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Climate Panic Behind Energy Crisis

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Climate activists, including members of Extinction Rebellion, participate in a demonstration in front of the Thurgood Marshall US Courthouse on June 30, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

My testimony to U.S. Congress

I was delighted to be invited to testify before the United States Congress for the seventh time in two years. Below are my oral remarks. All references can be found in my full testimony, which draws on much of what I have published here on Substack over the last 18 months. To read my full testimony, please click here.

Good morning Chairwoman Maloney, Environment Subcommittee Chairman Khanna, and Ranking Member Comer, and members of the Committee. I am grateful to you for inviting my testimony.

I share this committee’s concern with climate change and misinformation. It is for that reason that I have, for more than 20 years, conducted energy analysis, worked as a journalist, and advocated for renewables, coal-to-natural gas switching, and nuclear power to reduce carbon emissions.

At the same time, I am deeply troubled by the way concern over climate change is being used to repress domestic energy production. The U.S. is failing to produce sufficient quantities of natural gas and oil for ourselves and our allies. The result is the worst energy crisis in 50 years, continuing inflation, and harm to workers and consumers in the U.S. and the Western world. Energy shortages are already resulting in rising social disorder and the toppling of governments, and they are about to get much worse.

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We should do more to address climate change but in a framework that prioritizes energy abundance, reliability, and security. Climate change is real and we should seek to reduce carbon emissions. But it’s also the case that U.S. carbon emissions declined 22% between 2005 and 2020, global emissions were flat over the last decade, and weather-related disasters have declined since the beginning of this century. There is no scientific scenario for mass death from climate change. A far more immediate and dangerous threat is insufficient energy supplies due to U.S. government policies and actions aimed at reducing oil and gas production.

The Biden administration claims to be doing all it can to increase oil and natural gas production but it’s not. It has issued fewer leases for oil and gas production on federal lands than any other administration since World War II. It blocked the expansion of oil refining. It is using environmental regulations to reduce liquified natural gas production and exports. It has encouraged greater production by Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and other OPEC nations, rather than in the U.S. And its representatives continue to emphasize that their goal is to end the use of fossil fuels, including the cleanest one, natural gas, thereby undermining private sector investment.

The author preparing to testify before Congress.

If this committee is truly concerned about corporate profits and misinformation, then it must approach the issue fairly. The big tech companies make larger profits than big oil but have for some reason not been called to account. Nor has there been any acknowledgement that the U.S. oil and gas industry effectively subsidized American consumers to the tune of $100 billion per year for most of the last 12 years, resulting in many bankruptcies and financial losses. As for misinformation about climate change and energy, it is rife on all sides, and I question whether the demands for censorship by big tech firms are being made in good faith, or are consistent with the rights protected by the First Amendment.

Efforts by the Biden administration and Congress to increase reliance on weather dependent renewable energies and electric vehicles (EVs) risk undermining American industries and helping China. China has more global market share of the production of renewables, EVs, and their material components than OPEC has over global oil production. It would be a grave error for the U.S. to sacrifice its hard-won energy security for dependence on China for energy. While I support the repatriation of those industries to the U.S., doing so will take decades, not years. Increased costs tied to higher U.S. labor and environmental standards could further impede their development. There are also significant underlying physical problems with renewables, stemming from their energy-dilute, material-intensive nature, that may not be surmountable. Already we have seen that their weather-dependence, large land requirements, and large material throughput result in renewables making electricity significantly more expensive everywhere they are deployed at scale.

The right path forward would increase oil and natural gas production in the short and medium terms, and increase nuclear production in the medium to long terms. The U.S. government is, by extending and expanding heavy subsidies for renewables, expanding control over energy markets, but without a clear vision for the role of oil, gas, and nuclear.

We should seek a significant expansion of natural gas and oil production, pipelines, and refineries to provide greater energy security for ourselves, and to produce in sufficient quantities for our allies. We should seek a significant expansion of nuclear power to increase energy abundance and security, produce hydrogen, and one day phase out the use of all fossil fuels. While the latter shouldn’t be our main focus, particularly now, radical decarbonization can and should be a medium- to long-term objective within the context of creating abundant, secure, and low-cost energy supplies to power our remarkable nation and civilization.

