environment Archives - Dr. Rich Swier

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Note 2: For past Newsletter issues see the archives from 2022, 2023, 2024, & 2025. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over all fourteen plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put this together — where you can search ALL prior issues, by year. For a background about how the Newsletter is put together, etc., please read this.

Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.

Note 4: I am not an attorney or a physician, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or any of my websites) should be construed as giving legal or medical advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent, licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues, and consult a competent physician regarding medical matters.

Montana Governor Tells Off Would-Be Banners

May 8, 2025/in Climate Change, Commentary, Culture War, Elections, Energy, Environment, Hot Topics, Policy, Politics, Video/by Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

Had enough of bans and mandates?

Check out the masterful veto message Montana Governor Greg Gianforte sent the legislature when they tried to ban Styrofoam cups.

Read Governor Gianforte’s full veto message here.

“The free enterprise system works,” Gianforte wrote. “We should let it work, not have the heavy hand of big government unnecessarily meddle with it.”

Truer words never graced the printed page.

“Like many Montanans, I enjoy hot coffee in a Styrofoam cup, because it keeps it hot. And this bill is a hot mess,” Gianforte said in a video on X.

WATCH: Montana Governor Greg Gianforte Tells Off Would-Be Banners

America has reached peak regulation. Government is too complicated, controls too much, and has grown monstrously large.

The Trump/Musk DOGE effort to reduce government is a vitally needed reform, but it is also a case study in how difficult it is to weed out government waste after it has already taken root.

Better to do as Gianforte did and issue an unmistakable “no” at the outset.

“Ultimately, whether to use Styrofoam for take-out orders, packaging leftovers, or providing pre-packaged foods should be a matter for a restaurant or consumer to decide — not the state.”

Right you are, Governor.

Policymakers, confident in the righteousness of their superior wisdom, are ever eager to impose their judgment on the rest of us.

The people we elect should hold their fire and rarely place us under the control of the bureaucrats.

Millions of people making billions of voluntary choices in a free market is the most powerful economic force known to man.

Don’t mess with it.

AUTHOR

Craig Rucker

Craig Rucker is a co-founder of CFACT and currently serves as its president. Widely heralded as a leader in the free market environmental, think tank community in Washington, D.C., Rucker is a frequent guest on radio talk shows, written extensively in numerous publications, and has appeared in such media outlets as Fox News, OANN, Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hill, among many others. Rucker is also the co-producer of the award-winning film “Climate Hustle,” which was the #1 box-office film in America during its one night showing in 2016, as well as the acclaimed “Climate Hustle 2” staring Hollywood actor Kevin Sorbo released in 2020. As an accredited observer to the United Nations, Rucker has also led CFACT delegations to some 30 major UN conferences, including those in Copenhagen, Istanbul, Kyoto, Bonn, Marrakesh, Rio de Janeiro, and Warsaw, to name a few.

What America Can Learn from the Iberian Blackout

May 6, 2025/in Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Science/by Center For Security Policy

America can learn from the Iberian Blackout the reality that green energy and one hundred percent renewable power are still subject to the laws of physics.

Not even a week after media reports hailed the fact that “Spain hit the first weekday of one hundred percent renewable power on the national grid” the Spanish government declared a national emergency following a complete collapse of that same grid. The unprecedented outage left tens of millions of its citizens, and those in neighboring Portugal, without power. And the blackout quickly cascaded into a shutdown of mass transit transportation, internet, cellular communications, and water/wastewater services.

Those two events occurring together are not a coincidence – and should serve as a cautionary tale for citizens and leaders in Europe and the Americas who have convinced themselves that “renewables equal resilience” when it comes to the electric grid.

They have convinced themselves that they must attach massive amounts of wind and solar systems to their existing bulk power grids in an effort to stave off “climate change” and to “go green.” Setting aside the arguments about climate change, a main concern should be whether the widespread adoption of grid-scale wind and solar systems makes the grid more resilient.

Unfortunately – it doesn’t – and Spain just proved it.

The Cause of Spain’s Blackout:

People have wondered whether Spain’s blackout could have been induced by or assisted by a malicious cyberattack. Such risks are very real and exacerbated when grids are heavily dependent on wind and solar power generation, which must rely on equipment sourced from a nation hostile to the West: Communist China. But most experts are laying the blame for Spain’s outage on a natural byproduct of an electric grid overly penetrated by wind and solar power generation systems – sub-synchronous oscillations (SSO).

The electric grids in America and Europe run on alternating current (A/C) electricity, which operates on synchronous frequency (fifty Hz in Europe and sixty Hz in America). Before the widespread introduction of wind and solar systems, the grid was powered by large power plants (such as coal, natural gas, or nuclear) which use big, heavy turbines that spin at a steady rate (again, at either fifty or sixty Hz.) These turbines build up inertia – momentum that resists sudden changes – and they all act a lot like shock absorbers, keeping the grid stable.

In contrast, wind turbines and solar panels connect to the grid through electronic devices called inverters, which don’t spin, don’t provide the same inertia and also inject energy into the grid in an intermittent fashion (such as when the wind is blowing and when the sun is shining). An overall increase in this intermittency and an overall decrease in inertia can cause the grid’s synchronous frequency to drop, causing sub-synchronous oscillation (SSO).

Compare the grid to a child swinging on a swing set in the schoolyard. When the child starts swinging at a steady rate and starts experiencing inertia, he or she moves rather effortlessly through the air in a synchronous fashion. Now imagine someone grabs and pulls and pushes one of the chains on that swing, distorting the child’s momentum. At that point, in order to prevent injury, the child is going to immediately stop swinging and get off the swing.

Similarly, when SSO happens on the grid, its operators, electronic management and protective safety systems will shut the grid down to try to prevent damage. SSO causes vibrations which can ruin equipment, such as turbines, if they shake too much. SSO also causes harmonics, which result in heat that can also destroy grid equipment. The more SSO happens to an electric grid, the faster its components wear out.

The Limits of Green Energy:

To reduce the chance of SSO, many grid operators try to preserve at least half or more of their generation sources from “baseload power” generators such as coal, gas, or nuclear to maintain that synchronous inertia. While some argue that expanding battery energy storage systems (BESS) – Spain maintains only sixty megawatts of battery storage compared to Texas’s 11,000 megawatts – could have helped stave off Spain’s grid collapse, other utility engineers who have reviewed data from Spain’s national electric utility aren’t so sure that it would have made a difference. Ultimately, any amount of grid-scale wind and solar generation complicates grid operations significantly.

Wind and solar have limited dispatchability, which means, unlike fossil fuel or nuclear plants, they cannot ramp up or down to match real-time grid needs, complicating load-balancing during peak demand or sudden disruptions. This means that grid operators must rely on advanced grid management systems and forecasting tools. In general, more complexity usually means less resilience.

Wind and solar power generation systems can play a role in enhancing resilience if they are domestically produced and employed properly – at the local level and focused on the types of electrical loads they can handle. Such micro-grid systems can operate either independently or as an augment to the larger electric grid, and can greatly improve resilience for individual households, facilities or even communities if the larger grid fails. For this reason, resilience-minded emergency managers have applied these systems to their facilities to make them “off-grid capable.”

Ultimately, American leaders who are interested in enhancing energy resilience are best served by focusing their efforts on relegating wind, solar, and battery systems to smaller localized microgrids while changing course on how they treat the bulk power system, as the Trump Administration has already begun through a series of executive orders. Re-embracing base-load power generators, declaring nuclear a renewable energy source by recycling spent nuclear fuel, and securing our electric grid from known hazards, will help keep the lights on in America.

AUTHOR

Tommy Waller

President & CEO.

Hawaiʻi Condemns Administration’s Illegal Attemp to Interfere with State Lawsuit Against Big Oil

May 5, 2025/in Climate Change, Courts & Law, Energy, Environment, Hot Topics, Lawfare, News, Policy, Politics, Science, Social Issues, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Hawaii Free Press

Hawaiʻi Sues Fossil Fuel Interests for Climate Deception

(NOTE: Your beloved editor spent about 20 minutes debunking this news release. See remarks in parenthesis.)

News Release 2025-59 from Office of Attorney General, May 1, 2025

HONOLULU — Attorney General Anne Lopez condemns the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi on April 30, 2025, seeking to preemptively halt a separate lawsuit against Big Oil companies for their deceptive conduct leading to the current climate crisis:

(REALITY: Deceptive hysterics by the environmental movement create the artificial sense of ‘crisis.’)

Attorney General Lopez said: “We have an obligation to the people of Hawaiʻi, to do everything in our power to fight deceptive practices from these fossil fuel companies that erode Hawaiʻi’s public health, natural resources and economy. The federal lawsuit filed by the Justice Department attempts to block Hawaiʻi from holding the fossil fuel industry responsible for deceptive conduct that caused climate change damage to Hawaiʻi.”

(REALITY: “Sher-Edling gives a lot of money to the national Democrats and we must reward them.”)

Governor Josh Green, M.D. states: “Hawaiʻi suffered a devastating climate-driven, wildfire-initiated disaster on Maui that resulted in the tragic loss of 102 lives and billions of dollars in damage. This climate-related wildfire was the deadliest in United States history in more than a century.”

(REALITY: Anybody who identifies a specific weather event as evidence of global warming is a fraud.)

“The use of the United States Department of Justice to fight on behalf of the fossil fuel industry is deeply disturbing and is a direct attack on Hawaiʻi’s rights as a sovereign state,” added Attorney General Lopez. “The state of Hawaiʻi will not be deterred from moving forward with our climate deception lawsuit. My department will vigorously oppose this gross federal overreach.”

(TRANSLATION: We will proceed in Hawaii’s grotesquely politicized state courts until such time as the federal courts order us to cease and desist.)

Notwithstanding the federal lawsuit, Governor Josh Green M.D., and Attorney General Lopez today announced a lawsuit against fossil fuel companies for their deceptive conduct and failure to warn about their products’ climate change danger, now harming Hawaiʻi’s public health, infrastructure, natural resources and economy. The lawsuit was filed in the Circuit Court of the First Circuit.

(See? Told you.)

“The climate crisis is here, and the costs of surviving it are rising every day,” said Governor Green. “Hawaiʻi taxpayers should not have to foot that bill. The burden should fall on those who deceived and failed to warn consumers about the climate dangers lurking in their products. This lawsuit is about holding those parties accountable, shifting the costs of surviving the climate crisis back where they belong, and protecting Hawaiʻi citizens into the future.”

(REALITY: If ‘big oil’ is made to pay Sher-Edling and Hawaii for ‘climate change,’ consumers’ fuel costs will go up. This is an attempt to impose a judicially-mandated fuel tax. Money comes out of your pocket and into the State treasury.)

The state’s lawsuit names seven groups of affiliated fossil fuel companies and the American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil and gas trade association in the United States. It alleges seven causes of action against all defendants, including violations of Hawaiʻi’s Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices Statute, failure to warn, harm to public trust resources, public and private nuisance, trespass, and negligence. The lawsuit also alleges civil aiding and abetting against the American Petroleum institute.

(REALITY: Parr Pacific, operator of Hawaii’s only oil refinery, is not named because this is a politically-motivated sham lawsuit designed to fleece only outsiders.)

“These defendants had a duty to warn people about the climate dangers associated with their products, or to mitigate those dangers. But they did neither of those things,” said Attorney General Lopez. “Instead, they put profits ahead of people and facilitated the increased use of their dangerous products through decades of deceptive conduct. They violated Hawaiʻi law, harmed all Hawaiʻi residents, and will now be held accountable in a Hawaiʻi court.”

(REALITY: The oil industry launched in 1859 with ‘Drake’s Well’ at Titusville, PA. Big Oil’s first act was to save the whales. Kerosene quickly replaced boiled whale blubber for home lighting. Whales should counter sue Sher-Edling for genocide.)

The lawsuit filed today details the history of defendants’ deceptive conduct, and many of the resulting harms inflicted on the state of Hawaiʻi as a result of that conduct. Some key excerpts from the complaint filed today:

• “Climate change has already impacted and will continue to harm Native Hawaiian traditional and customary practices including upland forest practices, traditional agriculture, and coastal and nearshore marine practices.” (para 274)

(REALITY: Anybody who identifies a specific weather event as evidence of global warming is a fraud.)

