Net Zero Watch: Biden's climate plan in free fall ... and so are his approval ratings

 

In this newsletter:

1) Biden ready to invoke ‘domestic mobilization’ against climate crisis after Congress failed
The Washington Times, 19 July 2022
  
2) Biden’s poll numbers prove it: A Democratic apocalypse is drawing near
Eric Garcia, The Independent, 19 July 2022

  
3) The ‘Executive Beast Mode’ Presidency?
Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, 19 July 2022
 
4) Noah Rothman: The ‘Climate Emergency’ trumps democracy
Commentary Magazine, 19 July 2022
  
5) Sean Hannity: The climate cult alarmists are waging a war on the American people
Fox News, 20 July 2022
 
6) Rishi Sunak pledges not to build more onshore wind farms
The Daily Telegraph, 20 July 2022

7) Connor Tomlinson: The windfall tax epitomises the Tories’ energy muddle
Net Zero Watch, 20 July 2022
 
8) Net Zero costs will make cooling homes unaffordable for millions of Britons (never mind heating their homes)
Bloomberg, 20 July 2022
  
9) Benny Peiser: Why are we building wind turbines hoping they will do anything avoiding heat waves?
Talk TV, 20 July 2022
 
10) And finally: Weather ‘too hot’ for solar panels
The Daily Telegraph, 19 July 2022

Full details:

1) Biden ready to invoke ‘domestic mobilization’ against climate crisis after Congress failed
The Washington Times, 19 July 2022

US president won’t announce a climate emergency on Wednesday but may do so in the future, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

President Biden is prepared to announce executive actions to combat the threat of climate change, say lawmakers who have spoken to the president and are urging him to act unilaterally now that Congress’ negotiations on green energy legislation have fallen apart.

Mr. Biden is expected to announce steps he will take to reduce carbon emissions as soon as Wednesday when he visits the shuttered Brayton Point power plant in Somerset, Massachusetts, to talk about what he is calling a climate crisis.

“I don’t know the exact words the president is going to use, but I think that Joe Biden is poised to use his commander-in-chief authority to invoke a domestic mobilization against the climate crisis,” said Sen. Ed Markey, Massachusetts Democrat.

Senate Democrats are urging Mr. Biden to act unilaterally now that Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat, has dropped his support for new clean energy tax breaks in a party-line spending bill, killing any chance of legislative action on a climate bill.

The Massachusetts power plant, formerly one of the largest electricity producers in New England, is undergoing a conversion from coal to wind power and will serve as a backdrop for Mr. Biden’s call for more renewables in the power grid.

Democrats have been urging the president to not only act on reducing carbon emissions but also to declare a climate emergency, which would give him the power to implement significant changes to energy production and consumption.

The president won’t announce a climate emergency on Wednesday but may do so in the future, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

“Everything is on the table but it is just not going to be this week on that decision,” she said.

Full story
 
2) Biden’s poll numbers prove it: A Democratic apocalypse is drawing near
Eric Garcia, The Independent, 19 July 2022

 

Biden’s dismal performance is a sign that Democrats should probably prepare themselves for a catastrophe in the midterm elections this November — one that could make the Blue Wave of 2018 and the Republican “Shellacking” of 2010 look like, well, a Tea Party.

A new poll conducted by SSRS and released yesterday by CNN puts Joe Biden’s approval rating at a dismal 38 per cent. To put that in perspective, the president’s numbers are worse than every other president since the second half of the 20th century, even clocking in one point lower than Donald Trump around July 2018.
 
Even more devastatingly, the survey showed that nearly 7 in 10 people say that Biden hasn’t paid enough attention to the nation’s biggest problems; only 30 per cent approve of how he’s handling the economy, and only 25 per cent of how he’s handling inflation. This comes after the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed last week that inflation jumped a stunning 9.1 per cent, a 40-year high.
 
Some polling shows that Democrats hold an advantage in the generic ballot, which shows whether voters would prefer Democrats or Republicans to lead Congress, and Democrats have generally started to hold an advantage since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v Jackson decision overturned the right to abortion. But the nation’s overall sentiments do not reflect how individual districts, let alone swing districts, are leaning. Many voters in hotly contested races might feel compelled to make a change and let the GOP take the reins in Congress.
 
