A monthly review of climate, energy, and political policy issues
Articles compiled by Jonathan DuHamel
CLIMATE
This month we begin with climate science, something that politicians are ignoring or don’t understand. The result of political policy has been the devastation of our energy sources resulting in bad economic consequences. Climate policies are also affecting farmers and our food supplies by increasing the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel and limiting production of fossil-fuel derived fertilizers. Furthermore, the climate cabal is trying to scare us by promoting natural cycles as something unusual due to “dangerous” global warming. Reducing or eliminating carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels with have no effect on global climate.
Much of climate policy (the “climate crisis” meme) is based on garbage-in, garbage-out climate models, monetary greed, and the quest for power. As James Madison said: “The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”
Global Warming – Natural or Manmade
by Dr. Roy Spencer
[This short essay was written several years ago by Dr. Roy Spencer, a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and formerly a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. He is currently in charge of a global satellite system which measures atmospheric temperature.] See his website: https://www.drroyspencer.com/
“Global warming” refers to the global-average temperature increase that has been observed over the last one hundred years or more. But to many politicians and the public, the term carries the implication that mankind is responsible for that warming. This website describes evidence from my group’s government-funded research that suggests global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution.
Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming…it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade. This assumption is rather easy for scientists since we do not have enough accurate global data for a long enough period of time to see whether there are natural warming mechanisms at work.
The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims that the only way they can get their computerized climate models to produce the observed warming is with anthropogenic (human-caused) pollution. But they’re not going to find something if they don’t search for it. More than one scientist has asked me, “What else COULD it be?” Well, the answer to that takes a little digging… and as I show, one doesn’t have to dig very far.
But first let’s examine the basics of why so many scientists think global warming is manmade. Earth’s atmosphere contains natural greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane) which act to keep the lower layers of the atmosphere warmer than they otherwise would be without those gases. Greenhouse gases trap infrared radiation — the radiant heat energy that the Earth naturally emits to outer space in response to solar heating. Mankind’s burning of fossil fuels (mostly coal, petroleum, and natural gas) releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and this is believed to be enhancing the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect. As of 2008, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 40% to 45% higher than it was before the start of the industrial revolution in the 1800’s.
It is interesting to note that, even though carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth to exist, there is precious little of it in Earth’s atmosphere. As of 2008, only 39 out of every 100,000 molecules of air were CO2, and it will take mankind’s CO2 emissions 5 more years to increase that number by 1, to 40. [In 2023 it is 42]
The “Holy Grail”: Climate Sensitivity. Figuring out how much past warming is due to mankind, and how much more we can expect in the future, depends upon something called “climate sensitivity”. This is the temperature response of the Earth to a given amount of ‘radiative forcing’, of which there are two kinds: a change in either the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth, or in the infrared energy the Earth emits to outer space.
The ‘consensus’ of opinion is that the Earth’s climate sensitivity is quite high, and so warming of about 0.25 deg. C to 0.5 deg. C (about 0.5 deg. F to 0.9 deg. F) every 10 years can be expected for as long as mankind continues to use fossil fuels as our primary source of energy. NASA’s James Hansen claims that climate sensitivity is very high, and that we have already put too much extra CO2 in the atmosphere. Presumably this is why he and Al Gore are campaigning for a moratorium on the construction of any more coal-fired power plants in the U.S.
You would think that we’d know the Earth’s ‘climate sensitivity’ by now, but it has been surprisingly difficult to determine. How atmospheric processes like clouds and precipitation systems respond to warming is critical, as they are either amplifying the warming, or reducing it. This website currently concentrates on the response of clouds to warming, an issue which I am now convinced the scientific community has totally misinterpreted when they have measured natural, year-to-year fluctuations in the climate system. As a result of that confusion, they have the mistaken belief that climate sensitivity is high, when in fact the satellite evidence suggests climate sensitivity is low.
