factories, and we won’t be losing our jobs. And we’ll sit down with the Democrats and all of the people that represent either the Paris Accord or something that we can do that’s much better than the Paris Accord. And I think the people of our country will be thrilled, and I think then the people of the world will be thrilled. But until we do that, we’re out of the agreement.
I will work to ensure that America remains the world’s leader on environmental issues, but under a framework that is fair and where the burdens and responsibilities are equally shared among the many nations all around the world.
No responsible leader can put the workers — and the people — of their country at this debilitating and tremendous disadvantage. The fact that the Paris deal hamstrings the United States, while empowering some of the world’s top polluting countries, should dispel any doubt as to the real reason why foreign lobbyists wish to keep our magnificent country tied up and bound down by this agreement: It’s to give their country an economic edge over the United States. That’s not going to happen while I’m President. I’m sorry.
My job as President is to do everything within my power to give America a level playing field and to create the economic, regulatory and tax structures that make America the most prosperous and productive country on Earth, and with the highest standard of living and the highest standard of environmental protection….
The Paris Agreement handicaps the United States economy in order to win praise from the very foreign capitals and global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense. They don’t put America first. I do, and I always will.
The same nations asking us to stay in the agreement are the countries that have collectively cost America trillions of dollars through tough trade practices and, in many cases, lax contributions to our critical military alliance. You see what’s happening. It’s pretty obvious to those that want to keep an open mind.
At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us as a country? We want fair treatment for its citizens, and we want fair treatment for our taxpayers. We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be. They won’t be.
I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris. (Applause.) I promised I would exit or renegotiate any deal which fails to serve America’s interests. Many trade deals will soon be under renegotiation. Very rarely do we have a deal that works for this country, but they’ll soon be under renegotiation. The process has begun from day one. But now we’re down to business.
Beyond the severe energy restrictions inflicted by the Paris Accord, it includes yet another scheme to redistribute wealth out of the United States through the so-called Green Climate Fund — nice name — which calls for developed countries to send $100 billion to developing countries all on top of America’s existing and massive foreign aid payments. So we’re going to be paying billions and billions and billions of dollars, and we’re already way ahead of anybody else. Many of the other countries haven’t spent anything, and many of them will never pay one dime.
The Green Fund would likely obligate the United States to commit potentially tens of billions of dollars of which the United States has already handed over $1 billion — nobody else is even close; most of them haven’t even paid anything — including funds raided out of America’s budget for the war against terrorism. That’s where they came. Believe me, they didn’t come from me. They came just before I came into office. Not good. And not good the way they took the money.
In 2015, the United Nation’s departing top climate officials reportedly described the $100 billion per year as “peanuts,” and stated that “the $100 billion is the tail that wags the dog.” In 2015, the Green Climate Fund’s executive director reportedly stated that estimated funding needed would increase to $450 billion per year after 2020. And nobody even knows where the money is going to. Nobody has been able to say, where is it going to?
Of course, the world’s top polluters have no affirmative obligations under the Green Fund, which we terminated. America is $20 trillion in debt. Cash-strapped cities cannot hire enough police officers or fix vital infrastructure. Millions of our citizens are out of work. And yet, under the Paris Accord, billions of dollars that ought to be invested right here in America will be sent to the very countries that have taken our factories and our jobs away from us. So think of that.
There are serious legal and constitutional issues as well. Foreign leaders in Europe, Asia, and across the world should not have more to say with respect to the U.S. economy than our own citizens and their elected representatives. Thus, our withdrawal from the agreement represents a reassertion of America’s sovereignty. (Applause.) Our Constitution is unique among all the nations of the world, and it is my highest obligation and greatest honor to protect it. And I will.
Staying in the agreement could also pose serious obstacles for the United States as we begin the process of unlocking the restrictions on America’s abundant energy reserves, which we have started very strongly. It would once have been unthinkable that an international agreement could prevent the United States from conducting its own domestic economic affairs, but this is the new reality we face if we do not leave the agreement or if we do not negotiate a far better deal.
