In this newsletter:
1) Green Britain: Hundreds of schools cut teaching hours because they can’t afford energy bills
Metro News, 28 April 2022
2) Almost half of Brits find it hard to pay their energy bills
Bloomberg, 30 April 2022
(3) Australian Households are warned to brace for rising power bills as wholesale electricity prices more than double
Sky News, 29 April 2022
4) Benny Peiser: Many Australians ‘not aware’ of ‘disastrous energy crisis’ in Europe
Sky News, 28 April 2022
Bloomberg, 28 April 2022
Sky News, 29 April 2022
4) Benny Peiser: Many Australians ‘not aware’ of ‘disastrous energy crisis’ in Europe
Sky News, 28 April 2022
5) Benny Peiser: Putin's Climate War
Menzies Research Centre, 30 April 2022
Menzies Research Centre, 30 April 2022
6) Australian Election: Don’t mention the climate wars
The Australian, 30 April 2022
7) Oh dear: Germany's red-green Govt puts coal phaseout on hold indefinitelyThe Australian, 30 April 2022
Bloomberg, 28 April 2022
8) Senator John Barrasso: Biden’s energy counter-revolution
The Washington Times, 27 April 2022
9) National security expert: Biden must revive Trump’s 'energy dominance' to put Putin in his place
Fox News, 28 April 2022
10) Steven Hayward: Biden's energy schizophrenia deepens
The Pipeline, 29 April 2022
The Washington Times, 27 April 2022
9) National security expert: Biden must revive Trump’s 'energy dominance' to put Putin in his place
Fox News, 28 April 2022
10) Steven Hayward: Biden's energy schizophrenia deepens
The Pipeline, 29 April 2022
Full details:
1) Green Britain: Hundreds of schools cuts teaching hours because they can’t afford energy bills
Metro News, 28 April 2022
Metro News, 28 April 2022
The UK’s cost of living crisis is hitting children’s education – with some schools cutting spending on teaching to save on nightmare bills.
Nearly two-thirds of headteachers are planning to chop down energy consumption amid the largest cost surge in living memory, a new poll reveals.
More than half (54%) say they will limit spending on equipment for their schools, while 15% are reducing the number of teachers or teaching hours.
Meanwhile 30% will scrap some non-educational support and services for pupils after wholesale gas prices skyrocketed and Russia invaded Ukraine.
A survey by the NAHT school leaders’ union showed headteachers are expecting to pay an extra £26,786 for energy in the next financial year.
On average, the total annual energy bill for each school is predicted to be £53,298.
It marks an average 106% jump, with 16% of schools anticipating costs to increase by 200% or more.
More than a third of headteachers – 37% – fear they won’t have enough money in their budget by the end of 2023, with some warning redundancies could be on the cards.
Meanwhile, some are resigning, or considering doing so, so cheaper replacements can be hired.
The poll, which had more than 1,000 replies between March 21 and April 5, showed just 1% of heads believed their energy costs would not increase over the coming year.
Government assistance has proved fruitless for many. with a fifth using either the Crown Commercial Service’s School Switch service or one of the DfE’s approved frameworks for an alternative energy supply quote – but most (74%) still not able to lower costs.
Paul Whiteman, NAHT general secretary, said a ‘clear’ message had been sent that rising energy costs ‘will almost certainly have a negative impact on education, and could hamper recovery efforts’.
‘For some, the energy price hikes are the equivalent to the cost of a full-time teacher’, he said.
‘Every penny spent in schools is a choice. These increased energy costs mean that money which could be being spent on pupils is being paid to energy companies instead.
2) Almost half of Brits find it hard to pay their energy bills
Bloomberg, 30 April 2022
About 40% of U.K. adults said that they’re finding it either somewhat or very difficult to afford their energy bills, according to a survey by the country’s Office for National Statistics.
Nearly two-thirds of headteachers are planning to chop down energy consumption amid the largest cost surge in living memory, a new poll reveals.
More than half (54%) say they will limit spending on equipment for their schools, while 15% are reducing the number of teachers or teaching hours.
Meanwhile 30% will scrap some non-educational support and services for pupils after wholesale gas prices skyrocketed and Russia invaded Ukraine.
A survey by the NAHT school leaders’ union showed headteachers are expecting to pay an extra £26,786 for energy in the next financial year.
On average, the total annual energy bill for each school is predicted to be £53,298.
It marks an average 106% jump, with 16% of schools anticipating costs to increase by 200% or more.
More than a third of headteachers – 37% – fear they won’t have enough money in their budget by the end of 2023, with some warning redundancies could be on the cards.
Meanwhile, some are resigning, or considering doing so, so cheaper replacements can be hired.
The poll, which had more than 1,000 replies between March 21 and April 5, showed just 1% of heads believed their energy costs would not increase over the coming year.
Government assistance has proved fruitless for many. with a fifth using either the Crown Commercial Service’s School Switch service or one of the DfE’s approved frameworks for an alternative energy supply quote – but most (74%) still not able to lower costs.
Paul Whiteman, NAHT general secretary, said a ‘clear’ message had been sent that rising energy costs ‘will almost certainly have a negative impact on education, and could hamper recovery efforts’.
‘For some, the energy price hikes are the equivalent to the cost of a full-time teacher’, he said.
‘Every penny spent in schools is a choice. These increased energy costs mean that money which could be being spent on pupils is being paid to energy companies instead.
2) Almost half of Brits find it hard to pay their energy bills
Bloomberg, 30 April 2022
About 40% of U.K. adults said that they’re finding it either somewhat or very difficult to afford their energy bills, according to a survey by the country’s Office for National Statistics.
Some 91% said their cost of living had risen, with most citing increases in the price of fuel, gas and electricity, and food shopping as reasons, according to the survey released on Friday. Four in 10 said they were buying less when food shopping, up from roughly three in 10 in the ONS’s previous survey.
Consumers in the U.K. are struggling with a surge in energy bills, higher taxes and the strongest inflation in three decades. Britain’s top energy suppliers have warned of a huge increase in the number of people falling behind on paying their bills. Households are also increasingly relying on food banks for emergency assistance, indicating a cost-of-living crisis is accelerating and likely to drag more people into poverty.
The latest ONS survey covers the April 13-24 period, when almost 5,000 randomly selected households were sampled. It compares with the previous survey from March 30 to April 10, when a similar number were sampled.
Since the ONS first conducted such a survey in November, the proportion of adults who think they would not be able to save any money in the next 12 months has gradually increased, rising from 34% to 42%.
The Trussell Trust, which supports a network of 1,400 food banks, said deliveries of aid parcels jumped 14% to 2.1 million in the year through March compared with levels before the Covid-19 pandemic. The pace of increase has grown from 10% in the third quarter of last year.
(3) Welcome to Net Zero: Australian Households are warned to brace for rising power bills as wholesale electricity prices more than double
Sky News, 29 April 2022
Wholesale electricity prices are more expensive this year compared to 2021 with the price hike expected to be passed onto families already struggling with cost of living pressures.
Households are being warned of higher power bills in 2022 and 2023. Official figures reveal electricity prices have doubled in the past year – setting up another cost of living fight between the Prime Minister and Anthony Albanese – who have both pledged to keep costs down.
Households battling the rising cost of living are being warned to brace for skyrocketing power bills as electricity prices more than doubled over the past year.
The report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) shows wholesale electricity jumped 141 per cent to $87 per megawatt-hour (MWh) in the first quarter of 2022, compared to $36 MWh at the same time last year.
In Queensland alone record demand saw wholesale prices surge to $150 MWh for the quarter – the second highest rate the state has seen for any quarter in over 20 years.
The prices are expected to flow onto consumers with the wholesale price of energy accounting for 30 to 40 per cent of a household’s power bill.
Stream more local news live & on demand with Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2022
The AEMO said the combination of coal generator outages, an increase in demand due to heatwaves and costly fossil fuel production were behind the latest price hikes.
Violette Mouchaileh, AEMO’s Executive General Manager Reform Delivery, said northern-states were hardest hit because of coal-fire outages putting pressure on supply.
“Wholesale prices in Queensland and NSW were again significantly higher than in southern states,” Ms Mouchaileh said.
“This was due to the larger price-setting role of black coal generation and system security constraints limiting daytime electricity transfers from Victoria into NSW, despite an average energy price difference of $48/MWh.”
The latest figures come as an election debate ramps up over the pressure of the rising cost of living.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has claimed his government has delivered “affordable, reliable energy” and warned power bills would be driven up under Labor’s energy policy.
“That’s why over the last two years we’ve been able to cut the cost of electricity by 8 per cent, and since I became prime minister it’s fallen by over 9 per cent,” he said on Thursday.
“When Labor were in power, electricity prices doubled. They increased by over 100 per cent, an average annual increase of over 12 per cent.”
Meanwhile, Labor's Jim Chalmers said the energy spike is a "cost of living crisis" which happened under the Morrison Government.
“Power prices are going up, healthcare’s becoming harder to access and harder to afford, groceries are going through the roof, petrol is unaffordable for a lot families right across the board, there are cost of living pressures and this is a cost of living crisis on Scott Morrison’s watch," he said in a Friday press conference.
Full story
4) Benny Peiser: Many Australians not aware of disastrous energy crisis in Europe
Sky News, 28 April 2022
Global Warming Policy Foundation Director Dr Benny Peiser says most Australians are probably “not aware” of the “disastrous energy crisis” in Europe.
Consumers in the U.K. are struggling with a surge in energy bills, higher taxes and the strongest inflation in three decades. Britain’s top energy suppliers have warned of a huge increase in the number of people falling behind on paying their bills. Households are also increasingly relying on food banks for emergency assistance, indicating a cost-of-living crisis is accelerating and likely to drag more people into poverty.
The latest ONS survey covers the April 13-24 period, when almost 5,000 randomly selected households were sampled. It compares with the previous survey from March 30 to April 10, when a similar number were sampled.
Since the ONS first conducted such a survey in November, the proportion of adults who think they would not be able to save any money in the next 12 months has gradually increased, rising from 34% to 42%.
The Trussell Trust, which supports a network of 1,400 food banks, said deliveries of aid parcels jumped 14% to 2.1 million in the year through March compared with levels before the Covid-19 pandemic. The pace of increase has grown from 10% in the third quarter of last year.
(3) Welcome to Net Zero: Australian Households are warned to brace for rising power bills as wholesale electricity prices more than double
Sky News, 29 April 2022
Wholesale electricity prices are more expensive this year compared to 2021 with the price hike expected to be passed onto families already struggling with cost of living pressures.
Households are being warned of higher power bills in 2022 and 2023. Official figures reveal electricity prices have doubled in the past year – setting up another cost of living fight between the Prime Minister and Anthony Albanese – who have both pledged to keep costs down.
Households battling the rising cost of living are being warned to brace for skyrocketing power bills as electricity prices more than doubled over the past year.
The report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) shows wholesale electricity jumped 141 per cent to $87 per megawatt-hour (MWh) in the first quarter of 2022, compared to $36 MWh at the same time last year.
In Queensland alone record demand saw wholesale prices surge to $150 MWh for the quarter – the second highest rate the state has seen for any quarter in over 20 years.
The prices are expected to flow onto consumers with the wholesale price of energy accounting for 30 to 40 per cent of a household’s power bill.
Stream more local news live & on demand with Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2022
The AEMO said the combination of coal generator outages, an increase in demand due to heatwaves and costly fossil fuel production were behind the latest price hikes.
Violette Mouchaileh, AEMO’s Executive General Manager Reform Delivery, said northern-states were hardest hit because of coal-fire outages putting pressure on supply.
“Wholesale prices in Queensland and NSW were again significantly higher than in southern states,” Ms Mouchaileh said.
“This was due to the larger price-setting role of black coal generation and system security constraints limiting daytime electricity transfers from Victoria into NSW, despite an average energy price difference of $48/MWh.”
The latest figures come as an election debate ramps up over the pressure of the rising cost of living.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has claimed his government has delivered “affordable, reliable energy” and warned power bills would be driven up under Labor’s energy policy.
“That’s why over the last two years we’ve been able to cut the cost of electricity by 8 per cent, and since I became prime minister it’s fallen by over 9 per cent,” he said on Thursday.
“When Labor were in power, electricity prices doubled. They increased by over 100 per cent, an average annual increase of over 12 per cent.”
Meanwhile, Labor's Jim Chalmers said the energy spike is a "cost of living crisis" which happened under the Morrison Government.
“Power prices are going up, healthcare’s becoming harder to access and harder to afford, groceries are going through the roof, petrol is unaffordable for a lot families right across the board, there are cost of living pressures and this is a cost of living crisis on Scott Morrison’s watch," he said in a Friday press conference.
Full story
4) Benny Peiser: Many Australians not aware of disastrous energy crisis in Europe
Sky News, 28 April 2022
Global Warming Policy Foundation Director Dr Benny Peiser says most Australians are probably “not aware” of the “disastrous energy crisis” in Europe.
“Energy bills have doubled in the last 12 months and are threatening to triple – a quarter of UK households won’t be able to afford paying their bills,” he told Sky News host Peta Credlin.
Dr Peiser said Europe is facing the “worst energy crisis since World War Two” and it is “only getting worse” as the war in Ukraine intensifies.
