Why doesn’t anyone on the Left objectively bring a realistic conversation regarding a transition of American energy from fossil fuel to renewable energy? “Wait a minute: that hasn’t already happened?” Absolutely not! Besides the fossil fuel corporations and millions of American employees (and others who work in jobs that use fossil fuel indirectly for goods and products to generate income), not a single leader of the renewable “Green New Deal” energy world has ever offered a credible, documented, factual process for moving our nation away from fossil fuel to renewables. And those leaders include former Sec. of State John Kerry, the “Squad” leader, Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and even Al Gore. Such a project would require an elaborate process that would certainly take years once formulated and implemented to allow a realistic transition away from fossil fuels.
The people named above certainly know that. They know better than most there are NO shortcuts for any transition. Why then would they, day after day and year after year, scream from the heavens demanding instant and total abandonment of fossil fuel? It’s an impossibility! Just attempting to do so would destroy the American economy: like we’re watching play out right now.
So why haven’t they done so? Nothing but this procedure would EVER drive the populace to go in that direction. And to further exacerbate the issue, ANY pursuit of a transition to 100% (or even a majority) of renewables would drive our nation into bankruptcy — or inflation that would create a permanent majority totally dependent on the Government. (Hmmm…maybe that’s their objective) Why not offer an alternative and give us a roadmap that seems plausible? I’ll tell you why this writer thinks that will NOT happen in our summary below. (Don’t cheat and go to the Summary now!)
Why and How Did We Get Here So Quickly?
Here are a few points to consider as we answer that question:
The Willow oil project in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve would deliver 160,000 barrels of oil per day to U.S. consumers for the next 30 years if and when completed. The project was approved by President Donald Trump but blocked by far-left activists in federal court. Now, President Joe Biden’s administration must decide whether to issue a new environmental report approving the project or side with environmental activists and kill the project.
And this is a foreign policy decision.
Some Democrats don’t see the link between domestic oil production and national security. “This is the same tired argument they’ve been making for the last several years, where we live in this binary world where countries have to either buy our fossil fuels or Vladimir Putin’s,” California Democrat Jared Huffman recently said. “In a decarbonized world, he is powerless, his country is poor, and they’ll be looking for a new leader.”
If Huffman were able to snap his fingers and magically decarbonize the world overnight, then he might have a point. There would no longer be a binary choice between developing American fossil fuels or buying Putin’s. But here in the real world, renewable energy is decades away from replacing fossil fuels. Putin’s entire grand strategy involves exploiting that reality as long as he can. Both Europe and Biden have played right into his hands — at least until now.
Just look at Europe’s decisions over the last decade and how those decisions have already empowered Putin.
As recently as 2000, EU countries produced almost 10,000,000 terajoules of natural gas per year and imported just about 7,000,000 terajoules a year from Russia. (A terajoule is a unit of energy in the International System of Unit) Then, far-left environmentalists came to power and moved the European Union away from producing natural gas. The movement toward renewable energy production was not nearly fast enough — by 2020, EU countries produced less than 4,000,000 terajoules of natural gas and had to import over 9,000,000 terajoules from Russia.
So yes, the EU did reduce natural gas consumption by 4,000,000 terajoules, but it became more dependent, not less, on Putin’s natural gas exports in the process. If Democrats don’t think Putin was acutely aware of this crippling, voluntary dependency when he made his calculations on whether to invade Ukraine, then they don’t know the first thing about geopolitics.
Biden has similarly started the U.S. down the road toward energy dependency. Remember this: as recently as October of 2020 — (one month before Biden was elected to the presidency) — the U.S. was energy independent. Not only were we able to provide 100% of the energy required to run OUR nation, but we were also exporting oil and gas to countries around the world. On his first day in office, he imposed a moratorium on new oil and gas leasing on all federal lands, and he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline permit.
Don’t be tempted to fall for the Jen Psaki line: “There are 9000 leases for gas and oil production of federal land that there’s no exploration or drilling underway. Go ask the energy companies why they are not developing oil and gas and that land.”
The answer: besides President Biden on Day One canceling the XL Pipeline permit, he quietly issued a plethora of egregious regulations on “future” oil and gas exploration and development to prevent or slow such development purposely.