The risks grow as historically these agreements only tend to become more and more ambitious over time. In other words, the Paris framework is a starting point — as bad as it is — not an end point. And exiting the agreement protects the United States from future intrusions on the United States’ sovereignty and massive future legal liability. Believe me, we have massive legal liability if we stay in.
As President, I have one obligation, and that obligation is to the American people. The Paris Accord would undermine our economy, hamstring our workers, weaken our sovereignty, impose unacceptable legal risks, and put us at a permanent disadvantage to the other countries of the world. It is time to exit the Paris Accord — (applause) — and time to pursue a new deal that protects the environment, our companies, our citizens, and our country.
It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — along with many, many other locations within our great country — before Paris, France. It is time to make America great again. Thank you very much.
New York State’s Governor, Kathy Hochul, this week decided to delay “indefinitely” the plan to impose congestion tolls in New York City, specifically slated for the lower half of Manhattan, from 60th Street south to Battery Park. Her action illustrates another fraudulent example of climate policy.
This upcoming toll system would have been the nation’s first “congestion” barrier to require payment for traveling by vehicle to enter a specific pre-existing public space, not to finance a new bridge, tunnel, or highway. The toll revenue was estimated to generate $1 billion yearly, which would have been used to finance up to $15 billion in new debt for capital improvements to the city’s subway system and regional commuter railroads.
Alas, it was not to be — for the moment.
New Yorkers, along with commuters from New Jersey across the river and from nearby Connecticut, would have paid $15 for entering the congestion zone. Drivers of small and large trucks would have paid $25 and $35. The ripple effect of these new costs would be felt beyond the congestion tolls, with cab and Uber riders paying a surcharge, along with higher prices for every delivery of pizza or UPS package and every contractor fixing a residence or office.
The toll scheme was first approved by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature in 2019 and was slated to finally go into effect this June 30th – more than five years later. The plan also received approval by the Biden administration, which was required under federal law. That is how long it takes government these days to implement a lousy toll system, now with $500 million in wasted implementation expenses. This was not building the Golden Gate Bridge, which took less time, or some other major capital project.
The state of New York’s politicians approved the congestion toll tax for several reasons, as CFACT discussed at the time in 2019. In short, the scheme was a cash cow under the guise of reducing vehicle traffic in busy Manhattan, thereby lowering carbon emissions from cars and trucks to “fight climate change!” The toll proceeds would be used to maintain and upgrade mass transit – subways, trains, and buses – which is another dreamscape of the climate change lobby.
Vehicle traffic in midtown and southern Manhattan was likely to lessen to avoid paying tolls of $15 or more and as much as $3,000 annually per car, but any mitigation of CO2 emissions was a ruse since many of those same vehicles would have traveled and parked north of 60th Street and in New Jersey. That meant parking facilities in the upper half of Manhattan and the outer boroughs would have made a bundle, and the mostly minority neighborhoods in Harlem and the South Bronx would have increased traffic and vehicle emissions.
In other words, New York’s congestion toll scheme would have resulted in environmental injustice for “underserved communities,” about which President Biden and every climate politician/fanatic purports to care, except they disregarded such impact.
Governor Hochul’s stated reason for delaying the congestion tax was economic. “I cannot add another burden to working middle-class New Yorkers,” she said.
Nonsense. Hochul’s was a political calculation, not the fiscal welfare of her state’s residents.
In the last five years, as the financial reality of this toll tax got closer, more New Yorkers were complaining. Yet, city residents in and outside the congestion zone, commuters, and businesses alike were routinely ignored. Did Gov. Hochul just wake up and realize millions of ordinary New Yorkers were going to get smacked in their wallets?
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, the Democratic leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, is reported to have made the case to the governor to pull the plug since the new tolls were becoming a political time bomb in closely contested congressional races in the tri-state area.
Politicians are voracious for more taxpayer money to spend, which was the whole point of the money grab from congestion tolls. But politicians first need to stay in office to tax, borrow, spend, and control, which finally put a pause in the toll scheme.
