Biden following California energy policy of ‘doing everything possible to INCREASE the cost of electricity & fuels’

Biden’s climate plans are energizing national security problems

https://www.cfact.org/2021/01/26/bidens-climate-plans-are-energizing-national-security-problems/

By Ronald Stein

For the first time in 70 years, through the fracking boom in recent years, the U.S. attained energy independence status meaning we were no longer held hostage to unstable Petro-powers and the vagaries of foreign energy supplies. Under President Trump, America had a very aggressive pro-domestic energy policy, that allowed America to become not only energy independent, which politicians have talked about for decades, but energy dominant.  For the first time since Harry Truman was president, we had more energy exports than imports.

In addition, fracking enabled the U.S. to boost its output of natural gas, with many major utilities now using the cheap, clean source of energy instead of coal and other major sources of carbon dioxide emissions. The result: the U.S. is one of the only major countries whose CO2 emissions are plunging, with output now at the lowest levels since 1985.

Under the Biden climate plan, America will be discouraging U.S. energy independence, starting with suspending Federal Oil and Gas Permits, encouraging the shuttering, and halting of further fracking efforts in America, and the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline. As a result, China just received an unwarranted gift of industrial and military advantage.  America’s most serious competitor can now look forward to Canada’s oil flowing across the Pacific on tankers, rather than south to the U.S.A. via the safer, cleaner, and more efficient pipeline.

Biden knows that oil and gas are not just an American industry with its 135 refineries in the U.S. but an international industry with more than 700 refineries worldwide that service the demands of the 8 billion living on earth.

The unintended consequences of Biden’s goal of getting rid of fossil fuels in America by 2050 is that it would result in importing the fuels and products from foreign locations that have significantly less stringent environmental controls. That plan will work, but with higher costs to the American consumer, and may put America at a national security risk with increased dependance on foreign countries for the products and fuels to support America’s economy.

With the Biden climate plan, America is about to regress from that energy independent status as we are about to join California and its dependency on foreign countries for its energy needs. Is Biden really excited about California being the only state in contiguous America that imports most of its crude oil energy demands from foreign country suppliers to meet the energy demands of the state?

The Democratic platform loves California and wants to clone its policies and regulations for the other 49 states. Biden should open his eyes to what is going on in California, before cloning it for the other 49 states.

  • On the electrification goals of the state, California professes to be the leader of everything and spouts voracious pride of being the State that imports more electricity than any other state, through its dysfunctional energy policies.

California energy policies have made the state’s electricity and fuel prices among the highest in the nation which have been contributory to the rapid growth of “energy poverty” for the 18 million (45 percent of the 40 million Californians) that represent the Hispanic and African American populations of the state. Why does Biden want to clone California for the other 49 states?

We know what the Democratic platform has done to California, now with the highest cost of electricity and fuels in the country, and the highest poverty and homeless rates in America. California governor Newsom is utilizing the states dysfunctional energy policies to continue to do everything possible to further increase those costs to the detriment of those that can least afford it.

Biden’s climate plan that puts a major focus on electrifying everything, from intermittent wind and solar to power the grid, to the banning of gas-powered vehicles means a crushing change for America. The unintended consequences of reliance on wind, solar, and EV batteries, is that they represent electrification that is dependent on exotic minerals and metals mined in foreign countries which have virtually no environmental regulations or labor laws, resulting in worldwide environmental degradation and humanity atrocities to secure those exotic materials. The bad news is that China controls about 90 percent of the supply chain.

Despite all the hype and the media coverage controlled by less than 10 percent of the world population located in the richer countries, about electrifying the world with intermittent electricity, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has not wavered from their continuous forecasts that the other 90 percent of the world’s population will continue its demands from industries that were virtually nonexistent before fossil fuels entered the horizon a few centuries ago, such as: agriculture, medical, plastics, communication, electronics, military equipment, airlines, merchant ships, and construction equipment.

Biden’s “war on pollution”, will require worldwide transparency of the supply chains, and the environmental and labor protection laws and standards, to control the environmental degradation and humanity atrocities occurring around the world from the mining in the foreign countries that dominate the supply chains of the exotic minerals and metals to support wind turbines, solar panels and EV battery construction.

Cloning California to be dependent on foreign countries for its fossil fuel needs, and to China and other developing countries, for the supply of the exotic minerals and metals to support wind, solar, and EV batteries, is energizing (no pun intended) the national security of America’s economy.

Biden, like his favorite state of California, are doing everything possible to INCREASE the cost of electricity and fuels, that drives up the cost of everything. Raising the minimum wage is a temporary band aid on the wound but does not heal the wound.  To heal the wound that is causing homelessness and poverty to be on the rise, we need to DECREASE the cost of energy, not increase it while constantly being aware of any national security tradeoffs in pursuit of an American climate plan.

Author

  • Ron Stein is an engineer who, drawing upon 25 years of project management and business development experience, launched PTS Advance in 1995. He is an author, engineer, and energy expert who writes frequently on issues of energy and economics.

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