The case for natural climate change I also present an analysis of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which shows that most climate change might well be the result of….the climate system itself! Because small, chaotic fluctuations in atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems can cause small changes in global average cloudiness, this is all that is necessary to cause climate change. You don’t need the sun, or any other ‘external’ influence (although these are also possible…but for now I’ll let others work on that). It is simply what the climate system does. This is actually quite easy for meteorologists to believe, since we understand how complex weather processes are. Your local TV meteorologist is probably a closet ‘skeptic’ regarding mankind’s influence on climate. Climate change — it happens, with or without our help. ☼
Climate at a Glance: Atmospheric Rivers
Key Takeaways:
Atmospheric rivers are long, concentrated regions in the atmosphere that transport moist air from the tropics to higher latitudes.
The phrase “Atmospheric River” is often erroneously used by the media attempting to link climate change and excessive rainfall events on the U.S. West Coast.
Atmospheric rivers are natural and normal parts of our global weather patterns, happening on the U.S. West coast on average every 1-3 years.
Geological Science has shown that extreme Atmospheric River events have occurred on the U.S. West Coast as far back as A.D. 212, occurring on average every 200 years.
Claims that climate change is making more severe Atmospheric Rivers are not supported by observational evidence, research on the phenomenon, or computer model projections. (Read more) ☼
Climate at a Glance: The Polar Vortex
Key Takeaways:
The phrase “polar vortex” is often erroneously used by the media to link climate change and severe winter weather events.
The polar vortex was first identified as a cause for some instances of severe winter weather events in 1853.
Claims that climate change is creating new and more severe polar vortex events are not supported by either observational evidence or computer climate models.
Short Summary:
Extreme winter weather is often attributed to an atmospheric weather event known as a “polar vortex outbreak” or an “Arctic outbreak.” The Polar Vortex is nothing new: The term first appeared in an 1853 issue of E. Littell’s Living Age.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The polar vortex is a large circulation of low pressure and cold air that forms every winter in the stratosphere above the North and South poles. The term vortex refers to the counter-clockwise flow of air that helps keep colder air close to the poles.
Sometimes during winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the polar vortex will become less stable and disrupt the polar jet stream circulating in the same direction miles below the vortex — thus sending cold Arctic air southward over the United States. (Read more) ☼
Climate Research Has A Serious Conflict-Of-Interest Problem (Link) ☼
Climate Alarmist Claim Fact Checks, March 2023
by Joseph D’Aleo, CCM
Below are a series of fact checks of the 13 most common climate claims such as those made in the recently released Fourth National Climate Assessment Report. The contributors of these reviews are all recognized experts in the relevant fields. For each claim, a brief summary of the relevant rebuttal is provided along with a link to the full text and graphical support of the rebuttal and the names and the credentials of the authors of for each rebuttal. (Read more) ☼
Climate ‘Experts’ Are 0 for 41 With Wrong Predictions
by Mark Simone
For more than 50 years, climate alarmists in the scientific community and environmental movement have not gotten even one prediction correct, but they do have a perfect record of getting 41 predictions wrong. (Read more) ☼
2M Years Ago Corals, Manatees Occupied N. Greenland Seas, As Elephants Browsed A Forested Landscape
by Kenneth Richard
The northern coasts of Greenland are today a barren polar desert. Existing moisture is frozen into permanent ice sheets at these latitudes, precluding plant growth.
But two million years ago, when CO2 levels were claimed to only hover around 300 ppm, an 11-19°C warmer-than-today north Greenland (82°N) had no ice sheet coverage and instead was teeming with vegetation (shrubs, herbs), as well as birch, poplar, and thuja forests (Kjaer et al., 2022).
Megafaunal browsers such as mastadons (elephants) had access to abundant food sources (berries, twigs, leaves, etc.). Caribou and reindeer grazers, hare, and rodents thrived in the green landscape. Geese soared in the High Arctic skies.
Sea coasts near northern Greenland had green algae, coral reefs, and dugong – marine animals cousin to the manatee. Horseshoe crabs that today cannot spawn in waters any colder than 45°N (southern France) were able to occupy the much warmer-than-today Arctic waters at 82°N. (Read more) ☼
CLIMATE SCIENCE BACKGROUND:
by Jonathan DuHamel
Geologic evidence shows that Earth’s climate has been in a constant state of flux for more than 4 billion years. Nothing we do can stop that. Much of current climate and energy policy is based upon the erroneous assumption that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, which make up just 0.1% of total greenhouse gases, are responsible for “dangerous” global warming/climate change. There is no physical evidence to support that assumption. Man-made carbon dioxide emissions have no significant effect on global temperature/climate. In fact, when there is an apparent correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been shown to follow, not lead, changes in Earth’s temperature. All efforts to reduce emissions are futile with regard to climate change, but such efforts will impose massive economic harm to Western Nations. The “climate crisis” is a scam. U.N officials have admitted that their climate policy is about money and power and destroying capitalism, not about climate. By the way, like all planetary bodies, the earth loses heat through infrared radiation. Greenhouse gases interfere with (block) some of this heat loss. Greenhouse gases don’t warm the Earth, they slow the cooling. If there were no greenhouse gases, we would have freezing temperatures every night.
For more on climate science, see my Wryheat Climate articles:
A Review of the state of Climate Science
The Broken Greenhouse – Why Co2 Is a Minor Player in Global Climate
A Summary of Earth’s Climate History-a Geologist’s View
Problems with wind and solar generation of electricity – a review
The High Cost of Electricity from Wind and Solar Generation
The “Social Cost of Carbon” Scam Revisited
ATMOSPHERIC CO2: a boon for the biosphere
Carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth
Impact of the Paris Climate Accord and why Trump was right to drop it
New study shows that carbon dioxide is responsible for only seven percent of the greenhouse effect
Six Issues the Promoters of the Green New Deal Have Overlooked
Why reducing carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuel will have no effect on climate ☼
CLIMATE MADNESS
Is this the greatest ripoff in American history?
America has spent $100 billion of your money on climate change. How’s that working out?
By Stephen Moore,|Creators Syndicate
For at least the last 20 years, politicians in Washington, at the behest of green energy groups, have spent some $100 billion of taxpayer money to fight climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. How is that going for us so far?
A recent Associated Press story, based on the latest data on global carbon emissions, provides a pretty accurate report card: “Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reached a Record High in 2022.”
Where did all the money go? Tens of billions of dollars have lined the pockets of left-wing environmental and social justice groups that have been emitting a lot of hot air but no results. Green energy companies have milked taxpayers of tens of billions more, even as wind and solar only produce about 12% of our energy. Is this the greatest ripoff of U.S. taxpayers in history?
(Read more) ☼ See also: The Circle Of Green — Big Money, Big Democrats, And Climate Change ☼
Childish Beliefs Drive Lethal Energy and Agricultural Agendas
by Paul Driessen
Many eco-activists (and too many legislators, regulators, judges and journalists) have trouble thinking beyond slogans. They apparently believe declaring ecological emergencies, repeating clever mantras, and issuing proclamations and mandates will create a fossil-fuel-free, organic farming utopia. In their dreams. (Read more) ☼
Activist ‘Scientists’ Announce Record Cold Caused By Global Warming
by Jack Hellner
Leftists are pushing an agenda to destroy industries that produce reasonably priced energy by claiming these industries cause an existential threat of warming, extreme changes to the climate, and threatening our survival.
Record-cold temperatures, along with record snow and rain are obviously causing skepticism, so the pushers of the theory decided it was necessary to put out a piece of pure propaganda: that record-cold temperatures occur because the Earth is warming. (Read more) ☼
Gas Station Bans Next on Climate Agenda: Colorado city BANS new gas stations due to ‘obligation’ to tackle ‘climate change’ – Follows California cities (Read more) ☼
ENERGY
China is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report finds (Link) ☼
Pakistan plans to quadruple domestic coal-fired power, move away from gas (Link) ☼
Germany Wary Of Europe’s Ban Of Fossil Fuel Cars By 2035… Too Pricey, Technically Unfeasible (Link) ☼
No Link Found Between Gas Stoves and Respiratory Illness: Study (Link) ☼
Holding Anti-Fossil-Fuel Leaders Responsible For The Global Energy Crisis
by Alex Epstein
The energy crisis is simple. Politicians around the world, including US Democrats, have restricted fossil fuel investment/production/transport on the false promise of replacement by unreliable solar/wind. The result: higher prices and lower security. [Ins this article Epstein gets into the details of bad energy policy.] (Read more) ☼
Biden Seals Off Millions Of Acres Of Land, Water From Future Oil Drilling
by Thomas Catenacci
The Biden administration announced that it is indefinitely blocking 16 million acres of federal land and water in Alaska from future fossil fuel drilling. (Read more) ☼
Challenging “Net Zero” with Science
Executive Summary
Governments around the globe are taking actions to implement fossil fuel-free or “Net Zero”
energy systems without a thorough examination of the scientific basis for doing so. This paper
undertakes that examination by reviewing the scientific support (or lack thereof) that has been
used to justify this transition to Net Zero. No atempt is made to address the significant
economic, societal or environmental consequences of a near-total reliance on renewable energy
and the required battery-backup that is necessary to transition to a fossil fuel free future.
Two of the paper’s authors – Drs. William Happer and Richard Lindzen, professors emeriti at Princeton University and Massachusets Institute of Technology, respectively – have spent decades studying and writing about the physics of Earth’s atmosphere. The third, Gregory Wrightstone, a geologist of more than 40 years, has spent much of the last decade writing and speaking about the interplay of geology, history and climate.
The authors find that Net Zero – the global movement to eliminate fossil fuels and its emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases – to be scientifically invalid and a threat to the lives of billions of people. Among the paper’s findings are:
• Net Zero proponents regularly report that extreme weather is more severe and frequent because of climate change while the evidence shows no increase – and, in some cases, a decrease – in such events.
• Computer models supporting every government Net Zero regulation and the trillions of dollars subsidizing renewables and electric cars, trucks, home heating, appliances and many other products do not work.
• Scientific research and studies that do not support the “consensus” narrative of harmful man-made global warming are routinely censored and excluded from government reports such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Climate Assessment.
• Conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that contradict the narrative of catastrophic global warming from fossil fuels are rewritten by government bureaucrats for public reports to support the false narrative of Net Zero.
• The many benefits of modest warming and increasing carbon dioxide are routinely either eliminated or minimized in governmental reports.
• Eliminating fossil fuels and implementing Net Zero policies and actions mean the
elimination of fossil fuel-derived nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides that will result in about half the world’s population not having enough food to eat. Many would starve.
• The adoption of Net Zero is the rejection of overwhelming scientific evidence that there
is no risk of catastrophic global warming caused by fossil fuels and CO2.
Net Zero, then, violates the tenets of the scientific method that for more than 300 years have underpinned the advancement of western civilization. ☼
The Feasibility of “Net Zero” Economy in the USA
by Michael Kelly
Professor Michael Kelly, from the University of Cambridge in the UK, has previously studied the impact of Net Zero projects in the UK and his native New Zealand, and has now turned his expertise to the United States.
His headline findings are a stark warning for politicians across the country.
“The cost to 2050 will comfortably exceed $12 trillion for electrification projects, and $35 trillion for improving the energy efficiency of buildings. A work-force comparable in size to the health sector will be required for 30 years, including a doubling of the present number of electrical engineers. The bill of specialist materials is of a size that, for the USA alone, is several times the global annual production.”
Professor Kelly warns that politicians are not thinking through the scale of the project they are pursuing.
“It’s clear that no country has the manpower, the materials, or the money to deliver Net Zero. It cannot be attempted without establishing a command economy, and even then it would fail. This is a fool’s errand.” (Read full paper) ☼
The War On Natural Gas – Pipeline Edition
by Ben Lieberman
The Biden Administration’s climate change-inspired war on natural gas continues on multiple fronts. Most recently in the news are the regulatory attempts to curtail the use of gas in home appliances, especially stoves. Meanwhile, the Administration’s go-slow approach to oil and natural gas leasing on federal lands is now in its third year, as is the administration’s policy of pressuring banks not to lend to natural gas producers. But every bit as damaging as the efforts to block the production and use of natural gas are those against the infrastructure that comes in between – the nation’s gas pipeline network. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), 2022 was a record low year for interstate pipeline capacity additions since the agency starting keeping statistics in 1995.
By all rights, it should have been a record high year, given the still-growing estimates of domestic natural gas reserves – a 32 percent jump from 2020 to 2021, the most recent year for which EIA has compiled data. Thanks to the shale revolution, the amount of natural gas used each year is less than the additional discoveries that can be economically developed. And there still is solid demand for natural gas, as is demonstrated by the high prices being paid by consumers in the U.S., tight supplies and risks of shortages plaguing New England, as well as growing liquefied natural gas (LNG) export opportunities that are both economically and geopolitically beneficial. (Read more) ☼
Renewables Aren’t Renewable
by Edward Ring
By now it should be beyond serious debate that “renewable” energy cannot possibly scale adequately to replace fossil fuels. Worse still, renewable energy systems are even less sustainable than fossil fuels and cause more environmental destruction. Renewables also fail to offer significant reductions in carbon emissions, and in some cases actually cause more carbon emissions.
Why these facts are dismissed by America’s elites is a story of corruption, collusion, megalomania, greed, cowardice, intellectual negligence, and delusional mass psychosis.
As a result, Americans face a future of perpetual scarcity: rationed, algorithmically micro-managed access to energy, punitive pricing for energy use over government mandated thresholds, and a wasteland of landscapes ruined by solar farms, wind farms, battery farms, distribution lines, open pit mines, evaporation ponds, and dumps; all the destructive consequences of industrial scale “renewables” development. At this rate, the blind rush to eliminate fossil fuel and rely solely on renewables will cause catastrophic worldwide shortages of energy, spawning deadly poverty and desperate wars. (Read more) ☼
ENVIRONMENT
PM2.5: Mass Killer or Mass Fraud?
By Steve Milloy
PM2.5 is fine airborne soot and dust. A PM2.5 particle is about one-twentieth the width of a human hair. The soot form of PM2.5 is emitted by all forms of manmade and natural combustion: from fossil fuel plant smokestacks; truck and automobile exhaust pipes; and furnaces, fireplaces and barbeques to wildfires and volcanoes The dust form of PM2.5 exists as pollen, pet dander, dust and mold. Smokers of all sorts inhale PM2.5 in massive amounts, especially compared to PM2.5 levels in outdoor air. You may think that last point condemns PM2.5 as a killer. But it actually is the among the best evidence that PM2.5 doesn’t kill anyone.
(Read more) to see the EPA’s junk science about regulating particulate mater. The EPA invented PM2.5 as the most toxic substance known to man, that is, any inhalation can result in death as soon as hours. Or, alternatively, PM2.5 may kill you after a lifetime of (unavoidably) inhaling it. No other substance known to man works this way and there is no body of science to support these claims. The EPA’s own courtroom admission undercuts its claims about the epidemiology and its own human experiments fail to provide any support to the motion that PM2.5 causes adverse health impact, let alone kills.☼
STATE OF THE UNION
“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” —Thomas Jefferson (1824)
Biden’s Energy Policies Cost U.S. Households More than $2,300 Since 2021
by Linnea Lueken
Biden’s energy policies have caused energy costs to rise across America, from natural gas to electricity, costing Americans more than $2,300 since entering office in January 2021.
Over the Past Two Years:
Overall residential electricity prices increased by 17 percent
Industrial electricity prices rose 34 percent
Home heating oil prices increased by 88 percent
Oil prices rose 61 percent
Natural gas prices rose 51 percent
The price of gasoline rose by $1.15 per gallon, or 46 percent
Rapidly rising energy prices are no accident. They are the predictable result of Joe Biden’s war on affordable and reliable energy. The Biden administration has implemented dozens of policies since he took office that have increased energy costs. In 2022 alone, Biden pushed the following policies:
Slow walking oil and gas leasing plans, missing legal deadlines by months
Threatening new windfall taxes on oil companies
Issuing the lowest number of energy production leases since the 1940s
Repeatedly canceling legally required oil and gas lease sales
Passing the first direct federal tax on methane emissions
Doubling rental fees on onshore leases
Increasing and introducing new fees associated with leasing
Increasing onshore royalty rates by about 36 percent
Reinstating the Hazardous Substance Superfund Financing Rate on crude oil and imported petroleum (Read more) ☼
The Real Meaning of Equity
By Stephen B. Young
President Joe Biden and others of his ilk pimp the word “equity” to earn political profits for themselves. They have prostituted a good word by giving it a new and illegitimate meaning.
President Biden has just imposed on our federal government an executive order on Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity that mandates using racism to determine government actions and selection of its public servants. This executive order violates the norm of equity set forth by Aristotle, Aquinas, and the Common Law.
The basis for equity is showing personal responsibility to deserve individualized consideration, rewarding our character and good faith. Equity is not an entitlement, but something to be earned and well deserved.
The word that should be used by President Biden and those who advocate DIE discrimination is compassion — compassion for those who have drawn the short straw in humanity’s age-old war of all against all, where the “strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” (Read more) ☼
The Woke Wrecking Machine
by Victor Davis Hanson
Almost everything that has followed from the woke mass hysteria gripping the nation since 2020 has proved disastrous.
Wokeism destroys meritocracy in favor of forced equality of result—history’s prescription for civilizational decline.
If we continue with the woke hiring of administrators, air traffic controllers, ground crews, pilots, and rail workers, there will be even more news of disasters and near-miss airline crashes.
Wokeness demands a McCarthyite suppression of free expression. No wonder a woke FBI recently hired out social media censors to suppress stories it deemed unhelpful.
Soviet-style, wokeism mandates strict ideological party-line narratives under the cover of “science.” No wonder a woke government lied that requiring vaccines would prevent both infection and infectiousness. (Read more) ☼
Challenging the National Science Teaching Association’s Position Statement on Climate Change
by CO2Coalition
The CO2 Coalition has reviewed the National Science Teaching Association’s Position Statement on Climate Change and has found that it has serious problems, which we address in this assessment. Our objections to this document are many but can be separated into two major categories.
• Reliance on “consensus” science and a rejection of critical thinking skills and the scientific method.
• NSTA’s censorship and rejection of all contradictory science.
A primary role for the NSTA should be to develop critical thinking skills for students and to instill in them knowledge and use of the scientific method. Students should be encouraged to review all facts on a subject (in this case climate change) and make up their own minds rather than be indoctrinated into an established political agenda.
Unfortunately, the NSTA has taken a strong position that is antithetical to the scientific method, critical thinking and open scientific debate. (Read full report, 24 pages) ☼
America’s Nightmare Winter
A prediction by Bill Bonner
Someday in the future… perhaps on a particularly cold night…
… America’s entire energy system will collapse.
Fuel won’t get delivered. Rolling blackouts will sweep the land. Pipes will freeze. Food in the freezer will go bad. You may shiver in the dark… praying for a little power – for weeks.
Experts tell us if diesel fuel is cut off, it would take only three days before supermarket shelves are bare.