The whole congestion toll saga of the last five years tells a familiar reality about climate change non-science and the politics that lurk. Politicians, NGO leaders, and other purveyors of climate doom will warn of the “existential threat,” demand action before the “tipping point,” and impose policies to purportedly address the issue. But it’s all an abstraction and a thoroughly dishonest one.
When gasoline prices skyrocketed in 2021, President Biden opened the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and urged OPEC and Venezuela to sell us cheaper oil with its resulting carbon emissions, which made a mockery of his fake climate alarmism.
Similarly, on the eve of when congestion tolls would take a bite out of voting New Yorkers, all the drivel from Hakeem Jeffries and Kathy Hochul about reducing carbon emissions and saving the planet became vapid and worthless, as they jettisoned their supposed principles and commitment to fighting climate change.
Climate politics are a means to expand power, make money, and exert societal control. When the inevitable higher costs hit home with real people, the subterfuge of climate change and its harmful policies gets exposed.
Less than one per cent of the way to the Biden 2030 target
Aslow-motion collapse in the offshore wind industry continues to grow as sticky inflation and supply chain challenges force developers to delay or cancel major projects. In particular, progress towards the Biden administration’s goal of building large amounts of floating wind off the northeastern US coast is just about stalled. The Telegraph has the story.
Shell, which invested in a series of offshore wind projects in recent years, including offshore the northeastern United States, announced last week it would lay off much of its offshore wind business staff as the oil giant advances its program of refocusing on its core oil and gas business.
“We are concentrating on select markets and segments to deliver the most value for our investors and customers,” a Shell spokesperson told Bloomberg. “Shell is looking at how it can continue to compete for offshore wind projects in priority markets while maintaining our focus on performance, discipline and simplification.”
Wind turbine maker Siemens Gamesa announced even bigger layoffs, saying it would cut 15 per cent of its global staff to adjust to a slowing market. The announcement comes after the company reported a €4.6 billion loss for 2023, a losing trend that has continued over the first half of 2024.
“Our current situation demands adjustments that go beyond organizational changes. We have to adapt to lower business volumes, reduced activity in non-core markets, and a streamlined portfolio,” said outgoing CEO Jochen Eickholt in a letter to staff.
On May 29 came survey results compiled by London-based energy consultancy Westwood indicating the global floating offshore wind industry is likely to deliver less than 3 gigawatts (GW) of new floating generation capacity by 2030, and a total of roughly 10 GW by 2040. Westwood cites lack of standardization of floating technology (55 per cent), manufacturing capability and capacity (51 per cent) and port infrastructure (50 per cent) as the primary impediments.
In light of the industry’s gloomy outlook, Westwood notes that “calls are ringing out for governments to provide more specific policy and regulatory support for technology development in addition to cost reduction and investment in port infrastructure to accelerate adoption.”
This is completely predictable, since the voracious rent-seeking wind business invariably calls for more government largesse in response to any challenge that arises. Unfortunately, the call is too often answered by policymakers who have made big political bets on being able to show off arrays of mammoth windmills floating atop various oceans and seas, intermittently producing some electricity – generally 25-30 per cent of nominal plant capacity over time.
This latest bad news for offshore wind could become especially troublesome for US President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, since he has invested so much of his personal political capital in pushing a major buildout of floating offshore wind in the Atlantic northeast. A 2023 Department of Energy fact sheet sets the administration’s goal of installing 30 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 for the US alone, exceeding Westwood’s just estimated potential for global new capacity by that year by a factor of 10 times over.
Clean-energy investment in America is off the charts—but it still isn’t translating into enough electricity that people can actually use.By Brian Deese
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Because even though unprecedented sums of money are flowing into clean energy, our current electricity system is failing to meet Americans’ demand for clean power. If we don’t fix it, the surge in investment will not deliver its full economic and planetary potential.
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For decades, the biggest obstacle to clean energy in the U.S. was insufficient demand. That is no longer the case. The problem now is the structure of our electricity markets: the way we produce and consume electricity in America. We need to fix that if we want the biggest clean-energy investment in history to actually get the job done.