• “As of 2021, 66 state-owned facilities have reported flooding from sea level rise and precipitation. These facilities include public housing complexes in Kāneʻohe, the Hulihe‘e Palace historic site, and the Kauaʻi and Oʻahu Community Correctional Centers.” (para 280)

(IQ Test: Did you notice how ‘precipitation’ is slipped into that sentence? ‘Climate Change’ now makes it rain and causes 66 leaky roofs.)

• “Moreover, 70 percent of the state’s beaches have already experienced erosion, and 13 miles of beach have been lost across the islands. These impacts will continue to worsen as the sea level rises further. By 2050, NOAA predicts that more than 90 percent of the state’s beaches will be receding.” (para 280)

(REALITY: All of Hawaii’s shorelines have been eroding since the moment they broke through the surface of the ocean. This process starts with Kauai six million years ago. Molokai used to be a lot larger, but the northern half fell off. Anybody who cites shoreline erosion as evidence of sea-level rise is a fraud. Per NOAA, the sea level rise measured at Honolulu is 1.54mm per year. That is six inches in a century.)

• “Climate impacts threaten Hawaiʻi water resources. As rainfall levels decline, Hawaiʻi will have decreasing access to freshwater… By 2030, the state may suffer from a freshwater shortfall of 100 million gallons per day.” (para 292)

(KEY WORD: ‘May.’ REALITY: Anybody who identifies a specific weather event as evidence of global warming is a fraud.)

• “Climate change increases the threat of wildfires for Hawaiʻi. The 2023 Maui wildfires were the deadliest in modern U.S. history and the worst natural disaster in the history of the state. More than 100 lives were lost, and more than 2,200 structures were destroyed, causing $5.5 billion of damage.” (para 294)

(REALITY: Anybody who identifies a specific weather event as evidence of global warming is a fraud. The Lahaina fire was caused by two of Hawaii’s most politically-connected old boy institutions: HECO and KSBE. This lawsuit, and the Hawaii Legislative Resolution urging Lahaina insurers to subrogate by suing big oil, are just shams designed to protect entrenched local interests.)

• “Climate change has, and will continue to have, constant, widespread, and severe impacts to the physical health of Hawaiʻi residents. Rising temperatures and intense heat waves, extreme weather events, related disruptions to health and emergency services, and increased proliferation of vector-borne disease and pathogens will and has already taken its toll.” (para 311)

(CLUE: Environmentalism is a religion. Just like some other religions, they’ve got plagues of disease and boils, water turning to blood, gnats, locusts and frogs. The First Amendment says: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.’)

The lawsuit requests a jury trial and seeks relief in the form of compensatory, punitive, and natural resource damages; civil penalties; disgorgement of profits; and an order enjoining Defendants from engaging in the unfair or deceptive acts or practices described in the lawsuit, among others.

(REALITY: We’re in State Court because we can win anything against outsiders there.)

A copy of the complaint as filed can be found here.

BACKGROUND:

2023: Rectenwald Worked With Environmental Group Tied To Oil Plaintiffs’ Lawyers

2025: Hawaii Democrats Talk a Big Game on the ‘Climate Crisis.’ They’re Also Shielding an Oil Company Whose Execs Backed Their Campaigns

2025: SCR198: Screwed out of Subrogation, Insurers Urged to Serve Legislature’s Agenda by Suing Big Oil

Green Energy Fixation Sends Spain Dark

May 4, 2025/in Climate Change, Economy, Elections, Energy, Environment, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Science, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Signal

VALENCIA, Spain—Two modern ills converged in Europe on Monday, literally one of the darkest days in decades. An ideological obsession with climate fanaticism left countries without power for hours, while censorship of “disinformation,” often information the powerful don’t like, plunged the population in an informational blackout in subsequent days.

The electrical blackout brought planes, trains, and automobiles to a screeching halt throughout Spain, Portugal, and small parts of southern France. Electricity simply stopped flowing, and with it control towers, rail lines, and traffic lights.

Cellphones became quadrangular black boxes that did nothing and lost their “smartness.”

A political conference I was attending in this sunny Mediterranean port city suddenly became eerie when people started coming in and out and whispering to each other. One person in the seat in front finally turned and enlightened a friend and me: “The electricity is down. We’re cut off from the world.”

We then realized that, yes, sirens had been wailing outside, and it had been a while since we’d gotten emails or texts. A generator in the hotel kept our conference going, but nothing else worked; everyone had to take the stairs and use bathrooms in the dark—though water, too, stopped working.

It wasn’t quite dystopic, but our modern dependence on electricity and its creature comforts suddenly was brought home to us.

Many speculated that it was a cyberattack from Russia or China. Who else had the power to do this? Center-right politicians from across Europe were about to descend on Valencia the next day. Surely, an invitation for bad actors to do their thing.

Well, not so fast. Neither Russia’s Vladimir Putin nor China’s Xi Jinping is above carrying out this type of attack, and cybersecurity is a serious matter. But, to quote Vice President JD Vance at a February conference in Munich, Germany, the threat to worry about the most in Europe “is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor.”

“What I worry about,” went on Vance, “is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its fundamental values.”

Vance mentioned Europe’s need “to enjoy affordable energy,” and the fact that, as he put it, “free speech, I fear, is in retreat.” European officials are still fuming about how “rude” that young Vance was, but it looks like he was on the money.

It is increasingly clear that what caused the blackout was not a cyberattack. Reuters News agency reported that Spain’s grid operator Red Electrica on Tuesday ruled out external sabotage, and said instead that it had identified two “incidents of power generation loss, probably from solar plants,” in southwestern Spain.

That, said the Reuters report, “caused instability in the electric system and led to a breakdown of its connection with France. The electrical system collapsed, affecting both the Spanish and Portuguese systems.”

“There was not enough inertia, or redundancy, in the system to keep it going,” my colleague Diana Furchott-Roth emailed from Washington when I was able to receive communications from the outside world. “The last coal-fired plant was closed on April 12.”

Diana has been warning about this type of thing for decades, and Spain’s socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez is a poster boy for the things she has warned against. His government has not only closed coal-fired plants, but has been busily destroying nuclear plants as well.

“Net zero,” or zero CO2 emissions, is the name of this new mad delusion, and Spain’s infantile leftists have been posting on social media gleeful workers destroying nuclear power plants. The goal has been 100% “renewable” generation.

Well, they happened to have gotten very close to their holy grail on Monday at 12:30. The Iberian Peninsula’s power grid was getting a disproportionate amount of energy from the renewables loved by the Left: 80% from solar photovoltaic, solar thermal and wind. Nuclear was at a measly 11%.