“People in Australia should be very aware of what happens if you are not careful with your energy policy. ”
Watch full interview here
7) Oh dear: Germany's red-green Govt puts coal phaseout on hold indefinitely
Bloomberg, 28 April 2022
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is backtracking from its Group of Seven agenda to push globally for a speedier exit from coal.
Steffen Hebestreit, the Chancellor’s chief spokesman, said Russia’s war in Ukraine cast doubt over the practicality of asking the world’s richest countries to end the use of coal. Germany is the current holder of the rotating presidency of the G-7 nations, which have taken the lead in pursuing sanctions against Russia.
Despite political pressure to end the use of the dirtiest fossil fuel, coal generation is expected to jump 9% from last year, according to the International Energy Agency. That’s driven by the economic recovery from the pandemic, while countries are also scrambling to find alternative sources to Russian fossil fuels.
Germany, which has banned nuclear plants, and Japan, where atomic generation is just a fraction of what it once was, have fewer options than others. And so in Germany, coal-fired power plants that were once decommissioned are now being considered for a second life.
Germany’s “G-7 presidency is taking place in an international political situation which has clearly changed after Russia’s attack on Ukraine and its impact on energy supply,” said Hebestreit in response to questions on Wednesday.
“It’s questionable as to whether this topic will be directly addressed in this acute phase where we are working to become more independent from oil and gas,” he said.
As G-7 leader, the German government had previously said that its priorities include efforts to accelerate the global phaseout of coal. Ministers circulated a draft proposal, calling on countries to halt coal-fired power plants by 2030, according to Japan’s Asahi newspaper on Tuesday.
German officials presented the draft proposal to a preparatory meeting, ahead of an upcoming G-7 environment, climate and energy summit. But that prompted pushback from Japan’s government, which said it would continue to curb coal use at home, while also recognizing its energy security needs.
While Japan has said it will follow G-7 countries in banning Russian coal, the country has said it will be a longer-term goal for the resource-poor country. Russia supplies Japan with 13% of its coal for power generation, known as thermal coal, and 8% of the coal used in steelmaking.
Dr Peiser said Europe is facing the “worst energy crisis since World War Two” and it is “only getting worse” as the war in Ukraine intensifies.
“People in Australia should be very aware of what happens if you are not careful with your energy policy. ”
Watch full interview here
5) Benny Peiser: Putin's Climate War
Menzies Research Centre, 30 April 2022
Benny Peiser has been following the climate policy debate for more than a quarter of a century. In this Watercooler Conversation, he joins Nick Cater to discuss how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed Europe’s chronic energy insecurity and reframed the climate policy debate.
Europe is dealing with a full-blown energy crisis, forcing western nations to rethink what practical action can be taken to combat climate change.
The problems with relying too heavily on wind and solar have become all too apparent. Domestic electricity bills in Britain are rising by 50 per cent a year. And German industry is warning it cannot survive projected high energy prices and threats to the stability of supply.
As European nations look for ways to replace their heavy reliance on Russian gas, oil and coal, the spotlight is thrown on Australia, one of the most energy rich countries in the world.
Should we not be looking urgently at how we can increase our production of coal, gas and other energy sources to help the West resist Russian tyranny?
Listen to the podcast here
Menzies Research Centre, 30 April 2022
Benny Peiser has been following the climate policy debate for more than a quarter of a century. In this Watercooler Conversation, he joins Nick Cater to discuss how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed Europe’s chronic energy insecurity and reframed the climate policy debate.
Europe is dealing with a full-blown energy crisis, forcing western nations to rethink what practical action can be taken to combat climate change.
The problems with relying too heavily on wind and solar have become all too apparent. Domestic electricity bills in Britain are rising by 50 per cent a year. And German industry is warning it cannot survive projected high energy prices and threats to the stability of supply.
As European nations look for ways to replace their heavy reliance on Russian gas, oil and coal, the spotlight is thrown on Australia, one of the most energy rich countries in the world.
Should we not be looking urgently at how we can increase our production of coal, gas and other energy sources to help the West resist Russian tyranny?
Listen to the podcast here
6) Australian Election: Don’t mention the climate wars
The Australian, 30 April 2022
The Liberals and Labor are still in the climate wars, it’s just that the dichotomies between city and regional areas are greater, there are more players and a carbon tax is much, much closer.
Anthony Albanese has had his “never, ever” moment of this year’s federal election campaign: “There will be no carbon tax, ever,” he vowed on Wednesday under pressure during a radio interview.
Julia Gillard, as Labor prime minister in 2010, was there before him: “There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.” And in 1995 John Howard, then opposition leader, responded to an aggressive journalist asking if there would “never, ever” be a GST: “Never ever. It’s dead.”
Albanese’s pledge was driven by a recognition that the impact of a carbon price in whatever form was no longer theoretical but a political reality. As well, it is a sign that subcontracting out the climate change attack on Liberal MPs in affluent inner-city electorates to Greens warriors and Climate 200 “teal” activists is not a complete answer for Labor. There is still the same challenge of being able to promote climate action in the city while protecting jobs outside the city.
It also was a tacit admission that Labor is failing on explaining its policies and how they would work – not just to the general voting population but to specific areas of pivotal political importance.
At the halfway mark of the campaign and on the eve of Albanese’s campaign launch, which will contain the detail of policies three years in the making and likely involve US Democrat-style infrastructure spending as well as social support in housing and childcare, there is a need for more rigour from Labor.
Apart from the small-target strategy leading to a paucity of major detailed policy, there has been an inability to explain how the policies would work and what they would cost. Since the budget, central promises and policies from Labor such as the guarantee of 24-hour nurses in aged care, border protection, carbon pricing, China’s aggression in the Pacific, new agricultural visa limits and a wage rise for health workers have been paused, reworked, confused and poorly explained.
While Albanese spent seven days in Covid isolation at home his B team, particularly would-be deputy prime minister and defence minister Richard Marles, badly handled the potential impact of the price for carbon offsets for 215 industries – including 15 coalminers in the crucial Hunter Valley of NSW.
For a week before Albanese acted, the issue of job losses for mining communities in the Hunter had festered as former resources minister Matt Canavan campaigned for the Nationals in the seat of Hunter, where long-term traditional Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon is retiring. Local Labor MP for Shortland Pat Conroy, the party’s assistant climate change spokesman, and MP for Paterson Meryl Swanson both played down the threat of Labor’s policy of using the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to hasten the pace of emissions reduction and force companies to buy carbon credits to offset carbon emissions.
Conroy said the coalminers were exempt and Swanson said they would “work out” a convenient arrangement. Both were wrong and both were contradicted by Chris Bowen, the climate change spokesman. Marles, who is also employment spokesman, couldn’t explain the policy when it was announced and criticised six months ago for the potential to close businesses and oust 100,000 workers, and this week he simply couldn’t answer the questions.
