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Economy

Biden environmental agenda under fire for increasing costs for Americans

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6 minute read

From The Center Square

By Casey Harper

The Biden administration’s energy policies are increasingly costly for Americans, a newly released report says.

U.S. House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., released the report, which argues Biden’s energy policies have increased costs for Americans and hurt the economy.

“The Biden Administration weaponized the power of the executive branch to wage a war against American-made energy production and cement in place radical, far-left energy policies that jeopardize domestic energy development, overload America’s power grid, and raise costs on all American consumers and businesses,” Comer said in a statement.

In particular, President Joe Biden’s recent pause on liquefied natural gas exports, elevated gas prices, and the aggressive push toward transitioning toward electric energy are among the main criticisms lobbed at Biden.

Comer’s office cites analysis from the right-leaning American Action Forum released in April. AAF reports that in 2024 alone, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency, as of the end of April, had proposed 38 new rules and finalized 63 rules. According to AAF, those rules total 33,138 pages and will cost the U.S. economy over a trillion dollars.

The report also highlights the cost of pushing America’s energy needs increasingly to the electric grid.

From the report:

Even as use efficiency improves, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects U.S. utility-generated electricity demand to continue growing at an average annual rate of one percent through 2050. But radical new policies and regulations promulgated by the Biden Administration seek to transform power generation and electricity markets. The Biden Administration is moving to replace highly reliable and affordable existing sources of energy with new sources that are typically less reliable and more expensive. For consumers, the results of these initiatives will predictably be higher costs on utility bills, higher costs for goods and services that consume electricity, invisible energy subsidy costs paid through income and other taxes, as well as economic costs as high electricity prices push some business opportunities overseas.

The White House has cited climate change concerns as it rolled out several policies, including a pause on new export sites for liquefied natural gas.

That LNG pause has been particularly controversial, with a coalition of state and Congressional leaders rallying opposition against it. A lawsuit challenging the constitutionality has been filed by a coalition of states.

Biden’s Department of Energy has defended the decision and stressed that it will not stop any currently existing sales. The White House has also argued that the U.S. is already a leading exporter without new sales.

“Before issuing any new LNG export decisions, DOE is embarking on a transparent process to ensure we are using the most up-to-date economic and environmental analyses to determine whether additional approvals of LNG exports to non-FTA countries are in the ‘public interest,” the DOE said in a February post defending the decision.

Meanwhile, federal climate-related spending has come under fire.

During a news conference last week, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., sparked headlines by exposing that federal funds went to a climate group that was actively supporting the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, an attack that included rape, killing children, and hostage-taking.

“We went to the website of Climate Justice Alliance. This is what we found on the website that our taxpayer dollars are going to organizations such as this,” she said, referencing a pro-Hamas photo reportedly found on the group’s website.

Comer’s reports come as Biden’s Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, took questions from lawmakers last week about Biden’s energy policies.

Republicans took her to task for the increased costs Americans are facing. Energy costs have risen over 35% since Biden took office, according to federal data.

During the hearing, Granholm defended her agency’s work, including Biden’s decision to drain the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve earlier in his term to help address soaring gas prices.

“The Administration remains committed to maintaining a robust and well-functioning SPR. In 2022, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting disruptions in the oil market, the President directed the sale of 180 million barrels,” Granholm said in her written testimony. submitted to the committee. “The emergency sales provided supply certainty and acted as a bridge until domestic production increased, which in turn helped to mitigate the cost increases for American families.”

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Economy

The White Pill: Big Government Can Be Defeated (Just Ask the Soviet Union)

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From StosselTV

People have been “black pilled” to think the world is doomed. Michael Malice says there’s hope.

In his book, “The White Pill,” he argues that tyrannical regimes, like the Soviet Union, can be toppled.

Today, media and universities distort history, and push socialism. It used to be worse. The New York Times once covered up Stalin’s famine, even as millions starved. Why? Malice says it’s because NYT star reporter Walter Duranty liked communism’s utopian promises, and status he got from his exclusive Stalin interviews.

