Harris, Buttigieg criticized for being tone-deaf on energy
By Seth McLaughlin – The Washington Times
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
Republican and conservative commentators are accusing Vice President Kamala Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg of being tone-deaf, given their recent focus on electric vehicles and not on soaring gas prices.
Ms. Harris and Mr. Buttigieg faced blowback following an event last Monday in which they promoted new spending included in the bipartisan infrastructure law and the American Rescue Plan directed toward transitioning the nation toward zero-emission vehicles, including electric buses, and creating a national network of electric vehicle chargers.
“The Biden Administration could not be more tone deaf,” given the way soaring gas prices are hitting people at the pump, Rep. Markwayne Mullin, Oklahoma Republican and a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement.
“Vice President Kamala Harris and DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg spent the afternoon promoting electric vehicles and Green New Deal policies,” Mr. Mullin tweeted Monday. “Are you kidding me?”
Republicans say the Biden administration has embraced disastrous policies that have made the nation less energy independent.
They say the nation must be focused on doing whatever it can to lower gasoline prices at home, which have been surging following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, putting added financial pressure on individuals and families across the United States.
The United States has been a key importer of Russian energy and has imported tens of millions of barrels of crude oil from Russia every month.
The war in Ukraine also has sent the cost of nickel skyrocketing to the point where the London Metal Exchange suspended trading on it.
Nickel is used in stainless steel and is one of the most widely used ingredients for electric vehicle batteries.
Conservative commentator Tomi Lahren said Tuesday on Fox Nation that Ms. Harris and Mr. Buttigieg are “both tone-deaf, and they both don’t want to face the music.”
“They think this repeated talking point of green jobs and green energy is going to do the trick, but it simply will not,” Ms. Lahren said. “Right now the world is in crisis, we have an energy crisis, and if we can make it here at home, which we can, that is absolutely what we should be doing.”
I couldn’t agree more with Ms. Lahren’s comments.
Recent article in Newsweek by BOBBY JINDAL , FORMER GOVERNOR, LOUISIANA
ON 2/28/22 AT 6:30 AM EST
President Joe Biden‘s administration defends rising gasoline costs as the cost Americans must pay for standing up for our values.
It is a neat trick to cite Russian sanctions for price increases that predate the sanctions.
Democrats blame Russian strongman Vladimir Putin for Hillary Clinton‘s loss in 2016 and record-breaking inflation rates, but Hillary was a flawed candidate and Biden has long been waging war on affordable energy.
Biden’s first actions as president included re-entering the Paris Climate Accord, canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, halting a leasing program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), issuing a 60-day halt on new oil and gas leases and drilling permits on federal lands and waters (which account for nearly 25% of U.S. production), directing federal agencies to eliminate fossil fuel “subsidies,” imposing tougher regulations on oil and gas methane emissions (which were first broadcast under President Barack Obama and had been eased under President Donald Trump), and hiring SEC regulators to prepare climate and ESG disclosure mandates.
I had to do a little research on this ESG thing. Here is what I found.
Environmental, social, and corporate governance is an approach to evaluating the extent to which a corporation works on behalf of social goals that go beyond the role of a corporation to maximize profits on behalf of the shareholders.
ESG’s three central factors are:
Environmental criteria, which examines how a business performs as a steward of our natural environment, focusing on:
- waste and pollution
- resource depletion
- greenhouse gas emission
- deforestation
- climate change
Social criteria, which looks at how the company treats people, and concentrates on:
- employee relations & diversity
- working conditions, including child labor and slavery
- local communities; seeks explicitly to fund projects or institutions that will serve poor and underserved communities globally
- health and safety
- conflict
Governance criteria, which examines how a corporation polices itself – how the company is governed, and focuses on:
- tax strategy
- executive remuneration
- donations and political lobbying
- corruption and bribery
- board diversity and structure
The Biden administration’s push to require all publically-traded firms to report their greenhouse gas emissions as a component of new public disclosure requirements is a step toward making ESG investing mandatory.
In this new twist, the government will decide which firms deserve access to investment capital. Mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions will lead to government regulations that will curtail new capital investments in companies that produce or consume fossil fuels.
With a United Nations endorsement, the socially responsible investment fashion of the late 20th century transitioned into the Environmental, Social and Governance movement or ESG.
Once a voluntary movement that prioritized investment in companies that adopt policies and practices that promote the progressive left’s environment, labor and human rights causes, ESG investing is about to become a regulatory tool they will use to achieve specific objectives.
So back to Biden’s first actions as President.
The Keystone pipeline’s cancelation denies America cheaper and environmentally safer access to Canadian oil for Gulf Coast refineries.
Biden’s other policies will do even more damage, make America weaker and more dependent on foreign countries, and drive up energy prices.
Even New Mexico’s Democratic governor criticized Biden’s suspension of oil and gas leases, asked for an exemption to protect her economy and education funding, and argued that shifting production elsewhere would increase carbon emissions.
Biden’s Interior Department has proposed policies to increase the cost of domestically produced energy. Secretary Debra Haaland has recommended that we hike the federal royalty rate for oil and gas drilling on federal lands, consider raising the bond payments companies must set aside for future cleanups, and focus leasing in areas close to existing oil and gas infrastructure.
House Democrats would like to go even further and ban drilling in ANWR and along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Biden extended his 60-day moratorium on new oil and gas leases indefinitely, until the administration could complete a comprehensive review on “climate change impacts.” (again, ESG)
Republican attorneys general successfully sued the administration to resume oil and gas lease sales, generating $192 million in bids for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico.
Though companies have stockpiled leases and drilling permits, anticipating a hostile Biden administration, such moves offer only temporary respite.
Biden’s moves to limit drilling activity and increase the costs of that activity will especially harm the economies of states like New Mexico, Wyoming, North Dakota and Colorado.
Biden increased the “social cost of carbon,” a measure first used by Obama, from $7 to $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions.
The administration cites modeled impacts of rising sea levels, droughts and other consequences of climate change to justify more expensive regulations on the oil and gas industry.
Republican attorneys general sued, arguing Biden does not have the authority to unilaterally raise the estimate. A federal judge agreed the higher cost would “artificially increase the cost estimates of lease sales” and harm energy-producing states. Biden responded by again halting new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters.
Biden’s progressive financial regulators are poised to do even more damage to America’s economy by discouraging energy investment and politicizing capital allocation.
They have promised to scrutinize loans to oil and gas companies, imposing tests on how investments could be threatened by climate change, rather than allowing the banks to assess their risks themselves.
Biden has nominated Sarah Raskin, who has called fossil fuels “a terrible investment” and wants to use the regulatory system to move away from “high-emission” investments, to the position of vice chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve System.
SEC chairman Gary Gensler will require public companies to make more climate disclosures, signaling to investors to be wary.
Secretary Yellen and other officials have warned climate change could endanger both banks and the broader financial system.
Democrats have previously wanted to use regulatory agencies to go beyond ensuring financial stability to attack industries like payday lenders and gun sellers. Letting financial regulators expand their mandate to include picking winners and losers will make it harder and more expensive for oil and gas companies to obtain financing.
During the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Biden portrayed himself as a moderate, but he subsequently moved to the left of even Obama to catch up with his party.
Whereas Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren promised to end all fracking, Biden confusingly promised to end new fracking—which his staff clarified meant stopping new oil and gas permitting on federal lands and waters.
In his final general election debate with Trump, Biden shifted again and promised to “transition [away] from the oil industry.”
Democrats reject an all-of-the-above market-driven energy strategy and want to use subsidies and taxes to favor certain types of renewable energy.
Liberal activists reject zero-emissions nuclear power, even as Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania all saw their carbon emissions increase after they closed nuclear plants.
Some activists welcome the higher costs caused by this radical energy transition as causing decreased consumption.
America has worked across multiple administrations to achieve energy independence and to build a reliable and affordable energy system, aided by technological breakthroughs like fracking, deepwater production, increasing efficiency and the falling costs of solar and wind power.
Democrats seem determined to seize defeat from the jaws of victory, resulting in higher prices and brownouts.
Biden is asking Qatar to help replace Russian natural gas supplies to Europe, but he was already asking OPEC to produce more oil last summer in response to increasing prices. He is asking other nations to do what he is not willing to allow American energy companies and workers themselves to do. Biden needs to reverse course.
American oil and gas producers should be the ones helping to lower prices by increasing production and exports to Europe.
@BobbyJindal was governor of Louisiana, 2008-16, and a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Jindal serves on the board of a company that supplies offshore energy companies.
Now folks, in keeping with this ESG mess, I found another article that I found fascinating.
Yellen Urges Development Banks To Stop Fossil Fuel Funding
By Julianne Geiger – Jul 13, 2021, 9:31 AM CDT, Oilprice.com
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is prepared to gather together the heads of development banks to persuade them to stop fossil fuel project funding, according to Bloomberg.
The Treasury Secretary intends to “articulate our expectations that the banks align their portfolios with the Paris Agreement and net-zero goals as urgently as possible,” according to a written speech she is set to deliver at a climate conference in Italy.
The speech, soon to be delivered, follows just days behind a similar message that the financial community received at the G20, where financial leaders for the first time every acknowledged that carbon pricing was at least a potential tool in addressing climate change.
While Bloomberg notes that while development banks have never been responsible for the big bucks behind most fossil fuel projects, those funds are largely seen as a stepping stone for the projects to secure hefty commercial funding.
Since the pandemic began, development banks have thrown just $3 billion into oil and natural gas, with $0 going towards coal projects for the first time ever.
Meanwhile, development banks have funded $12 billion in clean energy projects.
But it is precisely these natural gas projects that will allow many countries to quickly and efficiently transition away from coal.
Prior to her appointment as Treasury Secretary, Yellen was criticized for her fossil fuel stock holdings. The Secretary vowed to divest her holdings in all fossil fuel companies as well as any companies that support fossil fuels.
Nevertheless, even before her time as Treasury Secretary and the chairman of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), Yellen has been a staunch supporter of the environment and highly critical of the role fossil fuels have played in greenhouse gas emissions.
The FSOC, Financial Stability Oversight Council, is tasked with identifying risks to the financial stability of the United States, among other things. In May, Yellen said that the FSOC will work to improve climate-related financial disclosures and other sources of data to better measure potential exposures to climate-related financial risks, adding that it is her primary tool in assessing climate change risks and coming up with policies that will promote the transition to a low-carbon economy.
So there you have it folks. As gas prices soar, Biden continues to blame Putin and the war in Ukraine. With what I have shared with you this morning, do you believe him? I don’t.