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Many utilities, however, won’t prioritize installing batteries, and they won’t invest in solutions that let consumers do more with less energy. That’s becausethese programs lower utilities’ capital expenditures, which lowers the rates they charge consumers and, in turn, their profits. If utilities don’t get paid for innovating, they’re unlikely to do it.
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On a policy level, this isn’t rocket science. In Australia, households arepaidfor sending electricity back into the grid. Lo and behold, Australia today has the highest rate of rooftop solar panels per capita of any country. In the U.S., state legislatures and regulators in places as varied as Utah and Hawaii have figured out how to pay households to install batteries and send electricity back to the grid. Last year, Montana unanimously passed a law that gave utilities a financial incentive to use more advanced materials in their transmission lines. But these remain the exceptions to the rule.
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Shifting this approach will not happen without a new vocabulary and new coalitions. The climate movement must recognize that its primary target is no longer just Big Oil; it’s the regulatory barriers that keep clean energy from getting built and delivered efficiently to American homes. The movement also needs to pressure Big Tech companies, whose AI offerings are driving upenergy demands, to follow through on their lofty climate talk by supporting reform in the utility system as well.
According to his bio, Brian Deese is an innovation fellow at MIT, who served as director of the White House National Economic Council from 2021 to 2023.
How many times have we read or heard left wing politicians and academics whining others didn’t do enough to help?
Big Tech companies don’t want to invest in more grid capacity, they want co-located nuclear reactors, to minimise their exposure to the USA’s incompetently managed electricity grid.
Nobody is investing in batteries at anything like the required scale because batteries are too expensive. Battery capital costs make nuclear reactors look cheap.
Deep down I suspect Brian Deese knows his precious green energy revolution will not survive the AI revolution – which is likely why he devoted a paragraph to abusing tech giants.
On episode 111 of The Climate Realism Show, we are going to review many of the eco policies that amount to Biden’s war on homeowners and the citizenry for the sake of “saving the planet” from climate change.
We’ll be discussing the Biden power plant rule, auto emissions rule, new ESA restrictions in Texas for a lizard, appliance rules, and more. The rules restricting gas stove and light bulbs and others supposedly to prevent so-called climate catastrophes affect our everyday choices and lives.
Joining us will be Marlo Lewis, Jr. who is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Lewis writes on global warming, energy policy, and public policy issues and will comment of the onslaught by Biden which appears geared to meet the 180 day deadline for such things before the November election.
Join host Anthony Watts, the Heartland Institute’s H. Sterling Burnett, and Marlo Lewis for the big list of FAIL. And, as always, we have the Crazy Climate News of the Week. Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET (12 p.m. CT) for the kind of climate realism you can’t find anywhere else, and join the chat to get your questions answered, too.
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“The hypocrisy of the Biden administration taking credit for lower gasoline prices as the summer driving season begins by fulfilling a Congressional mandate is unsurprising.”
“We now have the amazing scenario where days before the start of the hurricane season, Democrats in Congress and Biden are willing to empty the gasoline reserve.”
The Department of Energy announced Tuesday that it would begin selling the one million barrels of gasoline in the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve. Bids for the supply are due May 28th with delivery expected by June 30th. Bids will be accepted for lots of 100,000 barrels. The supply represents 42 million gallons of gasoline and is held in commercial storage tanks in Maine and New Jersey.
The sale was mandated by the omnibus Congressional spending bill (HR 2882) approved in late March with procedural hijinks by Senate Leader Chuck Schumer. If you remember, it was during the final hours of the Friday before the week-long Congress’ Easter Recess that the House passed the legislation 286-134 providing funding to keep the government operating through its September 30 fiscal year-end. The bill was passed over to the Senate which passed it in the early morning hours of Saturday and forwarded it to the White House for President Joe Biden’s signature that evening. Importantly, more Democrats than Republicans in the House voted for the bill as more than 100 Republicans voted against it.
We now have the amazing scenario where days before the start of the hurricane season, Democrats in Congress and Biden are willing to empty the gasoline reserve. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement, “By strategically releasing this reserve in between Memorial Day and July 4th, we are ensuring sufficient supply flows to the tri-state and northeast at a time hardworking Americans need it the most.” How funny that the Biden administration is taking credit for helping consumers by following through on a Congressionally mandated action.
