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Daily Caller

East Anglia educated environmental scholar says it’s time to “Scrap Green Energy Handouts Once And For All”

Published

10 months ago

6 minute read

From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Vijay Jayaraj

Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K.

As the presidential election nears, it is reasonable to ask why the United States continues to give away billions to “avert” a fabricated climate crisis to countries that have little interest in participating in the charade beyond accepting handouts.

The United States has been a significant contributor to global climate initiatives, most notably through its involvement in the Paris Agreement.

At the 15th U.N. Climate Conference in 2009, rich countries pledged to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020 to assist developing nations fight climate change. This target was said to have been achieved for the first time in 2022, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Having the world’s largest economy, the United States was expected to support a large portion of the Green Climate Fund  (GCF), which resulted in a promise of $1 billion.

GCF claims to be the “world’s largest dedicated climate fund” with a portfolio valued at $12 billion, or $45 billion when co-financing of projects is included. According to the GCF website, the fund delivers “transformative climate action in 140 countries” to keep “average global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius.”

To which one might respond: Poppycock! No “climate action” will have a significant effect on temperatures, and the 2 degrees cited hardly matter environmentally in any case. Climate policies “will have a trivial effect on temperature but disastrous effects on people worldwide,” concludes a recent paper by Prof. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Prof. William Happer of Princeton University.

Besides, contrary to doomsday predictions, the Earth is flourishing in many ways. Global poverty has decreased  dramatically over the past few decades, and agricultural yields have increased significantly partly, because of higher levels of atmospheric CO2. Natural disasters — often cited as evidence of climate change — are causing fewer deaths than ever before, despite population growth and development along coastlines and other vulnerable areas.

The outrage of having taxpayer money poured down the climate rat hole is compounded by the fact that recipients of GCF grants include China and India, the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases that are rapidly expanding consumption of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the bone-headed policy of the United States is to reduce the use of these affordable and abundant fuels to the detriment of household budgets, business profitability, electric grid reliability and national security.

So, instead of pouring billions into international climate projects, the United States should prioritize its own energy security. This means developing its oil, coal and natural gas and strengthening partnerships with reliable allies like Canada.

The United States’ vast reserves of natural gas have been made available through advanced extraction technologies such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, making the country one of the world’s leading producers. This abundance can ensure a reliable and cost-effective energy supply for other nations and reduce U.S. dependency on foreign sources, enhancing national security.

The intermittent nature of wind and solar power — both GCF darlings — necessitates backup power sources or massive battery storage systems that come with their own environmental and economic costs. The materials needed for batteries, for instance, are often mined in regions with poor environmental records or by using child labor.

By contrast, modern fossil fuel extraction in the United States and Canada is subject to some of the strictest environmental regulations in the world. Ironically, by outsourcing energy production to less regulated countries in the name of “going green,” the United States causes more environmental harm globally.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis in Europe starkly illustrated the dangers of energy dependence. European countries, having underinvested in fossil-fuel infrastructure and a reliance on Russian gas, found themselves in a precarious position.

This example alone is enough for the United States to reset its priorities. Promotion of failed and mostly unwanted “green” policies should be replaced with aggressive development of fossil fuel resources, as well as nuclear power and building robust energy partnerships with allies.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K.

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Daily Caller

USAID Quietly Sent Thousands Of Viruses To Chinese Military-Linked Biolab

Published on July 9, 2025

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Emily Kopp

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) shipped thousands of viral samples to a lab in Wuhan over the course of a 10-year program even though it had no formal agreement with the lab in place, according to previously unreported documents.

The documents show that USAID funded the exportation of 11,000 samples from Yunnan Province, where some of the closest relatives of the COVID-19 virus circulate, to Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic, with no apparent plan for ensuring the samples were not misdirected to bioweapons and remained accessible to the U.S. government.

A $210 million USAID public health program called PREDICT, steered by the University of California-Davis, collected viral samples in countries throughout the globe but lacked long-term storage when funding dried up, according to rudimentary plans in 2019.

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USAID’s sample dispensation plan for China is sparse: “No need [sic] information from Yunnan. They were never an official lab partner for PREDICT. All samples they helped collected [sic] are sent to, tested, and stored in Wuhan.”