For now, Biden’s dismal performance is a sign that Democrats should probably prepare themselves for a catastrophe in the midterm elections this November — one that could make the Blue Wave of 2018 and the Republican “Shellacking” of 2010 look like, well, a Tea Party.

All of this indicates why some are saying that Biden should step aside in 2024 for the good of the party. But that only raises the question of who should replace him at the top of the ticket.
 
Full story
 
3) The ‘Executive Beast Mode’ Presidency?
Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, 19 July 2022

Declaring a climate emergency would flagrantly circumvent Congress. The President may do it anyway. But thanks to the High Court’s recent West Virginia v. EPA decision, lower courts will be well-equipped to decapitate the executive beast.
 
Democrats denounced Donald Trump as a dictator for invoking emergency powers to build his border wall after he was blocked in Congress. Well, now they’re demanding that President Biden declare climate change a national emergency to advance their anti-carbon agenda that Congress won’t pass. Apparently dictators are in the eye of the beholder.

Progressives are furious at West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin for scuttling a big climate spending bill. “With legislative climate options now closed, it’s now time for executive Beast Mode,” Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse tweeted last week. And now the White House is leaking that the President may declare a national climate emergency as soon as this week.

This would be an even greater abuse of power than Mr. Trump’s repurposing of military funds for the border wall. We criticized Mr. Trump at the time and warned that a Democratic President might use the precedent to declare a climate emergency. And here we are.

While a President may sometimes need to act with dispatch during an emergency, climate change isn’t close to such an event. Climate change is neither sudden nor unexpected. The world has warmed by 1.1 degree Celsius since the late 19th century, and the pace of future warming is uncertain and depends on multiple variables.

In any case, nothing progressives want Mr. Biden to do will affect the climate or even reduce global CO2 emissions. China and India will continue to build coal plants that offset all of the West’s climate sacrifices.

But that isn’t stopping progressives from demanding that Mr. Biden roll over the Constitution’s separation of powers. One irony is that Congress passed the National Emergencies Act of 1976 to limit abuses of executive power. The law requires the President to activate his powers under one of 130 or so statutes that authorize emergency actions.

Here are some of the ways progressives now want Mr. Biden to impose his climate agenda without democratic assent:

• Halt oil exports. A 2015 legislative compromise by Barack Obama and Paul Ryan lifted the decades-old ban on crude exports in return for extending green-energy tax credits. This helped unleash U.S. oil production, especially in the Permian basin.

Progressives want to end shale fracking. But banning U.S. exports would drive up global oil prices, and the U.S. would still have to import refined products and crude to meet demand. In the name of meeting a climate emergency, they’d create a bigger energy emergency.

• Stop oil and gas drilling in the outer continental shelf. Mr. Biden has already imposed a de facto moratorium on new offshore leases, but progressives want him to suspend existing leases. This would reduce U.S. production by about 1.8 million barrels a day—about two to three times as much as Russian output has declined owing to Western sanctions.

Progressives want Mr. Biden to self-sanction the U.S. oil and gas industry while they prod him to lift sanctions on Venezuela and Iran. Canceling active leases would abrogate contracts and presumably require compensation, which would require money from Congress.

• Use the Defense Production Act to build green energy. This Cold War-era law lets the President marshall domestic industry for national security. Mr. Biden has already invoked the DPA to boost manufacturing of solar panels, lithium-ion batteries and heat pumps.

While Mr. Biden could try to command manufacturers to make more green products, logistical snags would abound. Auto makers couldn’t easily convert factories into making solar panels or even electric vehicles. A shortage of critical minerals such as cobalt and lithium would also limit production, and it takes years to develop new mines.

• Repurpose funds as Mr. Trump did.The climate left wants Mr. Biden to use funds for disaster relief or military construction to build green energy systems. Americans whose homes are destroyed in wildfires or hurricanes won’t be happy if Mr. Biden raids disaster funds to build solar plants.

The most serious harm with all this would be to the rule of law. The Supreme Court in its landmark Youngstown Steel (1952) decision blocked Harry Truman’s attempt to nationalize steel mills during the Korean War. Justice Robert Jackson famously explained in his concurrence that a President’s authority is “at its maximum” when he “acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress,” while it’s weaker when acting “in the absence of a congressional grant or denial of authority.”