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Business

Saskatchewan becomes first Canadian province to fully eliminate carbon tax

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Saskatchewan has become the first Canadian province to free itself entirely of the carbon tax.

On March 27, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced the removal of the provincial industrial carbon tax beginning April 1, boosting the province’s industry and making Saskatchewan the first carbon tax free province.

“The immediate effect is the removal of the carbon tax on your Sask Power bills, saving Saskatchewan families and small businesses hundreds of dollars a year. And in the longer term, it will reduce the cost of other consumer products that have the industrial carbon tax built right into their price,” said Moe.

Under Moe’s direction, Saskatchewan has dropped the industrial carbon tax which he says will allow Saskatchewan to thrive under a “tariff environment.”

“I would hope that all of the parties running in the federal election would agree with those objectives and allow the provinces to regulate in this area without imposing the federal backstop,” he continued.

The removal of the tax is estimated to save Saskatchewan residents up to 18 cents a liter in gas prices.

The removal of the tax will take place on April 1, the same day the consumer carbon tax will reduce to 0 percent under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s direction. Notably, Carney did not scrap the carbon tax legislation: he just reduced its current rate to zero. This means it could come back at any time.

Furthermore, while Carney has dropped the consumer carbon tax, he has previously revealed that he wishes to implement a corporation carbon tax, the effects of which many argued would trickle down to all Canadians.

The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) celebrated Moe’s move, noting that the carbon tax was especially difficult on farmers.

“It puts our farming community and our business people in rural municipalities at a competitive disadvantage, having to pay this and compete on the world stage,” he continued.

“We’ve got a carbon tax on power — and that’s going to be gone now — and propane and natural gas and we use them more and more every year, with grain drying and different things in our farming operations,” he explained.

“I know most producers that have grain drying systems have three-phase power. If they haven’t got natural gas, they have propane to fire those dryers. And that cost goes on and on at a high level, and it’s made us more noncompetitive on a world stage,” Huber decalred.

The carbon tax is wildly unpopular and blamed for the rising cost of living throughout Canada. Currently, Canadians living in provinces under the federal carbon pricing scheme pay $80 per tonne.

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2025 Federal Election

Fight against carbon taxes not over yet

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By Franco Terrazzano 

As the federal government removes the consumer carbon tax, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on all party leaders to oppose all carbon taxes, including the hidden tax on business.

“Canadians fought hard to force Ottawa to back down on its consumer carbon tax and now the fight moves to stopping the hidden carbon tax on business,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Canadians can’t afford a carbon tax on business that pushes up prices at the gas station and makes it harder for our businesses to compete while they’re already struggling with a trade war.”

Today, the federal government cut the consumer carbon tax rate to $0. This will reduce taxes by about 17 cents per litre of gasoline, 21 cents per litre of diesel and 15 cents per cubic metre of natural gas.

The federal government still imposes an industrial carbon tax on oil and gas, steel and fertilizer businesses, among others.

During the Liberal Party leadership race, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he would “improve and tighten” the industrial carbon tax and “extend the framework to 2035.”

Just 12 per cent of Canadians believe businesses pay most of the cost of the industrial carbon tax, according to a Leger poll commissioned by the CTF. Meanwhile, 70 per cent said businesses would pass most or some carbon tax costs on to consumers.

Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre said he will “repeal the entire carbon tax law, including the tax on Canadian businesses and industries.”

“Carbon taxes on refineries make gas more expensive, carbon taxes on utilities make home heating more expensive and carbon taxes on fertilizer plants increase costs for farmers and that makes groceries more expensive,” Terrazzano said. “Canadians know Poilievre will end all carbon taxes and Canadians know Carney’s carbon tax costs won’t be zero.

“Carney owes Canadians a clear answer: How much will your carbon tax cost?”

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