The “lab” refers to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). WIV was a close partner of USAID contractor EcoHealth Alliance and a slated partner for a PREDICT-like program supported by the State Department. The lab has poor biosafety practices and ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). 

One of the closest known relatives of the COVID virus is among the viruses sampled with USAID funding.

“Investigations involving USAID’s former funding of global health awards remain active and ongoing,” a senior State Department official said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The American people can rest assured knowing that under the Trump Administration we will not be funding these controversial programs.”

The internal documents were obtained through a FOIA lawsuit brought by U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit newsroom and public health research group.

The shuttering of USAID – which was officially completed Tuesday – has ignited a debate about its net impact on global health. A study in The Lancet projected an association between a dropoff in USAID funding and 14 million deaths based on an epidemiological model.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Tuesday that USAID spending has often undermined rather than strengthened American interests.

“Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War,” Rubio said. “Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown.”

The now-defunct agency’s connection to the Wuhan lab complicates its global health legacy.

“The USAID $210 million contract for PREDICT should have included contractual terms that required all samples, or at least copies of all samples, be transferred to and stored by a US government facility,” said Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright told the DCNF. “The PREDICT grift did none of this.”

UC Davis did not respond to a request for comment. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Did USAID Fund COVID’s Ancestor?

Many of the viruses stored at the lab in Wuhan may have been sampled with U.S. funding yet remain out of reach for U.S. government entities investigating the origins of COVID.

The samples were set to be preserved for testing – with human samples preserved for 10 years – the documents show. But the documents suggest that requirement was never incorporated into a formal contract with USAID.

The two scientists supervising the samples were: Ben Hu, a virologist at the WIV, who reportedly became sick with COVID-like symptoms in 2019; and Peter Daszak, a scientist who was debarred from federal funding after the U.S. government deemed him a threat to public safety for inadequate oversight of the research in Wuhan.

Hu and Daszak did not reply to requests for comment.

The documents show PREDICT contractors discussing viral samples taken from wildlife and stored in India, Liberia, Malaysia, the Republic of Congo and China. Some of the samples were stored in virus-transport media (VTM), which allows researchers to store live viruses for later use in the lab.

“It’s not rocket science to require a contract and supporting paperwork which establishes a relationship, testing protocol, and chain of custody, when one is sending out lab samples,” said Reuben Guttman, a partner at Guttman, Buschner & Brooks PLLC who specializes in ensuring the integrity of government programs, in an interview with the DCNF. “In any scientific endeavor, you need confidence in your results. That requires paperwork to prove your methodology is sound.”

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Daily Caller

Trump Issues Order To End Green Energy Gravy Train, Cites National Security

Published on July 9, 2025

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Audrey Streb

President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the end of green energy subsidies by strengthening provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Monday night, citing national security concerns and unnecessary costs to taxpayers.

The order argues that a heavy reliance on green energy subsidies compromise the reliability of the power grid and undermines energy independence. Trump called for the U.S. to “rapidly eliminate” federal green energy subsidies and to “build upon and strengthen” the repeal of wind and solar tax credits remaining in the reconciliation law in the order, directing the Treasury Department to enforce the phase-out of tax credits.

“For too long, the Federal Government has forced American taxpayers to subsidize expensive and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar,” the order states. “Reliance on so-called ‘green’ subsidies threatens national security by making the United States dependent on supply chains controlled by foreign adversaries.”

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Former President Joe Biden established massive green energy subsidies under his signature 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which did not receive a single Republican vote.

The reconciliation package did not immediately terminate Biden-era federal subsidies for green energy technology, phasing them out over time instead, though some policy experts argued that drawn-out timelines could lead to an indefinite continuation of subsidies. Trump’s executive order alludes to potential loopholes in the bill, calling for a review by Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to ensure that green energy projects that have a “beginning of construction” tax credit deadline are not “circumvented.”

Additionally, the executive order directs the U.S. to end taxpayer support for green energy supply chains that are controlled by foreign adversaries, alluding to China’s supply chain dominance for solar and wind. Trump also specifically highlighted costs to taxpayers, market distortions and environmental impacts of subsidized green energy development in explaining the policy.

Ahead of the reconciliation bill becoming law, Trump told Republicans that “we’ve got all the cards, and we are going to use them.” Several House Republicans noted that the president said he would use executive authority to enhance the bill and strictly enforce phase-outs, which helped persuade some conservatives to back the bill.

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