As the Coalition moved into a strong regional phase of the campaign with Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce out in the bush and out of the headlines and Scott Morrison announcing the creation of 450,000 regional jobs over five years, in Queensland the coalminers’ fears were growing and spreading.
In response to Labor claims it was the same scheme introduced by Tony Abbott to get the removal of the carbon tax through the Senate, Morrison said: “What Labor is doing is binding them on this and issuing penalties on those companies so they couldn’t be more different. What Labor has is a tax, a sneaky carbon tax on traditional industries in this country, and that’s not good for regional Australia. It is not good at all.” Whitehaven Coal chief executive Paul Flynn said he feared Labor’s strengthened safeguards mechanism would be a “carbon levy by stealth” and it was not true it was the same as the Coalition’s safeguard mechanism.
“The fact the ALP sees such an enlarged role for the Clean Energy Regulator in negotiating with impacted facilities suggests some in Labor are only just beginning to turn their minds to what this policy might look like in practice and what the impacts could be across the economy,” Flynn told The Australian.
By not being on top of detail, not being able to carry an argument and, most crucially, not being able to say what the policy would mean until after the election, the Labor team was not just endangering the seat of Hunter – which was saved for Labor by One Nation preferences in 2019 – but also other seats in NSW and more broadly in Queensland and resource-rich Western Australia.
Labor needs to win seats in Queensland and to hold seats such as the Hunter if it is to have any chance of realising Albanese’s aspiration of a majority Labor government. That’s why Albanese had to cut the Gordian knot of a carbon tax from his home in inner-Sydney’s Marrickville.
When political leaders make firm declarations during election campaigns, the matter of most immediate importance is not whether they will be believed or whether they will breach the pledge – what is most important is why they said it. After years of avoiding absolute declarations, dodging tricky questions or batting away aggression why does a leader feel compelled to break all the election campaign rules and make an absolute promise that may have to be broken in some form in the future?
Labor’s Deputy Leader Richard Marles having a beer with Member for Solomon Luke Gosling and Afghanistan Veteran Brent Potter on Anzac Day in Darwin. Picture: Tim Hunter.
Labor’s Deputy Leader Richard Marles having a beer with Member for Solomon Luke Gosling and Afghanistan Veteran Brent Potter on Anzac Day in Darwin. Picture: Tim Hunter.
It’s because they believe they have no choice, that the issue is absolutely important in the electorate, is crucial to ensuring victory, and there needs to be an irrevocable denial to kill the debate.
Albanese and Morrison are revisiting the climate wars between the major parties when a bipartisan policy of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 would have seemed to be grounds for a neutralisation of the debate after decades of political infighting.
When Albanese released the ALP policy six months ago he said it was time to “put the climate wars behind us (and) unite around a common vision”. “We can become a renewable energy superpower,” he said. “Over the last decade the Coalition has announced over 20 energy policies and not landed a single one. Business has missed out on certainty, and Australians have missed out on jobs.”
The reason for the revisitation is because the common 2050 target means the implementation of the policy, the pace of change, the incentives or punishments used to achieve targets and the balance between jobs created and lost is now a real argument with real impacts on industry and workers.
It is not just a two-way fight between the ALP and the Coalition but also has the Greens and Climate 200 teal independents cannibalising each other and Labor as they try to oust inner-city Liberals such as Josh Frydenberg and Tim Wilson in Melbourne and Trent Zimmerman and Dave Sharma in Sydney. At appearances in his own electorate of Kooyong and neighbouring Liberal-held seats, the Treasurer was not asked about regional jobs threatened by carbon pricing but whether net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 was still Coalition policy and would transgender women be allowed to use new sports facilities.
At the other end of the fight Coalition and Labor MPs face challenges from One Nation and United Australia Party, which campaign on both the major parties selling out regional workers. Morrison’s continued commitment this week to his policy of net-zero by 2050, agreed at the Glasgow climate change conference last year, has cost the Coalition a lot of support among conservative voters.
So, Albanese and Morrison are still in the climate wars, it’s just that the dichotomies between city and regional areas are greater, there are more players and a carbon price – which Gillard had the foolhardy bravery to call a carbon tax – is much, much closer.
The Australian, 30 April 2022
The Liberals and Labor are still in the climate wars, it’s just that the dichotomies between city and regional areas are greater, there are more players and a carbon tax is much, much closer.
Anthony Albanese has had his “never, ever” moment of this year’s federal election campaign: “There will be no carbon tax, ever,” he vowed on Wednesday under pressure during a radio interview.
Julia Gillard, as Labor prime minister in 2010, was there before him: “There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.” And in 1995 John Howard, then opposition leader, responded to an aggressive journalist asking if there would “never, ever” be a GST: “Never ever. It’s dead.”
Albanese’s pledge was driven by a recognition that the impact of a carbon price in whatever form was no longer theoretical but a political reality. As well, it is a sign that subcontracting out the climate change attack on Liberal MPs in affluent inner-city electorates to Greens warriors and Climate 200 “teal” activists is not a complete answer for Labor. There is still the same challenge of being able to promote climate action in the city while protecting jobs outside the city.
It also was a tacit admission that Labor is failing on explaining its policies and how they would work – not just to the general voting population but to specific areas of pivotal political importance.
At the halfway mark of the campaign and on the eve of Albanese’s campaign launch, which will contain the detail of policies three years in the making and likely involve US Democrat-style infrastructure spending as well as social support in housing and childcare, there is a need for more rigour from Labor.
Apart from the small-target strategy leading to a paucity of major detailed policy, there has been an inability to explain how the policies would work and what they would cost. Since the budget, central promises and policies from Labor such as the guarantee of 24-hour nurses in aged care, border protection, carbon pricing, China’s aggression in the Pacific, new agricultural visa limits and a wage rise for health workers have been paused, reworked, confused and poorly explained.
While Albanese spent seven days in Covid isolation at home his B team, particularly would-be deputy prime minister and defence minister Richard Marles, badly handled the potential impact of the price for carbon offsets for 215 industries – including 15 coalminers in the crucial Hunter Valley of NSW.
For a week before Albanese acted, the issue of job losses for mining communities in the Hunter had festered as former resources minister Matt Canavan campaigned for the Nationals in the seat of Hunter, where long-term traditional Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon is retiring. Local Labor MP for Shortland Pat Conroy, the party’s assistant climate change spokesman, and MP for Paterson Meryl Swanson both played down the threat of Labor’s policy of using the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to hasten the pace of emissions reduction and force companies to buy carbon credits to offset carbon emissions.
Conroy said the coalminers were exempt and Swanson said they would “work out” a convenient arrangement. Both were wrong and both were contradicted by Chris Bowen, the climate change spokesman. Marles, who is also employment spokesman, couldn’t explain the policy when it was announced and criticised six months ago for the potential to close businesses and oust 100,000 workers, and this week he simply couldn’t answer the questions.