In a mere five minutes, solar photovoltaic generation plunged by 50%, from 18 gigawatts to eight, according to Reuters. Iberia and adjacent parts of France, including the tiny Pyrenean principality of Andorra, all of which depended on this grid, then descended into darkness at 12:35, from which it was not to recover till late at night.

The hapless Sanchez was still arguing late Tuesday that just because Red Electrica was discounting a cyberattack, it did not mean that one hadn’t happened.

Governments finding themselves in a corner will lie, or at least equivocate, and it’s the job of the opposition to keep asking for answers. “An energy policy that prioritizes the fight against climate change above the security of supply has provoked this general blackout,” said an analysis on the site of the think tank Disenso, which is linked to the opposition Vox Party (full disclosure, I sit on Disenso’s foreign advisory board).

But it is also the job of the media. Yet Spain’s state television stations, and even private ones, were still keeping the truth about the failure of the Left’s renewable dream from getting any airtime as late as Wednesday morning, when I left for the airport. That was left to radio and to some newspapers on the right.

An honest media would be not just informing voters about how a blackout that left at least five dead and stopped a modern economy in its tracks happened. It would also be debating whether such a modern society really does want to stop using comfort creatures and working toilets, all in the name of fighting climate change.

Originally published by the Washington Examiner.

AUTHOR

Mike Gonzalez

Mike is the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow in the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Read his research. Mike on X: @Gundisalvus.

Earth Day Reminder: Green Groups Linked To World’s Top Polluter

April 23, 2025/in Chinese influence, Climate Change, Communism, Elections, Energy, Environment, Featured, Hot Topics, Marxism, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Caller

Some prominent green groups — including ones that play up Earth Day — also happen to have financial connections to the government of China, the nation that pollutes the planet more than any other.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Energy Foundation China (EFC), Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and other entities that fund climate initiatives in the U.S. have direct or indirect relationships with the Chinese state, according to The Washington Examiner. Many environmental organizations celebrated Earth Day on Tuesday, even while some of the leading groups in the green movement have cozied up to China, the world’s leading emitter and a prolific polluter of the oceans.

For example, NRDC maintains an office in Beijing that is registered with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau and operates under the supervision of China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration, the Examiner reported. Several senior staff members working for NRDC’s China office formerly worked for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including one adviser who worked for a Chinese agency suspected of targeting American corporations for intellectual property theft.

NRDC advised its followers to “let Earth Day be a reminder that we have a future to win” in a Tuesday social media post, lamenting in a separate post that it’s “not quite the case anymore” that “people [stand] together across party lines for cleaner air, water and a healthier future.”

“The NRDC is an independent, non-profit, public-interest group working to protect public health and the environment. We work in China for one reason: there’s not a single global environmental problem that the world can confront, unless China is part of the fix,” NRDC spokesman Bob Deans said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We work alongside the people and institutions in China that are searching for solutions and progress. That’s what our work there is all about. When developing our institutional positions—in the United States or anywhere else in the world—we rely on our U.S.-based senior leadership and board of independent trustees, and no one else. We do the bidding of no government, in this country, or any other.”

Additionally, NRDC has been a major grantee of the Energy Foundation China (EFC), a now-independent group that was once a part of the Energy Foundation, according to the Examiner. Zou Ji, the president and CEO of EFC, used to be a top official for China’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, a state-run organization that helps the Chinese government participate in global climate change initiatives.

EFC is directly involved in efforts to help the Chinese government execute its climate agenda, according to the Examiner.

EFC has also routed hundreds of thousands of dollars to RMI, a U.S. outfit that works “with the U.S. Congress and federal agencies to develop and follow through on ambitious and beneficial electrification policies,” according to its website. RMI teamed up with the Chinese government to publish a 2013 report addressing a global energy transition to favor intermittent renewables like solar and wind, the supply chains for which China happens to dominate globally.

Wei Ding, a Chinese businessman, served on RMI’s board as of at least 2022, according to RMI’s tax filings for that year and the Examiner. Ding formerly chaired an investment bank owned in part by the Chinese government, and a number of other RMI staff members have worked for the Chinese state in various capacities in the past as well, according to the Examiner. Like NRDC, RMI has a presence in China to complement its U.S. operations.

“RMI works in China because reducing emissions there is critical,” a RMI spokesperson said in a statement to the DCNF. “RMI shares its independent research and analysis with governments, policymakers, corporations and fellow nonprofits to accelerate the adoption of market-based solutions for clean energy.”

Notably, RMI received a $750,000 grant from the Biden administration in 2023 to advance its electric vehicle (EV) agenda, and RMI also provided partial funding for a 2022 study purporting to demonstrate that gas stove use and childhood asthma are linked. Several media outlets promoted the study, and the Biden administration indicated it may move to crack down on gas stoves in January 2023 before nominally retreating from the idea.

Additionally, several major left-of-center U.S. grantmakers that support climate advocacy also have financial relationships with China, such as the Ford Foundation, which believes that natural resource extraction will “dispossess and marginalize land-connected communities, driving inequality and injustice,” according to the Examiner and the foundation’s website. The Ford Foundation has poured millions of dollars into China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” a global infrastructure development effort that critics have characterized as a thinly-disguised instrument of debt trap diplomacy.

Similarly, the Gates Foundation — the charitable organization of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates — pumped nearly $12 million into various parts of the Chinese government in 2023, according to the Examiner. The foundation works around the world to “help people in the world’s poorest countries thrive in a climate where droughts, floods, and heat waves are becoming more severe and more frequent” in light of climate change, according to Gates’ website.

EFC, the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation did not respond to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

Nick Pope

Contributor.

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Urgent Call to Action to Florida Senators — Please Vote NO on SB 1080

April 22, 2025/in Elections, Environment, Hot Topics, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Royal A. Brown III

SB 1080 Threatens Florida Agricultural Land.

The amendment only mandates a public hearing and vote to certify land as an “Agricultural Enclave” under Florida Statute 163.3164.

That designation is determined by a simple checklist—either the land qualifies, or it doesn’t.

The “public hearing” becomes a formality, not a real protection. And once certified as an enclave, the land is automatically approved for residential development—no further public input, no community vote required.