Oil and gas companies do not operate in the same four-year cycles as do American presidents. It’s not cheap to lease land, drill and complete, and then transport oil and gas products to the market. A typical shale gas well costs at least $15 million to drill and complete. That, of course, is if they chose the right spot to drill. And a typical such project includes at least four wells. $60 million is a lot to spend on a project, especially betting on Joe Biden to let the free market determine the success with those and other sites. The private sector cannot trust Biden in the U.S. He changes policies at the drop of a dime! Who can justify massive investments when he might pull ALL the permits on a whim?
Who wins in the “Biden Energy World?” Vladimir Putin!
So in this currently understood set of circumstances, will Biden further empower Putin and the autocrats of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries by killing the Willow project as well?
Huffman and the Democrats are right in one sense: the U.S. does not have to choose between renewable energy and fossil fuels because it can pursue both simultaneously. It can also pursue nuclear power. Germany used to get 30% of its electricity from nuclear, but again, thanks to far-left environmental activists, it is down to 11% today.
If you want to defeat Putin and OPEC and reduce carbon emissions, the correct course is to produce as much energy as possible. What kind? All of the above.
The Lunacy Of Biden’s Timing
I’ve never seen a good corporate manager, let alone a U.S. President, make major decisions simply on a whim, as has Biden. Cancellation of leases, ignoring laws and regulations, many of which were legislatively passed by Congress then signed into law by presidents, has NEVER been done by a previous president. It’s as if the incessant cries against former President Donald Trump for being an authoritarian ruler and a “Putin-wannabe” are now falling on deaf ears.
Biden’s policy decisions are issued like a second grade Room Mother gives the students the rules for competition in Field Day. Everyone knows those rules will NEVER make it to the field and that, even if they did get implemented, they’d never be abided by. And, of course, Moms and kids don’t care. They like the excitement.
Joe Biden’s more like a Room Mother than a President. As we know, he was a lifeguard. Remember that he told the World how the kids at the pool love to come and rub the white hairs on his leg as he sat in his lifeguard chair: yuck! Room Mothers — and Biden — know things will not be operated as they should be regardless of the rules (or “laws” as we know them). In his case, the “lifeguard’s” attention is diverted by other more important things.
Every policy, almost without fail, is obviously poorly structured, poorly timed, and seems to have no real meaning that has to do with what’s best for the American people.
And don’t dare to disagree with the policies or their purposes! OMG: a full assault will be launched from the White House that uses every one of the Leftist labels of a xenophobe, racist, or white supremacist for the guilty party who squealed.
Summary
In the context of the critical issues today, we have a President that refuses to listen to the calls of the majority of America for him to go back to the policies of “Trumponomics” that reduced unemployment, lowered taxes, and put more people to work than ever before. Those policies dramatically increased federal tax revenues despite across-the-board tax increases for American citizens and all types of business. They virtually sealed our southern border, which effectively eliminated illegals that had been flooding our nation, bringing with them violent crime, illegal drugs, and who knows what types of diseases.
A REAL U.S. President follows the Rule Of Law as all presidents have taken an oath to do.
Understandably, a “new” president would want to change some of the policies of a predecessor. After all, it stands to reason that the people vote for the candidate in a presidential election and the policies that person promised in a campaign. In the case of Joe Biden, the will of the American people is nowhere in his consideration for policy decisions. His administration is on the Leftist train of totalitarianism that is leading us toward failure — failure in our economy, public education, healthcare, our world foreign policy standing, and the destruction of the entire law enforcement structure of the U.S.
Yes, he implemented a massive percentage of his policies very quickly. He is quick to say that’s what the American people elected him to do. In reality, it’s not the people that have driven this agenda. It’s been a small group of partisan hacks led by who knows that have prayed for a chance to do just this for decades. And “the people” are the ones funding it all while having NO say in it.
Stop crying that this is what Americans wanted when electing Biden in 2020. And then there’s “Democrats were elected to control majorities in the House and the Senate. That means they WANT these socialist policies implemented across the board.”
“IF” the 2020 elections were the true representation of the will of the people, why today do 80% of the nation strongly feel this administration is taking us down the wrong path?
Just as almost daily information leaks that state things during COVID-19’s pandemic, many of the “truths” we were given to change our lives were not truths at all. We learn decisions made across the board by this administration are NOT what we were promised.
The “people” are NOT in charge of the United States. The “people” are NOT represented in any policies enacted by this President or this Congress.
The #1 salient question we should all ask is “Who is?”