Declaring a climate emergency would flagrantly circumvent Congress. The President may do it anyway. But thanks to the High Court’s recent West Virginia v. EPA decision, lower courts will be well-equipped to decapitate the executive beast.
 
4) Noah Rothman: The ‘Climate Emergency’ trumps democracy
Commentary Magazine, 19 July 2022
 
The failure of the people’s elected representatives in Congress to empower the executive branch has apparently convinced Joe Biden to seize and exercise new authority.

Have you ever gotten the sense that Democratic concerns about the threat to American democracy aren’t entirely sincere?
 
Perhaps it’s the efforts of party strategists to boost conspiracy-curious, MAGA-flavored Republican candidates in the primaries only so they can mourn the GOP’s authoritarianism. Maybe it’s Democrats’ claim that the Supreme Court is making “a mockery of democracy” by remanding divisive social issues to the various legislatures, to which Democrats have responded by doing exactly what the Court recommended in seeking to codify those rights in legislation. Or it could be that the party responds to legislative setbacks by threatening to usurp the powers it isn’t specifically granted by Congress. At least, that’s how the president reportedly plans to respond to congressional lethargy on one of the many exigencies of our time: the “climate emergency.”

For months, progressive activists have lobbied the Biden administration to declare a “climate emergency” and to impose restrictions on private enterprise commensurate with the crisis. The president is reportedly listening to these enthusiasts and is prepared to do just that. It was not, however, any event or statistic that allegedly convinced Joe Biden to act. The failure of the people’s elected representatives in Congress to empower the executive branch has apparently convinced him to seize and exercise new authority.
 
The president’s forthcoming power grab was reportedly inspired by the breakdown of negotiations over new federal spending initiatives designed to support green technologies while making it more expensive to produce power through conventional means. Owing to the worsening economic climate, Sen. Joe Manchin refused to support this measure. This act of prudence led prominent Democratic influencers to label him the “man who single-handedly doomed humanity,” consigning us all to a future dominated by “barren croplands, flooded homes, and incinerated communities.”

It is precisely Congress’s explicit refusal to authorize the executive branch to execute new climate change regulations that has convinced Democrats the president must exercise those undelegated powers. “This also unchains the president from waiting for Congress to act,” said Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley of the still very fettered president. “Free at last,” Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse declared. “With legislative climate options now closed, it’s now time for executive Beast Mode.” And yet, the value proposition associated with declaring a “climate emergency” seems to be primarily in the declaration itself. What the president is supposed to do remains vague.

The Washington Post noted that activists believe the usurpation they envision “would allow the president to halt crude oil exports, limit oil and gas drilling in federal waters, and direct agencies including the Federal Emergency Management Agency to boost renewable energy sources.”
 
The Biden administration has thus far balked at restricting oil exports because America’s European allies depend on U.S. energy exports to offset Russian supplies. The White House already produced a plan to limit federal leases offshore for the next five years and has canceled three oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Alaskan coast even in the absence of emergency powers. Reorienting FEMA away from disaster response and toward social engineering would expand the agency’s remit, sap it of authority, and commit it to tasks it cannot perform while sacrificing its core mission.
 
Moreover, as the Supreme Court recently ruled in West Virginia v. EPA, the executive branch has been assuming authority that “Congress had conspicuously declined to enact itself” for years. That decision put an end to that agency’s apparent presumption that “Congress implicitly tasked it, and it alone, with balancing the many vital considerations of national policy implicated in the basic regulation of how Americans get their energy” when there’s “little reason to think Congress did so.” These constitutional impediments do not dissolve simply because Democrats believe the Constitution is unequal to the imperatives of the moment.
 
But the activists are angry. They demand action, regardless of whether that action is effective or backed by the imprimatur of America’s democratic institutions. And the president needs those activists. In their absence at the polls in November, the defeat Democrats expect to endure could turn into a rout. The mechanisms of self-government have become an obstacle to realizing Democratic goals, so those mechanisms must be stilled.
 
It’s enough to make you wonder if left-wing laments about “the death of American democracy” are genuine.
 
5) Sean Hannity: The climate cult alarmists are waging a war on the American people
Fox News, 20 July 2022
 


This is nothing but a giant Trojan horse for big government socialism. They want to fundamentally change this country, even if it means your life gets a lot worse.
 