If this bill passes, it would open the door to unchecked residential development on agricultural land across Florida. It undermines local control, silences communities, and accelerates the loss of working lands we cannot afford to lose.

Please send your message to all of Florida’s Senators asking them to VOTE NO on SB 1080.

Here are their emails:

albritton.ben.web@flsenate.gov
Arrington.Kristen.web@flsenate.gov
Avila.Bryan.web@flsenate.gov
berman.lori.web@flsenate.gov
bernard.mack.web@flsenate.gov
boyd.jim.web@flsenate.gov
Jennifer.Bradley.web@flsenate.gov
brodeur.jason.web@flsenate.gov
burgess.danny.web@flsenate.gov
Burton.Colleen.web@flsenate.gov
Calatayud.Alexis.web@flsenate.gov
Collins.Jay.web@flsenate.gov
Davis.Tracie.web@flsenate.gov
DiCeglie.Nick.web@flsenate.gov
Fine.Randy.web@flsenate.gov
gaetz.don.web@flsenate.gov
garcia.ileana.web@flsenate.gov
Grall.Erin.web@flsenate.gov
gruters.joe.web@flsenate.gov
harrell.gayle.web@flsenate.gov
hooper.ed.web@flsenate.gov
Ingoglia.Blaise.web@flsenate.gov
jones.shevrin.web@flsenate.gov
Martin.Jonathan.web@flsenate.gov
osgood.rosalind.web@flsenate.gov
Passidomo.Kathleen.web@flsenate.gov
pizzo.jason.web@flsenate.gov
polsky.tina.web@flsenate.gov
rodriguez.anamaria.web@flsenate.gov
Rouson.Darryl.web@flsenate.gov
Sharief.Barbara.web@flsenate.gov
Simon.Corey.web@flsenate.gov
Thompson.Geraldine.web@flsenate.gov
truenow.keith.web@flsenate.gov
Trumbull.Jay.web@flsenate.gov
wright.tom.web@flsenate.gov
Yarborough.Clay.web@flsenate.gov

EPA Slashes Climate Change Red Tape, Claws Back $20B Climate Slush Fund

March 17, 2025/in Climate Change, Economy, Elections, Energy, Environment, Must Read, News, Regulation, Socialism, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Family Research Council

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has initiated a vast reversal of the regulatory-heavy, climate change fear-based policies of the Biden administration, announcing Wednesday that it is taking 31 actions to remove red tape for the energy and automotive industries and lower the cost of living for Americans. The agency also announced the termination of a $20 billion fund parked in a commercial bank by the Biden administration to avoid government oversight that was used to award money to climate activist groups.

Characterizing Wednesday’s initiative as “the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin remarked that the effort “driv[es] a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion” by “roll[ing] back trillions in regulatory costs and hidden ‘taxes’ on U.S. families.” The EPA further declared that the venture will “unleash American energy” by reconsidering regulations on power plants, the oil and gas industry, coal-fired power plants, the steam electric power industry, wastewater, and other measures.

The plan would also address “lowering the cost of living for American families” by reconsidering electric car mandates, grocery store regulations, environmental regulations that “shut down opportunities for American manufacturing and small businesses,” and terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) arms of the agency, among other actions.

On Tuesday, the EPA also announced that it was shutting down a Biden administration program that it described as a “‘gold bar’ scheme,” in which an eye-popping $20 billion was released in the final week of former President Joe Biden’s term to award to various pop-up climate activist groups via a program known as the National Clean Investment Fund and Clean Communities Investment Accelerator. In a hidden video, a former Biden administration official described the program as “throwing gold bars off the edge” of the Titanic.

Since President Trump assumed office on January 20, the funds have been held in a Citibank account in order to avoid federal scrutiny. Zeldin described how the funds were moved through eight “pass-through, politically connected, unqualified and in some cases brand-new NGOs.” The EPA and the Department of the Treasury ordered that the funds be frozen, and the Department of Justice and FBI have opened a criminal investigation into the matter.

Lawmakers such as Senator Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) welcomed news of the EPA cutting red tape and cracking down on wasteful taxpayer spending.

“[C]ommon sense is finally back at the EPA,” he declared during Thursday’s “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” “… For example, … I remember starting that fight back in the Obama administration back in 2015, and both Obama and Biden tried to stretch the rule to expand EPA’s authority to things like roadside ditches or farm ditches or farm ponds, things that were clearly not navigable waters. The Clean Water Act of 1972 says ‘navigable waters’ 50 times, and they totally tried to get rid of that meaning. … [W]e’re also going to be rolling back the Clean Power Plan, which was going to do things such as shut down our very clean burning coal plant in Nebraska. They’re going to get rid of the greenhouse gas reporting rule, which would be an attack on our natural gas facilities, which again, is a big source of power for Nebraska and many states. And frankly, natural gas is one of the reasons why we are the only industrialized country that’s actually reducing our greenhouse gases.”

Ricketts went on to note the EPA’s rolling back of the electric vehicle (EV) mandate. “This is one that I’ve been fighting because EVs don’t make sense in big rural states with cold weather. The adoption rate in Nebraska is 2%, and under the Biden administration, they wanted two-thirds of all new vehicles being sold in 2032 to be EVs. That just wasn’t going to happen.”

Ricketts further emphasized the cost that the Biden-era regulations imposed on American families and businesses. “[T]he Biden administration rolled out 5,000 regulations. … [T]he average cost of that to the American family was $3,300 a year. And not just once. It’s $3,300 every year until those regulations are rolled back … so this is going to be a good start in rolling those regulations back and saving American households money. But when you put this layer of regulation on, you put a wet blanket on innovation and small businesses who create most of our jobs in this country.

Ricketts concluded by expressing confidence that the EPA’s actions will be part of a revitalized economy that will thrive under the second Trump administration.

“[T]his will be part of how the Trump administration unleashes the economy again,” he predicted. “I mean, we saw some of the best economy we’ve ever seen under the first Trump administration. You go look at the job participation rate by Americans. … We saw great unleashing of our economic power here, and it’s because, in part, the Trump administration took off a bunch of regulations that were preventing our innovators, our small businesses, and our families from being able to invest or spend the money that they otherwise would have.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Is Efficiency a Biblical Idea?

