Biden’s Energy Policy Aids Communist China
Green energy transformation in the US is money in the bank for China
Modern civilization was built upon the supply of cheap energy. The only source of cheap, abundant, and reliable energy that has been exploited for the benefit of humankind from the Industrial Age onward is a class of hydrocarbons frequently referred to as “fossil fuels”. The vast improvement in the wealth and high living standards of Western civilization since the 19th century are due directly to the industrialization made possible by cheap and reliable energy.
It is axiomatic that “countries that industrialized through increased use of fossil fuels saw not only a surge in economic prosperity, but also benefits such as increased life expectancy, cleaner air, cleaner water, decreased malnutrition, fewer deaths from infectious disease, and fewer climate-related deaths,” as noted by the Foundation for Economic Education.
Yet, the Biden administration’s relentless push to transform the US economy through over-regulation and suppression of oil and gas exploration while heavily subsidizing so-called “renewable” – and expensive! – energy sources such as wind and solar not only ignores the key to economic growth (cheap energy) but also plays into the hands of the top threat to the American Republic, i.e., the Chinese Communist Party.
Let us explore the issue.
BIDEN’S ENERGY POLICY
Joe Biden’s energy policy is enshrined in the misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act,” which was a gargantuan $700billion omnibus bill passed in August 2022 aimed at top-down control of the economy through legislative fiat (a regulatory nightmare) and financial bribery (tax incentives for green “investments”). Roughly $369 billion of the total was earmarked for “renewable energy” ($30B), utilities conversion to green energy ($30B), ten years of subsidies for “energy-efficient” doors and windows, and tens of billions in green energy transportation “investments,” as noted by the Heritage Foundation. Regarding the latter, Biden signed an executive order in August 2021 “setting a national goal for zero-emissions vehicles to make up half of new cars and trucks sold by 2030,” as reported by NBC News at the time. This amounts to top-down eco-fascism in pursuit of green dreams.
Furthermore, Biden completely reversed Trump’s policies that deregulated and incentivized US oil and gas production by canceling the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, placing a hold on new oil and gas leases (adding uncertainty among investors), and ultimately terminating exploration on “protected” federal lands. The result was a shift from oil and gas exporter to importer in two short years and a spike in gasoline prices at the pump from $2.195 per gallon in December 2020 to $4.444 in May 2022. For political reasons before the 2022 mid-term elections, the administration was forced to drastically draw down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by an unprecedented 40% to lower prices. (The SPR is supposed to be used for emergency and/or wartime purposes, not for price manipulation during an election cycle!)
The overall Biden energy policy objective plays right into the hands of the Chinese who seek to supplant the US as the world’s only superpower while concurrently making money off the diminishment of the US as it pursues a misguided energy conversion from reliable and cheap hydrocarbons to ephemeral, intermittent, and costly “green energy” sources.
Biden and his green advisors are phasing out America’s long-held strengths in oil, natural gas, and gasoline-power vehicle manufacturing while mandating that Americans invest in green technology and buy electric vehicles that require components that contain rare earth elements. According to the Financial Times, “China is responsible for the production of about 90 per cent of the world’s rare earth elements” and also “at least 80 per cent of all the stages of making solar panels and 60 per cent of wind turbines and electric-car batteries.” As reported by Real Clear Wire in August, “Rare earth metals are integral to the magnets key to electric vehicle motors and wind turbines. America is 95% net import reliant on such materials, which China produces 70% of globally.”
In short, the Biden energy policy gives the Chinese communists enormous economic leverage over the US over time while drastically increasing energy costs to American businesses, consumers, and the US military. That leverage extends further as US Climate Envoy John Kerry supplicates himself to Beijing to persuade the communists to cooperate on Biden administration policies aimed at emissions reduction in pursuit of the UN’s net zero carbon emissions goals. The communists smile politely while leading the world in the construction of coal-fired energy plants, building six times more than the rest of the world combined.