In the 72 hours following an energy cut off, almost all businesses would run out of supplies and shut down. And if this continued… in a matter of weeks, civilization as we know it would come to an end.
Everything moves by container ship and truck… and almost every ship and truck run on diesel. So when the diesel fuel stops coming, ships stop sailing, trucks stop rolling, goods stop arriving – food, medicine, building materials… everything.
Most Americans don’t that realize diesel fuel is the workhorse of the economy. It’s used everywhere to keep trucks, tractors, ships, freight trains, and factories moving.
And that’s just the beginning…(Read more) ☼
Business and Labor Agree: It’s Time for Permitting Reform
by Mike Sommers & Sean McGarvey
American infrastructure projects take far too long to move through Washington’s many permitting and review hoops. From bureaucratic red tape to legal challenges and delays, critical infrastructure projects that bring reliable, affordable energy and good-paying jobs to U.S. communities are slowed down often to the point of outright cancellation, and the losers are America’s workers, families, and businesses.
A recent study found that at least 10 major energy infrastructure projects, representing more than $34 billion in private spending, were canceled or risked cancellation due to reams of red tape. Countless others have been stalled – each representing squandered economic growth and energy denied from our grid. One of the biggest sticking points for the permitting of these projects is the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). According to a 2017 study, $157 billion in energy investment was trapped in the NEPA pipeline.
In Appalachia alone, pipeline projects that would deliver 4.6 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas for families and businesses could support thousands of well-paying American jobs and inject $19 billion in private spending into local and regional economies. But instead, their benefit remains unrealized.
Consider this: Preparing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) under NEPA takes more than four years to complete, and about 25 percent of these statements take even longer. Project proponents report that the average EIS runs more than 600 pages, far exceeding guidelines by the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Lengthy EIS timelines and excessive reporting requirements are crucial factors in a company’s decision to abandon a project because there is no fixed timeline for project approval.
We recommend that NEPA reviews be time-limited and uniform across the federal government. (Source) ☼
Biden washing machine rule would make Americans dirtier and stinkier — and raise prices: manufacturers
by Matteo Cina, Fox News
First it was gas stoves, now it’s washing machines.
President Biden’s Department of Energy proposed new efficiency standards for washing machines that require new appliances to use considerably less water, all in an effort to “confront the global climate crisis.”
Leading industry corporations have voiced their opinion on the rule, claiming the mandates force manufacturers to reduce cleaning performance to ensure their machines comply. As the Washington Free Beacon described it, “each cycle will take longer, the detergent will cost more, and in the end, the clothes will be less clean,” according to manufacturers.
The proposed washing machine change is the latest example of the Biden administration pushing more consumer regulations to advance green initiatives. (Read more) ☼
See also: Five Stealthy Ways Biden Is Coming For Your Gas Stove (link) ☼
New EPA Water Regulations to Cost Municipalities Billions
By Eric Lendrum
New guidelines issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over maintaining the safety of drinking water could force local municipalities to spend billions in order to remain in compliance.
The new regulations will force municipalities to install new filtration systems in order to reduce the amount of the chemicals known as PFAS and PFOS, a class of 14,000 chemicals that can contaminate drinking water for as many as 200 million Americans. Such chemicals are often used in household products such as non-stick pans, stain-resistant treatments, semiconductor coatings, and firefighting foam. (Read more) ☼
Trump Administration Accomplishments (29 pages)
U.S. Mineral Production Value by State in 2022
by Niccolo Conte
Arizona tops the list of mineral-producing states, with $10.1 billion worth of minerals which account for 10.3% of the U.S. total, largely due to the state’s prolific copper production. The state of Arizona accounted for around 70% of domestic copper production in 2022, and as a result also produces large amounts of molybdenum as a byproduct.
The state of Nevada was the next top mineral producer at $8.9 billion worth of minerals, thanks to its longstanding leadership in gold mining (accounting for 72% of U.S. gold production in 2022) and by having the only operating lithium project in America. (Read more) ☼
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