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Biden Admin Used Border Wall Funds On ‘Environmental Planning’ And Cleanup, Government Watchdog Says

April 24, 2024/in Elections, Energy, Environment, Featured, Hot Topics, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Caller

The Biden administration spent taxpayer dollars meant to fund a border wall to pay for “environmental planning,” according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

At the request of Republican Reps. Jack Bergman of Michigan and Jodey Arrington of Texas, the GAO investigated whether the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) broke the law when it effectively blocked the use of taxpayer dollars to build a wall along the southern border. While GAO’s final report clears the DHS of breaking the law, it confirmed that DHS used congressionally-appropriated funds meant for the wall to pay for “environmental planning” and efforts “to remediate or mitigate environmental damage from past border wall construction.”

Republicans on the House Budget Committee, including Bergman and Arrington, characterized the GAO’s finding as confirmation that the Biden administration has spent taxpayer funds meant to enhance border security to further its environmental agenda.

Mayorkas Unsure What Executive Actions Could Be Taken On Border Crisis — Even As Biden Privately Weighs Optionshttps://t.co/39TfQZH2qL

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 23, 2024

Congress previously approved funds for DHS to build a border barrier between fiscal year 2018 and fiscal year 2021, but President Joe Biden and his appointees quickly instituted a new policy whereby “no more American taxpayer dollars (would) be diverted to construct a border wall” upon entering office in 2021. Cabinet secretaries, including DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, were ordered to work together to produce plans for how to shift funds away from border wall construction.

In 2021, DHS released a report detailing how it would look to redirect funds meant for the wall to instead pay for things like “environmental planning,” reviewing upcoming eminent domain actions and considering environmental remediation efforts in areas that had been the site of previous construction, according to GAO’s report. The agency then changed its plans in July 2022, applying an amendment that made environmental remediation a top priority for the agency’s expenditure of the funds appropriated for fiscal years 2018-2021.

The Biden administration has made great efforts to roll back or replace many of the immigration and border policies of former President Donald Trump, but the situation at the border has deteriorated massively since 2021. There have been nearly 8 million land encounters at the southwest border since October 2021, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Congressional Budget Office reported in January that more than 3.3 million people came to the U.S. illegally, were released into the country via parole or overstayed their permission to remain in the country in fiscal year 2023 alone.

The situation at the border set the stage for congressional Republicans to attempt to impeach Mayorkas earlier this spring. The House voted to impeach Mayorkas in February, but the Senate quickly dismissed an impeachment trial along partisan lines earlier in April.

Neither the White House nor the DHS responded immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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Biden Admin Spending Big To Make Ports Of Entry Green While Trying To Yank Border Wall Funds

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House Passes EPA Spending Bill That Defunds Several Biden Climate Initiatives

November 4, 2023/in Elections, Energy, Environment, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Science, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Caller

The House of Representatives passed its sixth appropriations bill to fund certain government agencies related to the environment on Friday that would defund many of the Biden administration’s climate-change-focused initiatives.

The Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024 allocates over $25 billion to fund conservation programs, agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management(BLM) and Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) as well as cultural promotion agencies such as the national endowments for the arts and humanities. After spending over 12 hours considering amendments to the bill on Thursday and Friday morning, the House passed the bill by a vote of 213 yeas to 203 nays, with all Democrats but one voting against the bill.

“In drafting this bill, we worked very hard to rein in federal spending while prioritizing critical needs within our Subcommittee’s allocation,” said Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho’s 2nd District, who introduced the bill, at a meeting of the House Appropriations Committee in July to consider the bill. “Cutting funding is never easy and it can often be an ugly, arduous process. But with the national debt in excess of $32 trillion and inflation at an unacceptable level, we must make tough choices to ensure we do not saddle our children and grandchildren with overwhelming debt.”

🚨NOW: I’m leading the FY24 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations debate.

Tune in! https://t.co/aEYhT2auJu pic.twitter.com/fVnOWFr4TW

— Cong. Mike Simpson (@CongMikeSimpson) November 2, 2023

Amid widespread Republican opposition to the many climate change initiatives of the Biden administration, the House considered over 130 amendments on the floor to the bill, mostly from Republican members seeking to deny funds for these initiatives. Many of their amendments failed to pass due to bipartisan opposition.

Among the amendments passed by the House was a provision to deny funds for enforcing prohibitions on plastic straws, which was offered by Republican Rep. John Rose of Tennessee. Another such amendment, offered by Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, denies the government funds to prevent domestic pollutants from adversely affecting foreign countries.

One amendment, by Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, denies funds to implement a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act(IRA) that raises minimum rents and royalties for oil and gas projects. Perhaps the most narrowly passed amendment was one advanced by Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, which denies funds to implement any of President Joe Biden’s climate-change-focused executive orders, which was approved by one vote.

The bill has been opposed by Biden, whose administration released a statement indicating that he would veto it. “These levels would result in deep cuts to clean energy programs and other programs that work to combat climate change, essential nutrition services, law enforcement, consumer safety, education, and healthcare,” wrote the Office of Management and Budget about the bill’s funding levels, adding that it “include[s] billions in additional rescissions from the [Inflation Reduction Act] and other vital legislation.”

In parallel, the Senate has proposed a separate appropriations bill for these departments and agencies, which provides $19 billion more than the House bill and largely supports Biden’s environmental agenda, including $100 million for environmental justice programs, according to a press release from the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

ARJUN SINGH

Contributor.

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Lawsuit: ‘Green Greed’ Behind Lahaina Deaths

September 18, 2023/in Courts & Law, Energy, Environment, Hot Topics, News, Social Issues, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Hawaii Free Press

News Release from Bottini & Bottini Inc. (bottinilaw.com)

On September 11, 2023, BOTTINI & BOTTINI, INC. and TAMASHIRO SOGI & BONNER filed the first lawsuit seeking to hold the Board of Directors of Hawaiian Electric liable for the tragic loss of life and property due to the Maui Fire on August 8, 2023.

The case — Rice v. Celeste A. Connors et al., Case No. 1CCV-23-0001181, is pending in Honolulu, Hawaii in the First Circuit court.

The new complaint alleges that between 2019 and 2022, Hawaiian Electric invested less than $245,000 on wildfire-specific projects on the island. Instead of spending necessary funds to prevent fires caused by its equipment, Hawaiian Electric instead spent millions of dollars towards efforts to achieve a 100 percent renewable energy goal, which earned the Company bonuses that the Company’s executives used to increase their own compensation. Defendant Seu, CEO of the Company, was paid 32 times the median compensation of all employees in 2022.

The members of Hawaiian Electric’s Board of Directors were also well aware of the need to adopt and implement a power-shutoff system, as San Diego Gas & Electric and PG&E had done years before, but failed to do so. Darren Pai, a spokesperson for Hawaiian Electric, admitted that the Company did not have a formal power shutoff plan at the time of the Maui fire. The complaint also alleges that the Defendants new about the connection between passing hurricanes and wildfires. In 2020, researchers from the University of Hawaii and the East-West Center established a causal relationship between fires on Maui and O‘ahu to winds from Hurricane Lane.

The complaint alleges that the Defendants breached their fiduciary duties by causing Hawaiian Electric to haul away fallen poles, power lines, transformers, conductors and other equipment from near a Lahaina substation starting around Aug. 12, 2023, before investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) arrived on scene. One of the attorneys for the shareholders, Addison Bonner of Tamashiro Sogi & Bonner, said: “The Defendants’ actions may have violated national guidelines on how utilities should handle and preserve evidence after a wildfire and deprived investigators the opportunity to view any poles or downed lines in an undisturbed condition before or after the fire started.”

Frank A. Bottini, of Bottini & Bottini, a co-counsel for the shareholders, said: “Rather than spend its customer’s money to improve infrastructure maintenance and safety, the Board of Directors of Hawaiian Electric funneled ratepayers’ money to boost their own profits and compensation. This pattern and practice of favoring profits over safety left Hawaiian Electric vulnerable to an increased risk of a catastrophic event such as the Maui fire, which was the worst natural disaster in Hawaii’s history and the deadliest U.S. fire in over a century.”

The complete complaint can be downloaded from the link below.

PDF: (2023-09-11) Conformed Verified Shareholder Derivative Complaint.pdf

SA: HEI board accused of skimping on safety

NOTE: If PUC finds HECO management negligent, ratepayers cannot be made to foot bill for rebuild.

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Environmental Protection Shouldn’t Mean Economic Suicide

March 24, 2023/in Elections, Energy, Environment, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Science, Social Issues, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Family Research Council

When I was in college in southern California many years ago, the smog could be overwhelming. Visibility was low and the sense of being closed-in by a layer of brownish-grey was ongoing. Then, one day it rained. The sky was actually blue and, to my great surprise, you could see the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance.

In the ensuing 40-plus years, the United States has made great progress in its war against all manner of pollution. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, since the enactment of the Clean Air Act in 1970 through 2019, “the combined emissions of the six common pollutants (PM2.5 and PM10, SO2, NOx, VOCs, CO and Pb) dropped by 77 percent.” This has occurred even as energy consumption has remained at an almost constant level — despite growth in the population by about 100 million people.

The EPA also reports that “Compared to 1970 vehicle models, new cars, SUVs and pickup trucks are roughly 99 percent cleaner for common pollutants (hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particle emissions).” Additionally, the U.S. is increasingly using renewable energy sources. One example: From 2000 through 2018, the use of coal as an energy source fell from about 23% percent of our total energy portfolio to about 13 percent. Similarly, clean natural gas went from accounting for about 24% percent of our energy consumption to about 31%. Other renewable energy sources (nuclear, solar, etc.) are also increasing. And, generally, the industrialized nations of Europe are also making notable progress.

But America still needs oil. A lot of oil. We will continue to need oil for decades to come. That is, unless we want to commit economic suicide.

That seems not to concern people on the environmental Left, who are outraged that President Biden opened up a relatively small sliver of Alaska for drilling. ConocoPhillips will drill 199 wells at three sites in the Willow Project area, employing 3,500 people outright and, over the longer term, several hundred in permanent jobs.

Here’s the irony: While America once again engages in national agony over a modest oil drilling plan, China is laughing up its sleeve at our tortured efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Just last year, China opened roughly two new coal plants a week. As recent report explains, in 2022 China’s construction of coal power plants was “six times as large as that in all of the rest of the world combined.”

India is in much the same boat. “From 2001 to 2021, India installed 168 gigawatts of coal-fired generation, nearly double what it added in solar and wind power combined,” according to one study. While the subcontinental nation is making strides toward clean energy use, the reality is that “its electricity demand will grow up to 6% every year for the next decade.”

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that America abandon its commitment to cleaner sources of energy. Rather, we have to simply be honest: If we tie ourselves to extreme environmental standards while much of the rest of the world keeps employing fossil fuels at record rates, we will only hurt our ability to foster job creation here at home and our capacity to compete successfully in the global economy.

Economic transitions can be hard. Carriage makers were no doubt unhappy with the advent of the automobile. The issue before us is how rapidly we should move toward a “carbon-neutral” economy. Under the Biden administration, even American agriculture is a target. In a biting analysis, Heritage Foundation scholar Daren Bakst reports that at last year’s White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, the administration advocated for policies that would “centrally plan how farmers produce food, what food farmers produce, and what food people eat.” The Biden plan “also appears far more concerned with environmental outcomes than efficiency, productivity, and affordability.”

As America moves toward “clean” energy, we should not do so to appease activists at the cost of jobs, prosperity, sound mining and farming policies, and our continued leadership in international markets. Our country does not exist in pristine isolation any more than the wind stops at our borders.

The only way we get a clean environment is if we have the resources to obtain it. The only way we have those resources is if we have a strong economy. And the only way we have a strong economy is if our laws and regulations make sense.

I love the memory of seeing mountains in the far distance. But I also like filling up my car’s gas tank affordably. We can have both economic growth and environmental health, but only if we also have a strong dose of national common sense.

AUTHOR

Rob Schwarzwalder

Rob Schwarzwalder is Senior Lecturer in Regent University’s Honors College.

If Climate Change Is a Dire Threat, Why Is No One Talking about Nuclear Power?

July 22, 2022/in Energy, Environment, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

A common (legitimate) concern with nuclear is unhealthy radiation, its usage actually emits less radiation than the burning of coal.

There is a deafening silence surrounding nuclear energy. Yet, if you are to believe the current climate alarmism on display, the world’s future is hanging by a thread. Indeed, the forceful climate marches in London last week, the Greta Thunberg-ization of the world’s youth, and David Attenborough’s new Netflix documentary are all symptoms of a growing call to arms. According to them, climate change is real and impending, and, in young Greta’s words, they “want you to panic.”