THE GIFTS TO CHINA CONTINUE
The Biden administration continues to tweak and enhance its pursuit of green dreams that would warm the cockles of Xi Jinping’s heart. Here are some recent ghastly indications that top-down green energy conversion of the American economy is being pursued with a vengeance:
On 23 April, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan disclosed a major shift in global economic guidelines away from consensus policies on “free trade, deregulation, tolerable taxation and moderate public expenditure” to a top-down centralized approach in which “the government will set the [economic] agendas … and that taxpayers will be asked to finance public expenditures [as necessary].” This amounts to moving toward a centralized command economy that has failed everywhere it has been tried, from the former Soviet Union to Cuba to North Korea to communist China. This is exactly what is in process through the green provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.
On 23 July, the EPA proposed two new rules that will create enormous strain on the already overburdened US power grid: “a tailpipe emissions standard that would require 60% of new cars sold in 2030 to be electric,” and a “Clean Power Plan 2.0 [that] is so strict that the only realistic way for many plants to comply is to shut down.” The EPA claims that neither rule will cause energy reliability problems nor increase prices. The EV mandates will increase demand on the power grid and require substantial investment by utilities in local distribution systems to charge those vehicles. Irresistible force (government mandate) meets immovable object (bankruptcy to achieve compliance). The illogic of the EPA continues unabated.
On 22 August, a deal with struck with several eco groups to “protect a whale species” that resulted in new restrictions on oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico. Less oil and gas production and increased costs to extract.
On 7 September, the administration “canceled the seven remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge … and proposed stronger protections against development on vast swaths of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.”
On 8 September, representatives from the trucking industry reported that proposed new EPA regulations on heavy-duty vehicles and machinery aimed at reducing emissions of nitrogen oxides and other pollutants would by “unattainable,” “result in high inflation and put trucking companies out of business,” and “crush the supply chain and put the American food supply at risk.”
On 13 September, SEC Chairman testified that a proposed climate-disclosure rule for public companies was “no big deal.” To the contrary, the proposed rule would require “public companies to disclose their putative climate risks and greenhouse-gas emissions, including those of suppliers and customers.” The SEC developed the rule with the assistance of the climate activist groups such as “Ceres, whose stated goal is to ‘achieve a zero emissions future.’” Green activists working with the feds; what could possibly go wrong?
On 15 September, it was disclosed that the federal government is providing $7.5 billion in tax incentives over 5 years to “Gotion High-Tech Co., … a PRC company that has direct ties to the CCP and state-owned financial institutions,” for a battery production project in Michigan. This is the poisoned fruit of the Inflation Reduction Act!
On 18 September, the administration proposed a 50-year ban on oil drilling and mining on thousands of acres in New Mexico.
On 1 October, Fox News reported that the Biden regime “issued a 59-page report outlining the current scope of federal energy-related subsidies revealed that the renewable energy sector enjoys significantly larger taxpayer backing than the fossil fuel industry.”
On 10 October, Bloomberg reported that Biden was set to announce as much as $7 billion in funding for hydrogen projects across the country as part of a competition to jump-start production of the clean-burning fuel in the US.
On 29 November, Fox News reported that the Biden regime “granted a request from an energy firm developing an offshore wind project off the coast of Massachusetts to waive development fees designed to safeguard taxpayers.”
On 2 December, John Kerry, Biden’s special presidential envoy on climate matters, made the following statement: "To meet our goal of 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035, we need to phase out unabated coal … [and] will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world.”
On 20 December, the Daily Caller reported that Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency “is shelling out $600 million in taxpayer funds to grantmaking organizations to distribute for ‘environmental justice’ projects all across the country” to push the Democrats’ green new deal.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Modern civilization and human progress over the past several centuries has been based on the effective exploitation of hydrocarbons (fossil fuels). Without them we would be living in cold and dark homes without the modern appliances that make life so much easier than that lived by our forbearers. The Biden administration’s green transformation through top-down mandates will never result in the delivery of low-cost and reliable energy to homes and businesses because the sun does not shine at night, the wind does not always blow, and current energy storage technology cannot possibly meet demand under those conditions.
But the communist Chinese are perfectly happy with the Biden administration’s green energy transformation because they directly benefit in several ways: a continued trade surplus with the US through direct sales of green technology, increased economic leverage over the US and its allies, a roiling and chaotic US economy in transition weakened by high inflation, and a weakening of US national security capabilities as taxpayer dollars are diverted from military modernization and readiness to green energy boondoggles.
The Biden energy policy could easily be stamped “Made in China.”
The end.