I recently wrote about our drive from Houston to Rhode Island. My article discussed gasoline prices and how they became more expensive as we headed north, primarily due to higher state taxes in the Northeast states. I commented on Biden’s election problem with high gasoline prices and our expectation that he would repeat his 2022 move to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower pump prices in the run-up to the November election. He was successful, but as shown in a chart, gasoline pump prices have increased 53% since Biden entered office.
Biden successfully pushed down gasoline prices by tapping the SPR in 2022.
The gasoline reserve was established in 2014, two years after Super Storm Sandy slammed the Northeast region and disrupted fuel supply availability sending gasoline prices soaring. Some gasoline stations were without fuel for 30 days. Having gasoline supplies pre-positioned in the region reduces the risk for consumers from future storm disruptions.
East Coast states depend on Colonial Pipeline for 55% of their gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel supply.
The vulnerability of the Northeast and Middle Atlantic states to fuel supply disruptions emerged on May 7, 2021, when the Colonial Pipeline was hit in a ransomware attack. The pipeline, which originates in Houston and runs to New York, supplies the East Coast states with 55% of its petroleum fuels – gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The pipeline was shut down to protect its operations and billing system. Operations were slowly restarted after the ransom was paid.
Fuel shortages occurred at gasoline stations amid panic buying as the pipeline shutdown extended for days. By the fourth day, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina reported shortages. Areas from northern South Carolina to southern Virginia were hardest hit, with 71% of gasoline stations running out of fuel in Charlotte on May 11th and 87% of stations out in Washington, D.C., on May 14th. Average fuel prices rose to their highest point since 2014, reaching more than $3 a gallon. Jet fuel availability caused several airlines operating from Charlotte to alter refueling arrangements including forced refueling stops for long-haul flights.
Estimates are that the gasoline reserve sale will raise $125 million but, importantly, cut storage costs. The Energy Department’s 2022 report on the SPR said it costs about $13 per barrel annually for operations and maintenance of the gasoline reserve compared with about 30 cents per barrel for crude oil in the SPR.
The hypocrisy of the Biden administration taking credit for lower gasoline prices as the summer driving season begins by fulfilling a Congressional mandate is unsurprising. We are also struck by how shortsighted Democrats are, especially those in the Northeast states who voted for the spending bill. Their shortsightedness is laughable given the region’s energy risk from supply disruptions on the eve of the start of the hurricane season, which is predicted to be extremely active.
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For more of G. Allen Brooks, see Energy Musings: Insights into the Energy Industry, where this post first appeared. It has been slightly revised for publication here. Mr. Brooks is a long-time participant in, observer of, and commentator on the energy industry. He has been a Wall Street securities analyst, an oil service company manager, a consultant to energy company executives, a member of the boards of directors of numerous energy companies, and a writer and commentator on energy markets and trends.
President Biden has nominated former Massachusetts Undersecretary of Energy and Climate Solutions, Judy Chang, to be a FERC Commissioner. Ms. Chang is possibly best well-known for a 2018 comment staking out the position that because New England would move away from natural gas within the next five years it was irresponsible to invest in pipelines. At the time—let alone six years later—that is an odd stance for anyone who aspires to serve in a body responsible for ensuring the development of abundant supplies of natural gas at reasonable prices. Related, FERC is most recently known for ‘doing an EPA,’ i.e., “unlawfully supporting climate goals that Congress never approved.”
With Massachusetts’ Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs, which Ms. Chang previously helmed, yet to move on a contemporary, similar request, GAO notes the Commonwealth’s Department of Public Utilities (DPU) has released some records which do open a window onto that office’s working relationship with a renewable energy trade group called Advanced Energy United.
AEU has recently been shown to be the matchmaker for Michael Bloomberg’s operation out of NYU, the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, to place activist ‘staff’ in progressive PSC/PUC offices to advance their aligned ‘climate’ agenda’, just as it did in AG offices.
