Best Energy Picks - April 20, 2024
Readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy.
This week’s best energy picks:
Sunrise or Sundown? — An Unaccountable Net Zero Elite Has Seized Control — Wyoming Oil and Gas Producers Hammered by Biden — Biden’s Efforts to Surreptitiously Force Us Into EVs — and much more.
Joe Biden is being lobbied by the Sunrise Movement to declare a climate emergency so he can do more to kill oil and gas:
Bloomberg reports, according to sources who requested anonymity as a final decision has not been reached, top advisers to President Joe Biden are reconsidering the possibility of declaring the emergency.
This action could lead to restrictions on crude exports, a suspension of offshore drilling, and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, sources say…
“President Biden has treated the climate crisis as an emergency since day one and will continue to build a clean energy future that lowers utility bills, creates good-paying union jobs, makes our economy the envy of the world and prioritizes communities that for too long have been left behind,” said White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez…
A climate emergency declaration would be unprecedented and likely face legal challenges…
Environmental groups, however, are pushing for more aggressive actions. Emergency declarations could allow the president to halt crude exports, suspend offshore drilling, and restrict oil and gas transportation.
Youth environmental organizations like the Sunrise Movement, Fridays For Future USA, and the Campus Climate Network are planning Earth Day protests to demand that Biden declare a national climate emergency.
Aru Shiney-Ajay, the Sunrise Movement’s executive director, said Biden must "use every tool at his disposal to tackle the climate crisis and prepare our communities to weather the storm" of "another summer of floods, fires, hurricanes and extreme heat".
Notably, the Sunrise Movement is funded by the extremist Tides Foundation, also opposes nuclear power, advocates for defunding of police, is allied with Communist China and boasts that it’s anti-Zionist and anti-Israel. So, nothing about the group’s political posturing on climate change is surprising. It’s just another leftist enterprise with the goal of producing the sundown of America.
Hat Tip: D.S.
An Unaccountable Net Zero Elite Has Seized Control
Liz Truss, who briefly served as U.K. Prime Minister before she was replaced by Rishi Sunak in an elitist coup, has written a book (see below) and a powerful op-ed that applies as well to America as to the United Kingdom:
In our haste to not be seen as on the wrong side of history, we failed to make conservative arguments for environmental improvement – arguments centred on property rights, individual and family endeavours and the free market. Instead, we empowered our ideological opponents and accepted much of their extremist agenda.
Britain should aim to be energy independent by 2040 using oil and gas as well as nuclear and renewables. We are in an excellent position to become a net energy exporter, given the amount of sea by which we are surrounded where offshore wind farms can be located, as well as our expertise in nuclear power. The use of North Sea oil and gas is crucial, so there needs to be investment in that too. There also should be fracking in the UK. We are in the ludicrous position of importing fracked gas from the US that has been liquefied to -180˚C but refusing to frack ourselves. Meanwhile, Brits are paying twice as much for their energy as Americans.
The number one threat to the environment and our freedom and security is the rise of authoritarian regimes and the decline of democracy. Therefore, we need to cancel failed multilateral structures and work with allies that share our values. We should abolish the Climate Change Act and instead adopt a new Climate Freedom Act that enables rather than dictates technology.
We should protect our environment by protecting property rights and allowing enterprise to develop new green technologies. We should call out the green lobby’s brazen anti-capitalist agenda. They are the extremists in today’s politics and should be labelled as such. They say they want to reduce carbon but oppose nuclear power. They say they want less pesticide use but oppose genetic modification. They organise their protests on iPhones, devices that came into existence through free markets.
We also have to wrest back control of environmental policy from the legions of bureaucrats. Ultimately, these decisions should be made by politicians who have to answer to the people.
You go, girl!
Hat Tip: T.Z.
Wyoming’s Small Oil and Gas Producers Being Hammered by Biden
There’s nothing new here, as the Biden Administration has already clearly demonstrated it aims to kill oil and gas, but notice two things: (1) the fact it’s always small enterprises that get hurt most by new rules and (2) the plain language at the end calling out precisely what Biden’s controllers are doing.
The Petroleum Association of Wyoming is opposed to higher bonding costs to drill on public land.
“With the BLM controlling nearly three quarters of the mineral estate in Wyoming, any proposals coming from the agency will have an outsized impact on producers in the state,” said Ryan McConnaughey, vice president and director of communications with the trade group that represents small operators and 26 of the state’s top 30 producers.
The group’s members account for more than 90% of Wyoming’s oil and natural gas production. Collectively, they generate more than $5 billion in economic activity and employ 19,000 workers.
“The vast majority of operators in Wyoming are small, local businesses that cannot afford the onslaught of increased costs and regulatory burdens being thrust upon them by Washington,” McConnaughey said.
The industry is having a hard time as it is dealing with increasingly pressure from anti-oil and gas regulations.
“Higher royalties and minimum bids, egregious new bonding requirements, the new Rock Springs Resource Management Plan which pulls millions of acres out of availability for production, and more are all serious on their own,” he said.
“Taken together, however, it is clear the Biden administration is making good on its promise to end oil and natural gas production on federal lands and turning its back on those who rely on the industry for jobs.”
We need a lot more blunt talk like this if America is to survive because the nation’s energy security and freedom both face clear and present dangers from the Biden Administration.
Hat Tip: R.N.
Biden’s Efforts to Surreptitiously Force Us Into EVs
The real plan is to force us out of individual vehicles altogether, of course, but in the interim the strategy is to force us toward EVs we don’t want:
The Biden administration recently rolled out new emissions regulations that the New York Times (NYT) said will “transform the American automobile market.”
In what the paper called “one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history,” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is mandating that a majority of new passenger vehicles sold in America be hybrids or EVs by 2032.
The Biden administration and defenders of the policy argue that the EPA’s regulation is “not a ban” on gas-powered cars since carmakers are not prohibited from producing gas-powered vehicles.
Instead, automakers are required to meet a government-mandated “average emissions limit”across their entire vehicle line to force them to produce more EVs and fewer gas-powered cars.
It’s a clever ruse in that it allows the Biden administration to use regulatory power to force automobile manufacturers off of gas-powered vehicles while denying that they are banning them.
Maybe it’s not so clever, if the sales data is any indication. Then again, keep in mind the fundamental objective, pushing us all into cities and onto public transportation.
Hat Tip: S.H.
And, Briefly:
Why We Cannot Believe Anything SNOPES Tells Us, from D.S.
Nothing Can Match Climate Cult Hyperbole, from D.B.
Banks Dramatically Step Up Loans to Oil and Gas, from J.S.
German EV Sales Plummet and Government Ponders Driving Ban, from S.H.
Go Vegan to Reduce Your Food Carbon Footprint, from J.C.
Climate Stats Rely on Data From Nonexistent Temperature Stations, from D.N.
BP Axes Jobs and Scales Back iIs EV Charging Business, from R.N.
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