As the Coalition moved into a strong regional phase of the campaign with Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce out in the bush and out of the headlines and Scott Morrison announcing the creation of 450,000 regional jobs over five years, in Queensland the coalminers’ fears were growing and spreading.
In response to Labor claims it was the same scheme introduced by Tony Abbott to get the removal of the carbon tax through the Senate, Morrison said: “What Labor is doing is binding them on this and issuing penalties on those companies so they couldn’t be more different. What Labor has is a tax, a sneaky carbon tax on traditional industries in this country, and that’s not good for regional Australia. It is not good at all.” Whitehaven Coal chief executive Paul Flynn said he feared Labor’s strengthened safeguards mechanism would be a “carbon levy by stealth” and it was not true it was the same as the Coalition’s safeguard mechanism.
“The fact the ALP sees such an enlarged role for the Clean Energy Regulator in negotiating with impacted facilities suggests some in Labor are only just beginning to turn their minds to what this policy might look like in practice and what the impacts could be across the economy,” Flynn told The Australian.
By not being on top of detail, not being able to carry an argument and, most crucially, not being able to say what the policy would mean until after the election, the Labor team was not just endangering the seat of Hunter – which was saved for Labor by One Nation preferences in 2019 – but also other seats in NSW and more broadly in Queensland and resource-rich Western Australia.
Labor needs to win seats in Queensland and to hold seats such as the Hunter if it is to have any chance of realising Albanese’s aspiration of a majority Labor government. That’s why Albanese had to cut the Gordian knot of a carbon tax from his home in inner-Sydney’s Marrickville.
When political leaders make firm declarations during election campaigns, the matter of most immediate importance is not whether they will be believed or whether they will breach the pledge – what is most important is why they said it. After years of avoiding absolute declarations, dodging tricky questions or batting away aggression why does a leader feel compelled to break all the election campaign rules and make an absolute promise that may have to be broken in some form in the future?
Labor’s Deputy Leader Richard Marles having a beer with Member for Solomon Luke Gosling and Afghanistan Veteran Brent Potter on Anzac Day in Darwin. Picture: Tim Hunter.
Labor’s Deputy Leader Richard Marles having a beer with Member for Solomon Luke Gosling and Afghanistan Veteran Brent Potter on Anzac Day in Darwin. Picture: Tim Hunter.
It’s because they believe they have no choice, that the issue is absolutely important in the electorate, is crucial to ensuring victory, and there needs to be an irrevocable denial to kill the debate.
Albanese and Morrison are revisiting the climate wars between the major parties when a bipartisan policy of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 would have seemed to be grounds for a neutralisation of the debate after decades of political infighting.
When Albanese released the ALP policy six months ago he said it was time to “put the climate wars behind us (and) unite around a common vision”. “We can become a renewable energy superpower,” he said. “Over the last decade the Coalition has announced over 20 energy policies and not landed a single one. Business has missed out on certainty, and Australians have missed out on jobs.”
The reason for the revisitation is because the common 2050 target means the implementation of the policy, the pace of change, the incentives or punishments used to achieve targets and the balance between jobs created and lost is now a real argument with real impacts on industry and workers.
It is not just a two-way fight between the ALP and the Coalition but also has the Greens and Climate 200 teal independents cannibalising each other and Labor as they try to oust inner-city Liberals such as Josh Frydenberg and Tim Wilson in Melbourne and Trent Zimmerman and Dave Sharma in Sydney. At appearances in his own electorate of Kooyong and neighbouring Liberal-held seats, the Treasurer was not asked about regional jobs threatened by carbon pricing but whether net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 was still Coalition policy and would transgender women be allowed to use new sports facilities.
At the other end of the fight Coalition and Labor MPs face challenges from One Nation and United Australia Party, which campaign on both the major parties selling out regional workers. Morrison’s continued commitment this week to his policy of net-zero by 2050, agreed at the Glasgow climate change conference last year, has cost the Coalition a lot of support among conservative voters.
So, Albanese and Morrison are still in the climate wars, it’s just that the dichotomies between city and regional areas are greater, there are more players and a carbon price – which Gillard had the foolhardy bravery to call a carbon tax – is much, much closer.
7) Oh dear: Germany's red-green Govt puts coal phaseout on hold indefinitely
Bloomberg, 28 April 2022
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is backtracking from its Group of Seven agenda to push globally for a speedier exit from coal.
Steffen Hebestreit, the Chancellor’s chief spokesman, said Russia’s war in Ukraine cast doubt over the practicality of asking the world’s richest countries to end the use of coal. Germany is the current holder of the rotating presidency of the G-7 nations, which have taken the lead in pursuing sanctions against Russia.
Despite political pressure to end the use of the dirtiest fossil fuel, coal generation is expected to jump 9% from last year, according to the International Energy Agency. That’s driven by the economic recovery from the pandemic, while countries are also scrambling to find alternative sources to Russian fossil fuels.
Germany, which has banned nuclear plants, and Japan, where atomic generation is just a fraction of what it once was, have fewer options than others. And so in Germany, coal-fired power plants that were once decommissioned are now being considered for a second life.
Germany’s “G-7 presidency is taking place in an international political situation which has clearly changed after Russia’s attack on Ukraine and its impact on energy supply,” said Hebestreit in response to questions on Wednesday.
“It’s questionable as to whether this topic will be directly addressed in this acute phase where we are working to become more independent from oil and gas,” he said.
As G-7 leader, the German government had previously said that its priorities include efforts to accelerate the global phaseout of coal. Ministers circulated a draft proposal, calling on countries to halt coal-fired power plants by 2030, according to Japan’s Asahi newspaper on Tuesday.
German officials presented the draft proposal to a preparatory meeting, ahead of an upcoming G-7 environment, climate and energy summit. But that prompted pushback from Japan’s government, which said it would continue to curb coal use at home, while also recognizing its energy security needs.
While Japan has said it will follow G-7 countries in banning Russian coal, the country has said it will be a longer-term goal for the resource-poor country. Russia supplies Japan with 13% of its coal for power generation, known as thermal coal, and 8% of the coal used in steelmaking.
8) Senator John Barrasso: Biden’s energy counter-revolution
The Washington Times, 27 April 2022
America’s energy revolution was a game changer that turned us into the world’s pre-eminent energy power. Joe Biden is mounting a counter-revolution against it.
The president inherited an energy economy that was the envy of the world. He has spent the last 14 months working to dismantle that legacy. We are living with the consequences.
America’s energy revolution was an astonishing technical and entrepreneurial achievement. It made us energy independent for the first time since the early 1950s. It made energy more affordable, which made us more prosperous and more competitive. It also delivered geopolitical flexibility at a time when America was contending with several emerging threats that intersected with energy.
Driven by fracking, horizontal drilling, and advanced seismic imaging technologies, America’s crude oil and natural gas production shot up. From 2005 to 2019, oil and natural gas production jumped 116 and 89%, respectively. Over the same period, carbon emissions dove 19%.
That revolution came about because of a change of mindset toward policies that embraced energy abundance rather than energy scarcity.
Instead of welcoming America’s energy revolution, this president is mounting a methodical “whole of government” counter-revolution against it, all to achieve some completely unrealistic Green New Deal targets.
Practically every agency—from the Department of Interior and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve—is being enlisted to starve fossil fuel companies of financing, deny them access to resources and infrastructure, tie them up in “green tape,” and tax them.
Personnel is policy, and Mr. Biden‘s picks for important positions in his administration are uniformly hostile to America’s energy revolution.
Attacking the fuels that provide four-fifths of the energy we use has had predictable—and dire—consequences for America’s families. This administration has wreaked havoc with America’s energy economy and added to inflationary pressures, especially hurting households with low or fixed incomes.
The administration has created enormous uncertainty that has contributed to the underinvestment in the oil and gas sector especially. Europe is giving us a preview of the energy fiasco that underinvesting in reliable and secure fossil fuels can create.
Democrats now see energy prices and inflation heading north and their poll numbers heading south. Desperate gimmicks like releasing more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or a gasoline tax holiday will not solve the fundamental problem: America’s energy crisis is a supply crisis. The solution is more American energy, but that is the one solution the administration will not allow.
At about 11.7 million barrels per day, U.S. crude oil output is running 1.3 million barrel per day below the pre-pandemic peak. In 2020, the Energy Information Administration forecast that producers were on course to hit 14 million barrels per day by 2022. We can realize that with the right policies.
It is not just fossil fuels. The Biden administration is so beholden to the environmental left that it is slow-walking or blocking permits for mines that would produce the minerals used in the energy technologies the president says he wants.
Wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries for electric vehicles use certain key minerals in much bigger quantities than the technologies they are meant to replace.
Existing supplies, however, are largely controlled by our adversaries. That has not stopped the administration from cancelling or delaying mining projects in places like Minnesota, Arizona, Alaska, and Nevada.
We should not have to rely on China and Russia for minerals we can mine here. We need to be energy self-sufficient. That’s true not just for oil, natural gas, and coal, but for the raw materials needed for nuclear, solar, wind, and batteries.
Biden‘s energy counter-revolution is counter-productive. What America needs is sensible policies that support more American energy and innovation.
The president has a stark choice. He can continue to throw away one of America’s biggest economic and geopolitical advantages. Or he can change course and unleash America’s entrepreneurs and workers to sustain America’s energy revolution.
Energy pre-eminence is central to realizing our economic and geopolitical interests. America is the world’s energy superpower. It is time we started acting like it again.
• Senator John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, is the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
8) National security expert: Biden must revive Trump’s 'energy dominance' to put Putin in his place
Fox News, 28 April 2022
Foreign policy expert and former Trump adviser K.T. McFarland says then-President Trump's strategy for global "energy dominance" made Putin too weak to invade Ukraine and it’s not too late for Biden to use the same tactics.
K.T. McFarland, who has served in the White House under four different presidents, including as Deputy National Security Adviser during the first few months of the Trump administration, says the former executive’s strategy of ramping up U.S. energy production effectively drove down the price of oil low enough that oil-producing nations like Russia could not afford to invade neighboring countries like Ukraine.
"If you look at 50 years of Russian history, every time oil prices are low, the Russians hunker down," McFarland told Fox News Digital. "Every time they're high, the Russians rebuild their military, they fight proxy wars, they invade countries."
"A year and a half ago when oil was $40 a barrel, [Putin] didn't have the money to launch an invasion," McFarland said.
Under former President Trump, the price of crude oil fell to below $25 per barrel and averaged $52.99 per barrel. Under President Biden, the price has skyrocketed from $53.25 per barrel when he assumed office to a high of $123.70 per barrel and closed at $92 per barrel on February 24, the day that Putin invaded Russia. At the time this article was written, the price of oil was approximately $104.
McFarland claims Biden’s "war on fossil fuels" has severely hindered U.S. energy production and is responsible for emboldening Putin by enriching Russia’s economy which is based primarily on foreign trade of oil and gas.
"All of a sudden, Putin’s coffers have doubled, tripled," McFarland said.
McFarland, who also served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan and worked as an aide to geopolitical expert Henry Kissinger, said that while she believes the price of oil was the primary catalyst in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, a "fractured NATO" under Biden and the administration’s perceived "weakness" also played a role.
"It’s the same people in the Biden administration who were in the Obama administration when [Putin] took Crimea," McFarland said, considering Putin’s invasion of Ukraine a "continuation" of his 2014 annexation of the newly formed Republic of Crimea.
Over the two months that Putin spent maneuvering in the Crimea region, the average price of crude oil was $100.59 per barrel, similar to where it stands today.
Although other factors may have contributed to Putin’s ultimate invasion of Ukraine, McFarland believes adopting energy policies similar to that of the Trump administration is the winning strategy to deter the Russian president.
Full story
The Washington Times, 27 April 2022
America’s energy revolution was a game changer that turned us into the world’s pre-eminent energy power. Joe Biden is mounting a counter-revolution against it.
The president inherited an energy economy that was the envy of the world. He has spent the last 14 months working to dismantle that legacy. We are living with the consequences.
America’s energy revolution was an astonishing technical and entrepreneurial achievement. It made us energy independent for the first time since the early 1950s. It made energy more affordable, which made us more prosperous and more competitive. It also delivered geopolitical flexibility at a time when America was contending with several emerging threats that intersected with energy.
Driven by fracking, horizontal drilling, and advanced seismic imaging technologies, America’s crude oil and natural gas production shot up. From 2005 to 2019, oil and natural gas production jumped 116 and 89%, respectively. Over the same period, carbon emissions dove 19%.
That revolution came about because of a change of mindset toward policies that embraced energy abundance rather than energy scarcity.
Instead of welcoming America’s energy revolution, this president is mounting a methodical “whole of government” counter-revolution against it, all to achieve some completely unrealistic Green New Deal targets.
Practically every agency—from the Department of Interior and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve—is being enlisted to starve fossil fuel companies of financing, deny them access to resources and infrastructure, tie them up in “green tape,” and tax them.
Personnel is policy, and Mr. Biden‘s picks for important positions in his administration are uniformly hostile to America’s energy revolution.
Attacking the fuels that provide four-fifths of the energy we use has had predictable—and dire—consequences for America’s families. This administration has wreaked havoc with America’s energy economy and added to inflationary pressures, especially hurting households with low or fixed incomes.
The administration has created enormous uncertainty that has contributed to the underinvestment in the oil and gas sector especially. Europe is giving us a preview of the energy fiasco that underinvesting in reliable and secure fossil fuels can create.
Democrats now see energy prices and inflation heading north and their poll numbers heading south. Desperate gimmicks like releasing more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or a gasoline tax holiday will not solve the fundamental problem: America’s energy crisis is a supply crisis. The solution is more American energy, but that is the one solution the administration will not allow.
At about 11.7 million barrels per day, U.S. crude oil output is running 1.3 million barrel per day below the pre-pandemic peak. In 2020, the Energy Information Administration forecast that producers were on course to hit 14 million barrels per day by 2022. We can realize that with the right policies.
It is not just fossil fuels. The Biden administration is so beholden to the environmental left that it is slow-walking or blocking permits for mines that would produce the minerals used in the energy technologies the president says he wants.
Wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries for electric vehicles use certain key minerals in much bigger quantities than the technologies they are meant to replace.
Existing supplies, however, are largely controlled by our adversaries. That has not stopped the administration from cancelling or delaying mining projects in places like Minnesota, Arizona, Alaska, and Nevada.
We should not have to rely on China and Russia for minerals we can mine here. We need to be energy self-sufficient. That’s true not just for oil, natural gas, and coal, but for the raw materials needed for nuclear, solar, wind, and batteries.
Biden‘s energy counter-revolution is counter-productive. What America needs is sensible policies that support more American energy and innovation.
The president has a stark choice. He can continue to throw away one of America’s biggest economic and geopolitical advantages. Or he can change course and unleash America’s entrepreneurs and workers to sustain America’s energy revolution.
Energy pre-eminence is central to realizing our economic and geopolitical interests. America is the world’s energy superpower. It is time we started acting like it again.
• Senator John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, is the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
8) National security expert: Biden must revive Trump’s 'energy dominance' to put Putin in his place
Fox News, 28 April 2022
Foreign policy expert and former Trump adviser K.T. McFarland says then-President Trump's strategy for global "energy dominance" made Putin too weak to invade Ukraine and it’s not too late for Biden to use the same tactics.
K.T. McFarland, who has served in the White House under four different presidents, including as Deputy National Security Adviser during the first few months of the Trump administration, says the former executive’s strategy of ramping up U.S. energy production effectively drove down the price of oil low enough that oil-producing nations like Russia could not afford to invade neighboring countries like Ukraine.
"If you look at 50 years of Russian history, every time oil prices are low, the Russians hunker down," McFarland told Fox News Digital. "Every time they're high, the Russians rebuild their military, they fight proxy wars, they invade countries."
"A year and a half ago when oil was $40 a barrel, [Putin] didn't have the money to launch an invasion," McFarland said.
Under former President Trump, the price of crude oil fell to below $25 per barrel and averaged $52.99 per barrel. Under President Biden, the price has skyrocketed from $53.25 per barrel when he assumed office to a high of $123.70 per barrel and closed at $92 per barrel on February 24, the day that Putin invaded Russia. At the time this article was written, the price of oil was approximately $104.
McFarland claims Biden’s "war on fossil fuels" has severely hindered U.S. energy production and is responsible for emboldening Putin by enriching Russia’s economy which is based primarily on foreign trade of oil and gas.
"All of a sudden, Putin’s coffers have doubled, tripled," McFarland said.
McFarland, who also served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan and worked as an aide to geopolitical expert Henry Kissinger, said that while she believes the price of oil was the primary catalyst in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, a "fractured NATO" under Biden and the administration’s perceived "weakness" also played a role.
"It’s the same people in the Biden administration who were in the Obama administration when [Putin] took Crimea," McFarland said, considering Putin’s invasion of Ukraine a "continuation" of his 2014 annexation of the newly formed Republic of Crimea.
Over the two months that Putin spent maneuvering in the Crimea region, the average price of crude oil was $100.59 per barrel, similar to where it stands today.
Although other factors may have contributed to Putin’s ultimate invasion of Ukraine, McFarland believes adopting energy policies similar to that of the Trump administration is the winning strategy to deter the Russian president.
Full story
9) Steven Hayward: Biden's energy schizophrenia deepens
The Pipeline, 29 April 2022
The Biden Administration’s poor public approval ratings ultimately derives from the fact that Biden and his team cannot escape the dilemma that sound policy and politics is at odds with the “Progressive” fundamentalism that controls the Democratic Party today. At nearly every turn, however, Progressive dogma wins out.
Two recent decisions make this problem evident. First is the decision to appeal U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s ruling striking down the federal mask mandate. By all accounts the Biden White House debated about whether to appeal the ruling, sending mixed signals that they might let the ruling stand. At length the administration decided to appeal the ruling, though it did so behind the skirts of the Centers for Disease Control, pretending that they have an obligation to uphold the legal prerogatives of the CDC.
The only surprise is that the White House debated at all, and it is significant that the Justice Department isn’t taking the typical step of requesting a stay of Judge Mizelle’s ruling pending an appeals court hearing, which would cause the mask mandate to snap back into place immediately. The White House surely took in the spontaneous scenes of celebration on airplanes and elsewhere at the liberation from masks, which have become the MAGA hat for Progressives. Democratic campaign strategists have been warning for months that the lockdown-uber-alles policy of the Branch-Covidians is increasingly unpopular with core Democratic constituencies, especially suburban moms.
So why did the White House not take the convenient offramp that Judge Mizelle provided? Answer: the imperatives of the Administrative State took precedence. It is crucial that the legal authority to impose mandates and other controls through the CDC be preserved, even if the White House decides that we can let the mask mandate lapse.
It could turn out worse. Cynical operatives in the White House might welcome an appeals ruling that upholds Judge Mizelle because it will allow Democrats to demand from Congress what I have been expecting from the beginning of Covid—the establishment of a new cabinet-level agency, a Department of Pandemic Planning and Prevention, with broad new regulatory powers beyond the CDC’s wildest imagination. The model here is the Department of Homeland Security, the bureaucratic mistake the Bush Administration foolishly embraced in 2002. In other words, the White House decision to appeal the ruling might not be as politically dumb as it seems.
The second significant White House decision was rolling back President Trump’s long-overdue reforms of the review process of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This is the statute that anchors the environmental review and litigation process that the Left has used for decades to slow or block development of all kinds. NEPA and similar state-level laws are a major reason infrastructure projects of all kinds in the U.S. are way more expensive to build—if they are built at all—than in any other major industrialized nation.