Screenshot
Advanced Energy United used to be called Advanced Energy Economy. A Tom Steyer Joint, per his counsel:
GAO looks forward to MA OEE releasing the requested public records.
A big part of Bidenomics is the financial pain and future loss of choices caused by his climate policies. Joe Biden has said he wants to end fossil fuels and attempting it at great cost and risk. Biden has weaponized the entire federal government and filled it with climatistas. They put radical climate policies above the interests of poor and middle-class Americans.
The people who can least afford the $2,300 increase in energy costs. Or the double-digit inflation caused by the borrowing that increases our $34.7 trillion national debt, the higher energy prices that make everything more expensive, as do the never-ending stream of climate regulations. Nothing is immune from these climate change addled meddlers.
Despite the climatistas multi-decade efforts. More coal, natural gas, and oil was used and emissions than ever before in history. The eight billion of us humans use a lot of energy and billions of us need much more. Because affordable, abundant, reliable energy is the cornerstone of health and prosperity. Without energy, life would be shorter, less prosperous, and not fun.
The Biden climate agenda doesn’t recognize the fact that Americans, as former climate czar John Kerry said, “could go to net zero and it wouldn’t make any difference at all.” (Net zero is no net CO2 emissions). This is one thing John Kerry said that is true.
Last year the people of the world used about 37 billion barrels of oil, 4 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 8.5 billion tons of coal, which is equivalent to about 41 billion barrels of oil. These fuels provide 81% of the world’s total energy. Wind and solar just 3%.
China uses more than half of the coal in the world and the U.S. uses about 20% of the oil, or about 20 million barrels a day. Is it senility, deliberate blindness, the climate religion, or some other agenda, which has people feeling that we can just end 83% of the world’s energy in the next 25 years (by 2050) without horrendous consequences for all of us?
No sane person who wants to keep their good health and vibrancy would just end the foods (fuel for the body) that provides 83% of their calories for energy needs. The wise person would have a plan to replace food before ending their primary food sources. There workable plan or costs for replacing the energy fossil fuels provide us.
Fossil fuel energy is the food that feeds our civilization. Without it, we lose our vibrancy, and many will die. It is time that we admit that wind and solar cannot meet the energy needs of our advanced civilization.
Even if wind and solar could, it wouldn’t make any difference. Because India and China with 2.8 billion people between them are using more coal to increase energy availability for their people. Where literally 100s of millions are energy underserved.
Both of these countries get more than half of their total energy, not just their electricity, from coal. This is unlikely to change in the coming decades because they are ramping up their coal usage by opening more mines and building more coal electricity plants. Coal is abundant in most countries in the world, it is low cost, and provides reliable electricity. There is at least 500 years of coal in the ground.
Reliable electricity is a cornerstone of prosperity. There is no way to build the hundreds of thousands of wind towers and thousands of square miles of solar panels fast enough to phase out even 10 or 20% of the energy supplied by fossil fuels over the next 25 years.
Even if we could build them fast enough, which we are not, we’d still have a problem. What provides electricity when the wind doesn’t blow, and the sun doesn’t shine? Nope, it’s not batteries. They’re far too expensive and we don’t have the supply chains to manufacture them during this century.
And the international bully, Communist China controls the wind, solar, and battery supply chains from the beginning to end. It is not in our national best interest to drive up our national debt and energy prices to purchase and rely on a powerful rival country like China for our critical needs.
Any time something that is necessary, like energy or food is in short supply, the prices rise. When energy prices rise, all other prices rise, including food, because energy is required for everything that we do. The inflation causing profligate spending and the endless climate regulations are features of Bidenomics.
We need to change direction soon. If we do not, our electric rates will at least triple, everything will cost even more, and we will have to get used to blackouts or brownouts on a regular basis. Our ability to defend ourselves will be compromised. And we are losing out around the world to China, as it helps countries develop their fossil future, while we are attempting to force them to remain in the Dark Ages, burning wood and dung for fuel.
Americans can do better. We need to change our energy course before it is too late.
Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
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