From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By David Blackmon

In the wake of the election of President Donald Trump to serve a second term in office, along with presumptive Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, many are now asking about what the future will hold for the oddly named Inflation Reduction Act.

Trump made it repeatedly clear on the campaign trail that he is not a fan of that law, which was passed on straight party-line votes in both houses of Congress, or of the hundreds of billions of dollars in green energy subsidies contained in it.

In a statement sent out in a post-election memo, Sierra Club President Ben Jealous took on a pessimistic tone, saying: “Donald Trump was a disaster for climate progress during his first term, and everything he’s said and done since suggests he’s eager to do even more damage this time.” Given the major role played by the Sierra Club and other climate-alarm groups in writing the IRA, that is exactly the kind of comments we might expect.

But a full repeal of the IRA seems unlikely to succeed, even with GOP control of the House and Senate. Republican majorities will be slim and the GOP has never shown an ability to hold all its members together when voting on controversial issues. Thus, a more scalpel-like approach seems more likely to succeed.

I asked Karr Ingham, a respected petroleum economist who serves as the president of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, if he thinks Trump and his administration would seek to repeal the Inflation Reduction act in full. Ingham said: “I certainly hope so.” Specifically, Ingham pointed to a need to repeal “the methane tax [waste emissions charge] in the IRA, and frankly, much of the spending boondoggle that is the IRA should simply be eliminated.”

Tom Pyle, president of D.C.-based think tank the Institute for Energy Research, said he believes President Trump “absolutely should” pursue a full repeal of that law. “The vast array of subsidies embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is already destabilizing our electricity grid, while the spending further fuels inflation and contributes to soaring government deficits.”

Pyle further notes that Trump has promised an array of tax cuts for working Americans and families and will need to find budget offsets for those. Pyle believes the IRA offers such an opportunity. “Getting rid of subsidies for big corporations in exchange for tax relief on working families is both good policy and good politics,” he adds.

But American Petroleum Institute President Mike Sommers said his group favors retaining at least some major pieces of the IRA, specifically pointing to subsidies for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen development. “We’ll advocate for provisions that we support, and we’ll seek repeal of provisions that we think don’t line up with continued production in the states of oil and gas,” Sommers told Politico. This is no surprise given that some of API’s biggest members have already made big bets on both CCS and hydrogen projects.

It is also important to remember that, since the IRA was signed into law in September 2022, renewable energy companies have invested hundreds of billions of dollars into wind, solar and electric vehicles projects, and a big portion of those investments are happening in key Republican states and counties.

Jason Grumet, CEO at the American Clean Power Association, said in a statement that, “Private sector clean energy investment is bringing jobs and economic opportunity to small towns and rural communities across the nation, while hundreds of new factories have come online in states that have seen far too many good jobs move overseas.” Grumet also pointed to the fact that quite a lot of investment into both wind and solar took place during Trump’s first term in office even without the added incentives from the IRA subsidy and tax incentive regimes, adding that ACPA and its members are “committed to working with the Trump-Vance administration and the new Congress to continue this great American success story.”

There is little question the Trump administration will take a hard look at many of the IRA provisions, but political realities combined with the billions already invested based on the continuation of these programs makes a full repeal seem highly unlikely.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Ian Madsen 

The use of hydrocarbons is a necessity for modern life.

Climate Crusaders claim that our society could do without oil and natural gas by proceeding to a Utopia of ‘Net Zero’ by 2050, extracting CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions from the atmosphere. However, as the Canadian Energy Centre notes, that cherished goal cannot be realized.  This is true of fueling transport, heating or electric power, and all other uses of hydrocarbon fossil fuels.

People use oil and natural gas constituents for more than just burning.  They use them in every sector of the economy, including military equipment and non profit organizations such as universities and hospitals.

The main component is ethane, C2H6, a ‘natural gas liquid’, extracted from raw natural gas. Ethane is then converted to ethylene,  a versatile building block for many other chemicals, Other natural gas liquids, such as propane and butane, are generally used as fuel, in petrochemical production, and as some oil components.

Ethylene is used in various plastics, textiles, detergents and antifreeze. Plastics are used for containers, in countless household and industrial products, and tubing, filters, surgical masks, gloves, gowns, bandages, disinfectants and other medical products. Petrochemical-sourced materials are in the outer casing of medical devices and their components– important instruments such as blood diagnostics machines, DNA sequencers, MRI devices, ultra-sound and CAT and PET scanners.

Styrene, an ethylene end-product, makes synthetic rubber in tires. Synthetic rubber and related products are vital for the gaskets, seals, hoses and tubes in internal combustion, jet and diesel engines.  Diesel engines are used in long-distance trucks bringing food to supermarkets. They also power excavating equipment that mines ores to refine into metals, fire trucks, and other machines, such as combines and tractors, which are vital to agriculture.

Petrochemicals also go into polymer fabrics such as polyester, spandex, acrylic and ‘breathable’ fabrics used by themselves or with ‘natural’ materials such as wool, cotton, silk and linen to make a great variety of items like clothes, underclothes, athletic wear, waterproof or winter jackets, hosiery, belts, handbags, upholstery material, furniture coverings, lawn and garden furniture, slope-stabilizing geotechnical fabrics, retractable arenas’ roof coverings, bedding materials, curtains, drapes, and tablecloths.

The same for the construction industries. Such products include paints, solvents, lacquers, countertops, knobs, flooring, adhesives, abrasives, pipes, plumbing and lighting fixtures. Two major insulation products builders and renovators are compelled to add to homes and office buildings  make use of petrochemicals:  polyurethane foam and styrofoam. Plastics go into the insulation’s outer sheath and for house wrap.

Plastics and related synthetic materials are also used in the latest generation of high-insulation windows, solar panels and wind turbines. Hence, petroleum based products are crucial to climate crusaders’ goal of lower energy consumption.

Plastics indeed add to the garbage volumes people generate. But plastic trash is manageable. Current recycling programs are ineffective, says the journal Nature. Despite rampant alarmism,  waste-to-energy plastic destruction, as is bacterial digestion, is a viable alternative.

Petrochemicals and plastics make modern life possible. While substitutes are now under development, they are unlikely to become common anytime soon. So forbidding plastics would be detrimental, especially for emerging economies.  Petrochemicals and plastics derived from hydrocarbons are crucial to making less-developed nations healthy and prosperous.  Depriving them of that opportunity would be cruel and unnecessary.

Ian Madsen is the Senior Policy Analyst at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy