From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Carson Binda 

BC Government promised carbon tax would reduce CO2 by 33%. It has done nothing.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the British Columbia government to scrap the carbon tax as new data shows the province’s carbon emissions have continued to rise, despite the oldest carbon tax in the country.

“The carbon tax isn’t reducing carbon emissions like the politicians promised,” said Carson Binda, B.C. Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Premier David Eby needs to axe the tax now to save British Columbians money.”

Emissions data from the provincial government shows that British Columbia’s emissions have risen since the introduction of a carbon tax.

Total emissions in 2007, the last year without a provincial carbon tax, stood at 65.5 MtCO2e, while 2022 emissions data shows an increase to 65.6 MtCO2e.

When the carbon tax was introduced, the B.C. government pledged that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent.

The Eby government plans to increase the B.C. carbon tax again on April 1, 2025. After that increase, the carbon tax will add 21 cents to the cost of a litre of natural gas, 25 cents per litre of diesel and 18 cents per cubic meter of natural gas.

“The carbon tax has cost British Columbians a lot of money, but it hasn’t helped the environment as promised,” Binda said. “Eby has a simple choice: scrap the carbon tax before April 1, or force British Columbians to pay even more to heat our homes and drive to work.”

If a family fills up the minivan once per week for a year, the carbon tax will cost them $728. The carbon tax on natural gas will add $435 to the average family’s home heating bills in the 12 months after the April 1 carbon tax hike.

Other provinces, like Saskatchewan, have unilaterally stopped collecting the carbon tax on essentials like home heating and have not faced consequences from Ottawa.

“British Columbians need real relief from the costs of the provincial carbon tax,” Binda said. “Eby needs to stop waiting for permission from the leaderless federal government and scrap the tax on British Columbians.”

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

One of the early decision points to be faced by incoming President Donald Trump will be what to do about the Biden administration’s costly and destructive offshore wind vanity projects in the northeastern Atlantic.

The Biden White House decided to make federal subsidization of and rapid permitting for a growing array of these big industrial installations a top priority early in the administration, and the results thus far have been halting, and in some cases disastrous.

Acting to suspend the installation of hundreds of gigantic wind turbines in the midst of known whale habitats and prime commercial fishing waters is apparently a priority for Trump and his team. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R.-N.J.) announced on Monday that he has been “working closely” with Trump to draft an executive order that would invoke a 6-month moratorium on offshore wind construction with an eye towards a permanent suspension.

“These offshore wind projects should have never been approved in the first place,” said Van Drew, whose home-state beaches have been littered by dozens of whale carcasses since development began. “The Biden administration rammed them through the approval process without proper oversight, transparent lease agreements, or a full understanding of their devastating consequences. They are an economic and environmental disaster waiting to happen.”

Van Drew characterized the Biden administration’s green new deal agenda as “harmful” and one that put politics over people”, adding, “This executive order is just the beginning. We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”

There can be little question that, in its zeal to fast-track these enormously costly and inefficient wind projects, the Biden regulators essentially abandoned what is known as the “precautionary principle” that the same regulatory agencies have always applied to offshore oil and gas and other major projects in federal waters.

The precautionary principle essentially cautions regulators to act on the adage that it is better to be safe than sorry. It holds that if there is a risk of severe harm to the environment or animal life, an absence of any scientific or conclusive proof is not to be given as the reason for inaction. This principle places the burden of proof on the shoulders of the person who denies their project is harmful.

This principle has been used by federal regulators of the U.S. offshore many times to halt oil-and-gas projects for years at a time so that proper environmental studies can be conducted under governing laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA).

The Biden White House was only too eager to cite the OCSLA recently to justify a ban on future drilling across 625 million acres of federal waters on the specious reasoning that it was “too dangerous” to allow future generations to enjoy the benefits of the billions of barrels of oil known to lie beneath these waters. This is absurd overkill, but it is also an example of the exercise of the precautionary principle.

But since 2022, as communities from New Jersey up to Maine have raised serious concerns about potential negative impacts by these massive wind industrial projects on sea mammals, seabirds and the region’s commercial fishing industry, Biden’s regulators have tossed the precautionary principle aside.

There is another principle at stake here that Trump should address: The equal and consistent application of U.S. law. It is a principle that the Biden administration chose to abandon in its zeal to enact its green agenda, from the cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline to the unjustified LNG permitting pause.

Actions such as these, in which multi-billion-dollar investments are lost based solely on executive whims, make it much harder for company management teams to take on big projects in this country. Who wants to risk billions of capital dollars on any project when it becomes impossible to predict how laws will be applied by future presidents?

President Trump would be wise to place restoration of these two key principles of offshore energy development atop his list of priorities.

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.