The surprise is that it took the Biden White House 15 months to rescind Trump’s changes. You’d have thought Biden would have done this on January 20 of last year, with the same pen he used to kill the Keystone XL pipeline. One reason for the hesitation is that smarter environmentalists (I know, that’s an oxymoron in most cases) have come to understand that while the longstanding environmental review process has been an essential tool to block domestic energy development and infrastructure, it has become an impediment to many of the infrastructure needs of their “green” energy dreams. In many cases local environmental NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) activists have abused the NEPA process to block new wind and solar power projects, as well as the transmission lines necessary to make these green projects feasible at all.
Ezra Klein noted this problem in the New York Times last month: “They are, too often, powerful allies of an intolerable status quo, rendering government plodding and ineffectual and making it almost impossible to build green infrastructure at the speed we need. . . Too many of the tactics and strategies and statutes are designed to stop transformational or even incremental projects from happening.” Even Jerry Brown came to recognize this problem in California, calling on the state legislature in his last term in office to reform California’s version of NEPA known as CEQA. Naturally the state legislature, which was considerably to the left of Jerry Brown if you can imagine, declined to do so.
The Biden White House did deliver one surprise, however. Its new budget proposal earmarks $6 billion to keep open several nuclear power plants currently scheduled to shut down soon. Someone seems awake enough to understand that if you seriously want to decarbonize our energy supply, you need to keep nuclear power prominently in the mix. Better than a fresh round of subsidies, however, it would be better to remove existing mandates and subsidies for wind and solar power that make nuclear power unprofitable in the marketplace.
This move will not sit well with environmental fundamentalists who refuse to accept nuclear power, no matter how panicked they are about climate change. There are rumors that Gina McCarthy, head of the EPA under Obama and now Biden’s principal “climate adviser,” may resign from her post out of unhappiness at Biden’s purported backsliding on climate, even though Biden’s announcements of support for more domestic oil and natural gas production are mostly hollow rhetoric. Biden’s incoherence on energy simply cannot be masked.
Steven F. Hayward is a resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, and lecturer at Berkeley Law. His most recent book is "M. Stanton Evans: Conservative Wit, Apostle of Freedom." He writes daily at Powerlineblog.com.
The Pipeline, 29 April 2022
The Biden Administration’s poor public approval ratings ultimately derives from the fact that Biden and his team cannot escape the dilemma that sound policy and politics is at odds with the “Progressive” fundamentalism that controls the Democratic Party today. At nearly every turn, however, Progressive dogma wins out.
Two recent decisions make this problem evident. First is the decision to appeal U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s ruling striking down the federal mask mandate. By all accounts the Biden White House debated about whether to appeal the ruling, sending mixed signals that they might let the ruling stand. At length the administration decided to appeal the ruling, though it did so behind the skirts of the Centers for Disease Control, pretending that they have an obligation to uphold the legal prerogatives of the CDC.
The only surprise is that the White House debated at all, and it is significant that the Justice Department isn’t taking the typical step of requesting a stay of Judge Mizelle’s ruling pending an appeals court hearing, which would cause the mask mandate to snap back into place immediately. The White House surely took in the spontaneous scenes of celebration on airplanes and elsewhere at the liberation from masks, which have become the MAGA hat for Progressives. Democratic campaign strategists have been warning for months that the lockdown-uber-alles policy of the Branch-Covidians is increasingly unpopular with core Democratic constituencies, especially suburban moms.
So why did the White House not take the convenient offramp that Judge Mizelle provided? Answer: the imperatives of the Administrative State took precedence. It is crucial that the legal authority to impose mandates and other controls through the CDC be preserved, even if the White House decides that we can let the mask mandate lapse.
It could turn out worse. Cynical operatives in the White House might welcome an appeals ruling that upholds Judge Mizelle because it will allow Democrats to demand from Congress what I have been expecting from the beginning of Covid—the establishment of a new cabinet-level agency, a Department of Pandemic Planning and Prevention, with broad new regulatory powers beyond the CDC’s wildest imagination. The model here is the Department of Homeland Security, the bureaucratic mistake the Bush Administration foolishly embraced in 2002. In other words, the White House decision to appeal the ruling might not be as politically dumb as it seems.
The second significant White House decision was rolling back President Trump’s long-overdue reforms of the review process of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This is the statute that anchors the environmental review and litigation process that the Left has used for decades to slow or block development of all kinds. NEPA and similar state-level laws are a major reason infrastructure projects of all kinds in the U.S. are way more expensive to build—if they are built at all—than in any other major industrialized nation.
The surprise is that it took the Biden White House 15 months to rescind Trump’s changes. You’d have thought Biden would have done this on January 20 of last year, with the same pen he used to kill the Keystone XL pipeline. One reason for the hesitation is that smarter environmentalists (I know, that’s an oxymoron in most cases) have come to understand that while the longstanding environmental review process has been an essential tool to block domestic energy development and infrastructure, it has become an impediment to many of the infrastructure needs of their “green” energy dreams. In many cases local environmental NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) activists have abused the NEPA process to block new wind and solar power projects, as well as the transmission lines necessary to make these green projects feasible at all.
Ezra Klein noted this problem in the New York Times last month: “They are, too often, powerful allies of an intolerable status quo, rendering government plodding and ineffectual and making it almost impossible to build green infrastructure at the speed we need. . . Too many of the tactics and strategies and statutes are designed to stop transformational or even incremental projects from happening.” Even Jerry Brown came to recognize this problem in California, calling on the state legislature in his last term in office to reform California’s version of NEPA known as CEQA. Naturally the state legislature, which was considerably to the left of Jerry Brown if you can imagine, declined to do so.
The Biden White House did deliver one surprise, however. Its new budget proposal earmarks $6 billion to keep open several nuclear power plants currently scheduled to shut down soon. Someone seems awake enough to understand that if you seriously want to decarbonize our energy supply, you need to keep nuclear power prominently in the mix. Better than a fresh round of subsidies, however, it would be better to remove existing mandates and subsidies for wind and solar power that make nuclear power unprofitable in the marketplace.
This move will not sit well with environmental fundamentalists who refuse to accept nuclear power, no matter how panicked they are about climate change. There are rumors that Gina McCarthy, head of the EPA under Obama and now Biden’s principal “climate adviser,” may resign from her post out of unhappiness at Biden’s purported backsliding on climate, even though Biden’s announcements of support for more domestic oil and natural gas production are mostly hollow rhetoric. Biden’s incoherence on energy simply cannot be masked.
Steven F. Hayward is a resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, and lecturer at Berkeley Law. His most recent book is "M. Stanton Evans: Conservative Wit, Apostle of Freedom." He writes daily at Powerlineblog.com.
The London-based Net Zero Watch is a campaign group set up to highlight and discuss the serious implications of expensive and poorly considered climate change policies. The Net Zero Watch newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.netzerowatch.com.
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