Malice says the fall of the Soviet Union should give us hope that America can resist the universities and media’s brainwashing – or any tyranny that someone is “black pilled” about.

Our video explains Malice’s “white pill” and why you might want to take it.

After 40+ years of reporting, I now understand the importance of limited government and personal freedom.

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Libertarian journalist John Stossel created Stossel TV to explain liberty and free markets to young people.

Prior to Stossel TV he hosted a show on Fox Business and co-anchored ABC’s primetime newsmagazine show, 20/20.

Stossel’s economic programs have been adapted into teaching kits by a non-profit organization, “Stossel in the Classroom.” High school teachers in American public schools now use the videos to help educate their students on economics and economic freedom. They are seen by more than 12 million students every year.

Stossel has received 19 Emmy Awards and has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. Other honors include the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award.

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To get our new weekly video from Stossel TV, sign up here: https://www.johnstossel.com/#subscribe

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Alberta

Emissions cap threatens Indigenous communities with higher costs, fewer opportunities

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Dale Swampy, founder of the National Coalition of Chiefs. Photograph for Canadian Energy Centre

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

National Coalition of Chiefs founder Dale Swampy says Canada needs a more sustainable strategy for reducing emissions

The head of the National Coalition of Chiefs (NCC) says Ottawa’s proposed oil and gas emissions cap couldn’t come at a worse time for Indigenous communities.

Dale Swampy says the cap threatens the combined prospect of higher costs for fuel and groceries, along with fewer economic opportunities like jobs and revenues from involvement in energy projects.   

“Any small fluctuation in the economy is affected on our communities tenfold because we rely so much on basic necessities. And those are going to be the products that increase in price significantly because of this,” says Swampy, who founded the NCC in 2016 to fight poverty through partnerships with the natural resource sector.

He says that of particular concern is the price of fuel, which will skyrocket under the emissions cap because it will force reduced Canadian oil and gas production.

Analysis by S&P Global found that meeting the cap’s requirements would require a production cut of over one million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) in 2030, and 2.1 million boe/d in 2035.

“Production gets reduced, and the cost of fuel goes up,” Swampy says.

“Our concern is that everything that has to do with both fuel for transportation and fuel to heat our homes is amplified on First Nation communities because we live in rural Canada. We live in isolated communities, and it costs much more for us to operate our daily lives because we have to travel much further than anybody in a metropolitan area. So, it’s going to impact us greatly.”

Indigenous communities are already stretched financially, he says.

“What you could buy in 2019 terms of meat and produce is almost double now, and even though the inflation rate is trending downwards, we still haven’t gotten over the impact of what it costs for a bag of groceries these days,” Swampy says.

“In our communities, more than half are under the age of 21, so there’s a lot of bigger families out there struggling to just get food on the table.”

The frustrating timing of the cap is that it comes amid a rising tide of Indigenous involvement in Canadian oil and gas. Since 2022, more than 75 Indigenous communities in Alberta and B.C. have agreed to become part owners of energy projects.

Three major projects – the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion, Coastal GasLink Pipeline and LNG Canada export terminal – together have spent more than $11 billion with Indigenous and local businesses.

“We’re at a turning point right now. There’s a real drive towards getting us involved in equity opportunities, employment opportunities, and contracting opportunities,” Swampy says.

“Everybody who didn’t talk to us in the past is coming to our front door and saying, ‘Do you want to work with us?’ It couldn’t come at a worse time when we have this opportunity. The emissions cap is going to reduce the amount of activity, and it’s going to reduce the amount of investment,” he says.

“We’re part of that industry now. We’re entrenched in it now, and we have to support it in order to support our people that work in this industry.”

Economic growth, and more time, is needed to fund development of low emissions energy sources without ruining the economy, he says.

“I think we need more consultation. We’d like to see them go back to the table and try to incorporate more of a sustainable strategy for emission reductions,” Swampy says.

“We’re the only country in the world that’s actually incorporating this type of legislation. Do you think the rest of the world is going to do this type of thing? No, they’re going to eat our lunch. They’re going to replace the production that we give up, they’re going to excel in the economy because of it, and they won’t talk about significant emission reduction initiatives.”

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