Over the past 18 months, you may have noticed that Joe Biden and The climate cult alarmists who control him sometimes pretend they feel they have a monopoly on compassion. They feel your pain. In fact, they want you to feel the pain. They want it, which was promised. is delivering. They want you to pay more at the pump. They want your energy bill to be higher. They want food prices to rise.

They want you to do the least. All in the name of climate change. Now, according to him, the administration should take extreme measures from now on to save Mother Earth from the impending doom. Now, after all, this is nothing more than window dressing. In other words, a giant Trojan horse for big government socialism. They want to fundamentally change this country, even if it means your life gets a lot worse.

Now, climate cult alarmists are waging war on the American people, over our budget. They are adversely affecting the poor, middle class, people with fixed income, elderly in this country. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to Pete Buttigieg, the small-town mayor and genius, man of all experience, Transportation Secretary.

Watch full video
 
6) Rishi Sunak pledges not to build more onshore wind farms
The Daily Telegraph, 20 July 2022

Rishi Sunak has pledged to keep the ban on building any new onshore wind farms if he wins the Tory leadership race and becomes the next prime minister.

The former chancellor would reverse Boris Johnson’s plan to relax the rules and let local communities agree to host turbines in return for cheaper electricity bills.

Speaking to The Telegraph, he vowed to introduce a legal target to make Britain energy self-sufficient by 2045 by overseeing a massive expansion in offshore wind.

David Cameron introduced the de facto ban on new onshore wind farms in 2016 by excluding them from government subsidies for green electricity.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, has been pushing for it to be overturned but more than 100 Tory MPs have privately lobbied No 10 against a change.

Mr Sunak is the frontrunner in the Tory leadership race and is all but certain to make the final two candidates put forward by MPs to the party membership.

“Wind energy will be an important part of our strategy, but I want to reassure communities that as prime minister I would scrap plans to relax the ban on onshore wind in England, instead focusing on building more turbines offshore,” he told The Telegraph.

There is hostility towards wind farms in many rural areas because of the noise they generate and the fact some people consider them to be a blight on the landscape.

Turbines placed out at sea are more efficient and reliable than those on land, but they cost significantly more to build and maintain.

Last month, the price of electricity from offshore wind fell to its lowest ever point and it is now four times cheaper than that from gas power plants.

Making the UK ‘energy independent’

Mr Sunak has also pledged to re-establish the separate Department of Energy, which was subsumed into the Department of Business in 2016.

He would also create a new Energy Security Committee ahead of the winter tasked with keeping the lights on and reforming the market to cut future bills.

“As energy bills skyrocket in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it has never been more important that our country achieves energy sovereignty, so that we’re no longer reliant on the volatility of the global energy supply,” he said.

“That’s why as prime minister I would introduce an ambitious new plan to make the UK energy independent, investing in vital new technologies.

“I am committed to Net Zero by 2050, but that can’t mean neglecting our energy security. So although the legal target for energy sovereignty will be 2045 and I will work night and day to ensure we beat that target, securing a safer future for the next generation.”
 
7) Connor Tomlinson: The windfall tax epitomises the Tories’ energy muddle
Net Zero Watch, 20 July 2022

If the government wishes to allay the electorate’s concerns that the government are sabotaging their quality of life for a utopian green dream, he must slash the taxes placed on the fuels we need.
 
With eleven percent inflation on the horizon, the cost of filling a family car exceeding £100, and Ofgem’s price cap set to rise again in October to £2,800, former Chancellor Rishi Sunak insisted the Treasury was ‘using all the tools at [its] disposal to bring inflation down’.
 
But as tax cuts languished untouched on his conceptual workbench, the government reversed its aversion to Labour’s proposed windfall tax on oil and gas profits. Sunak insisted his windfall tax would collect £5bn in revenue for £400 in compensatory measures for consumers. Labour lauded the then-Chancellor’s change of heart, but said their £6.6 bn plan would do more to reduce average household bills by £200. 

But as last Monday’s Parliamentary debate on the bill demonstrated, the windfall tax is regarded as a plaster for internal hemorrhaging in our energy sector — and that wound was self-inflicted.
 
A windfall tax is a one-off tax imposed by governments on business profits, designed to take additional income from disproportionate profits earned from unprecedented events. Critics have condemned the policy as punishing success, for circumstances created by generations of poor government energy policy. Britain has been a net oil and gas importer since 2005; sourcing most imports from Norway and the United States. Russia provided a fraction of our annual supply, before sanctions severed ties.

However, the reliance of our European neighbours on Nordstream 2, and our dereliction of duty to use reserves both beneath the North Sea and our feet, leaves us vulnerable to global gas market price hikes. Hence, the Treasury’s interest in pursing measures to lower fuel costs.

But a windfall tax is not the fix-all the government hopes for. Even with an investment allowance and sunset provision, Offshore Energy UK chief executive Deirdre Michie warned that  unexpected taxes cause businesses to recalculate the size and safety of their investments in emerging technologies. Even those best equipped to absorb the costs, BP and Shell, have stated that intention to review the impact of the tax on their £18bn investment plan, and expressed concerns over it introducing ‘uncertainty’ in the energy sector.

As with Joe Biden axing Keystone XL Pipeline construction, a hostile regulatory market deters fossil fuel companies from investing in the supposedly sustainable technologies that the Energy Security Strategy purports to care about. Prices will also increase due to speculation of scarcity, meaning consumers experience escalating costs for longer periods. Sunak’s proposed £400 energy rebate will be a drop in the ocean compared to the ongoing impact of inflation.
 
Full post
 
8) Net Zero costs will make cooling homes unaffordable for millions of Britons (never mind heating their homes)
Bloomberg, 20 July 2022

 

Cool air for 24 hours can set back cash-strapped UK consumers more than £18 ($22) as energy costs soar. And with the country experiencing temperatures in excess of 40 degrees for the first time in its history, those extra expenses may become more frequent.

The cost of operating a 2.7 kilowatt air-conditioning unit has surged 45% over the last two years, according to data provided by Uswitch.com. Running a 40-watt desktop fan, while significantly cheaper at 27 pence for 24 hours, has also increased by about that amount since 2020.

Mother nature couldn’t have picked a worse time for a heat wave in Great Britain. A cost-of-living crisis is already squeezing household budgets, while Russia’s war in Ukraine keeps energy bills rising. Cranking up the air conditioning to beat the scorching temperatures will only put more pressure on consumers and businesses.

“Energy prices have rocketed in the past year, increasing the cost of keeping cool for households,” said Sarah Broomfield, energy savings expert at Uswitch.com.

Households can save around 50% by running air ventilation at night, as some suppliers offer special electricity rates during off-peak hours. Smaller air-conditioning units or larger fans would also affect the relative running costs.

Still, this doesn’t seem to stop people from spending on ventilation equipment. As of Friday, Argos sold 2,420% more air-conditioning units compared with the week before. Sales at hardware store Robert Dyas have also spiked since the beginning of the heat wave. Most of those were in-store purchases suggesting customers “wanted to immediately beat the heat,” a company spokesperson said.

9) Benny Peiser: Why are we building wind turbines hoping they will do anything avoiding heat waves?
Talk TV, 20 July 2022

 

“Why are we building wind turbines hoping that they will do anything for us avoiding or dealing with heat waves?... The real problem we have are the winters and people struggling to heat their homes.”
 
Watch here

10) And finally: Weather ‘too hot’ for solar panels
The Daily Telegraph, 19 July 2022

 

The weather was too hot for solar panels on Tuesday as soaring temperatures reduced their efficiency.

As the heatwave pushed the mercury above 40C for the first time ever in Britain, solar output remained well below the levels usually reached at peak times in spring.
 
Modelling data from the University of Sheffield suggests that solar energy provided an average 2.8 gigawatts of power on Tuesday.
 
Meanwhile in spring, when the weather is cooler and generation peaks, it typically accounts for 3.3 gigawatts, according to Josh Jackman, researcher at The Eco Experts.
 
Solar panels become less efficient when temperatures rise above 25C, meaning energy generation drops off, with efficiency decreasing by around 0.35 percentage points for every degree above this level.
 
Professor Alastair Buckley, of the University of Sheffield, said: "We never see peak output in mid summer. 
 
“The temperature of the actual solar cell depends on a combination of the ambient temperature and the radiative heating from the sun and also cooling from wind. We saw cell temperatures of 70 degrees yesterday on our test system. Normally it would be between 40 degrees and 50 degrees."

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.