For young tots across the nation, December “Tis the season” to put together a Christmas “wish list” for mom and dad. While no one knows for sure how this tradition began, some suspect it was the Sears and Roebuck Company which was responsible when it began publishing its Christmas Wish Book in 1933.
However it started, now seems like a good time for those of us in the conservative policy world who work on energy and environmental issues to also put together our own Christmas wish list to send off to the incoming Administration. Here are some suggestions:
First, get the United States out of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. This misguided pact obligates the United States to eliminate fossil fuels that provide 80% of America’s energy, and raw materials for countless products. It not only hammers our economy but allows “developing countries” to be essentially exempt – including economic and military powerhouse China – and compels us to pay those developing countries tens of billions annually in “reparations” for supposedly causing climate change.
That’s why Trump 45 withdrew the USA from the pact during his first term. Not surprisingly, President Biden re-subjugated America to it. But Trump47 could end this back-and-forth jockeying. He now has the power not just to pull us out again – but to do so permanently.
How? By placing the Paris Accord squarely before the Senate, to be discussed fervently and voted on.
This climate pact embodies exactly why our Founding Fathers wrote treaty language in our Constitution. President Obama skirted the issue of placing it before the Senate by calling Paris an “executive agreement,” which he claimed didn’t require Senate “Advice and Consent.” He refused to submit it for Senate debate, and approval by two-thirds of Senators, because he knew they’d reject it.
But that was then. This is now. If Trump puts it before the Senate, it would be history. Good riddance!
Second, reverse the 2009 Environmental Protection Agency’s “Endangerment Finding.” This finding was implemented under the Obama Administration. It decrees that carbon dioxide (CO2) “threatens the public health and welfare of current and future generations” of Americans. It simply ignores reality.
Fossil fuels bestow incredible health and welfare benefits. Humans and animals exhale CO2, and plants absorb it to grow. At just 0.04% of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide makes nearly all life on Earth possible. This miracle molecule does not, cannot and never did drive our planet into some kind of “climate emergency.” Earth’s glacial epochs, Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and other significant climate shifts were far greater than anything seen in recent decades.
CO2 is not a “dangerous pollutant,” so this “Finding” needs to be reexamined – and reversed.
To be honest, if the Trump Administration could grant just these two wishes, many of us would feel as happy as Ralphie when he got his Red Rider BB gun. But since there’s no limit on Christmas wishes, why not add a few more quick ones?
So third, end the Biden Administration’s electric vehicle mandate. This was put in place back in March when the Administration finalized an EPA rule essentially that requiring 67% of new light-duty vehicles and 46% of medium-duty vehicles be electric by 2032. Expensive EVs are great for some, but don’t meet most family needs, take hours to recharge, drain electricity from the grid, and pose serious chemical fire risks.
Nobody should be forced to subsidize or buy them.
Fourth, terminate offshore wind. Biden put in place a plan to generate 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2030, as part of his plan to move America toward “net zero.” That’s 2,500 huge 12-megawatt turbines.
But offshore wind energy is perhaps the most expensive, inefficient, raw-materials-intensive electricity system on Earth. Even in optimal areas, these 850-foot-tall offshore beasts generate electricity only 40% of a year, unpredictably, for a few hours or days at a time. They threaten whales, harm the fishing industry, and generate massive public opposition. They should be dismantled immediately.
Fifth, deep-six the Inflation Revitalization Act (IRA). Thanks to this misguided 2022 law, America must now dole out tens of trillions of dollars to rent-seeking companies for wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and transmission lines, from here to eternity.
This Act fuels a destructive “green” energy industry that will wreak havoc on croplands, wildlife habitats and scenic areas – all to produce expensive, intermittent, weather-dependent electricity only 20-30% of the year. It needs to go.
That’s my Christmas wish list. A bit grandiose to be sure, but ‘tis the season! And one last thing, this wish list is heartfelt, especially since the previous administration only put coal in our stockings – coal it didn’t want us to burn for reliable electricity.
_______________
Craig Rucker is president of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)