The situation appears dire. Yet, assuming it is, there seems to be a gap in reasoning. Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are calling for a “Green New Deal,” which would seek to remove America’s carbon footprint by 2030 by “upgrading” every single one of the 136 million houses in America, completely overhauling the nation’s transport infrastructure (both public and private), and somehow simultaneously guaranteeing universal health care, access to healthy food, and economic security—without any consideration of cost. In other words, a complete pie-in-the-sky scheme that is more concerned with virtue-signaling than with pragmatic reality.

But if these people truly care about the environment and the damage being caused by climate change, why is no one talking about nuclear?

Nuclear Power

Nuclear is fully carbon-free and therefore a “clean” energy source in carbon terms. This is crucial considering the primary villain of climate change is CO2; switching to nuclear would directly cut out carbon emissions and thus represent a significant step forward, except for the construction phase (which would create a one-off nominal carbon debt about equal to that of solar farms). It has successfully contributed to decarbonizing public transport in countries such as Japan, France, and Sweden.

It is also often overlooked that nuclear is the safest way to generate reliable electricity (and far safer than coal or gas) despite Frankenstein-esque visions of nuclear meltdowns à la Chernobyl, which are ridiculously exaggerated and exceedingly rare.

Nuclear is also incredibly reliable, with an average capacity of 92.3 percent, meaning it is fully operational more than 330 days a year, which is drastically more reliable than both wind and solar—combined.

Finally, whereas a common (legitimate) concern with nuclear is that it creates unhealthy radiation, its usage actually emits less radiation than, for example, the burning of coal. Moreover, the problem posed by waste is more psychological and political nowadays than it is technological. Despite the Simpsons-inspired image of green, murky water, nuclear waste is, in fact, merely a collection of old steel rods; the nuclear waste produced in America over the last 60 years could all fit into a single medium-sized Walmart. Furthermore, it is not only securely stored in concrete-and-steel casks in the middle of deserts, but it also loses radiation over time and can actually be recycled to extend the life of nuclear production by centuries.

France and Sweden

There are explicit success stories that attest to the power of nuclear. France and Sweden, which have some of the lowest per capita carbon emissions in the developed world, both rely heavily on nuclear (72 percent and 42 percent, respectively) rather than on wind or solar power. France generated 88 percent of its electricity total from zero-carbon sources, and Sweden got an even more impressive 95 percent. At the same time, these countries have some of the lowest energy prices in Europe, whereas renewable-heavy countries such as Germany and Denmark have the two highest energy prices on the continent—without much carbon reduction to show for it relative to France and Sweden.

So why, if people such as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez care as much about the climate as they claim to, are they seemingly so blindly attracted to over-ambitious, unrealistic proposals? Indeed, a near-utopiazation of renewables fails to take into account many of the issues associated with these while neglecting the advantages of nuclear.

Renewable energy isn’t always reliable, as mentioned (which makes sense when you consider the fact that the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow). When the reliability of these renewables falters (wind turbines only provide energy 34.5 percent of the time, and solar panels an even lower 25.1 percent), expensive and carbon-heavy stop-gap measures act as backup.

Ecological Problems

There are also ecological problems. Wind and solar farms require tremendous amounts of wildlife-cleared land and are often protested by local conservationists. Electricity from solar panels on individual homes, on the other hand, a plan AOC apparently endorses, is twice as expensive, thus making it unaffordable for many American households. Though the debate rages, there is also a case to be made for the fact that wind turbines represent serious hazards to rare and threatened birds such as eagles and other birds of prey. They also threaten marine wildlife such as porpoises and coral reefs.

When compared more directly with various forms of renewable energy, the narrative also skews in nuclear’s favor. Solar farms require 450 times more land than do nuclear power plants; nuclear plants require far fewer materials for production than solar, wind, hydro, or geothermal; and solar produces up to 300 times more hazardous waste per terawatt-hour of energy than nuclear.

Yet the issues aren’t merely technological and ecological. Indeed, there is an argument that renewables such as solar and wind will become more and more efficient and cheaper over time, which is certainly true (though some experts dispute the net validity of this claim). A different problem, however, is that the context within which they are promoted, such as the “Green New Deal,” often translates into economic madness (the GND would cost up to $90 trillion according to some). It is striking how the Green New Deal encapsulates not only climate change but also health care, jobs, and housing.

Indeed, it goes much further than simply combating the issues facing our environment, incorporating a much wider agenda of socio-economic transformation. And this is why some, such as Michael Shellenberger (president of Environmental Progress—a pro-nuclear, climate change NGO), argue that left-wing politicians in the mold of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez idealize renewables: they provide an environmentalist façade for increased government intervention in areas far beyond the climate.

Expensive and Risky, but Worthwhile

Of course, nuclear isn’t perfect; it is still very expensive (though this is increasingly solvable through more standardization and long-termism), the risk of Fukushima-like disasters will probably always exist, and the localized environmental impacts are concerns to be addressed. Most importantly, the political will is still lacking.

Despite the fact that the public and private sectors spent a combined $2 trillion between 2007 and 2016 on solar and wind power, solar energy still only accounted for 1.3 percent, and wind power 3.9 percent, of the world’s electricity generation in 2016. Operating at a scale of 94 times more in federal subsidies in America for renewables than for nuclear, this looks like an unsustainable trend. Imagine if it had been invested in nuclear instead.

Rather, the Ocasio-Cortezes of the world, who are by far the most vociferous when it comes to climate change, should put money where their mouths are. Though this article is far from exhaustive and was unable to account for all the nuances and intricacies of environmental and energy policy, it seems that, at the very least, nuclear deserves a spot at the table if we are serious about saving our planet.

AUTHOR

Christopher Barnard

Christopher Barnard is the Head of Campaigning & Events for Students For Liberty UK, as well as a final-year Politics & International Relations student at the University of Kent. He tweets at @ChrisBarnardDL.

Supreme Court Delivers Massive Blow To Biden’s Climate Agenda

June 30, 2022/in Elections, Energy, Environment, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Science/by The Daily Caller

The Supreme Court delivered a massive blow to the Biden administration’s climate change plan Thursday, severely limiting the power of federal agencies.

The Court, in a 6-3 decision, limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants, significantly curtailing the power of the federal agency. The decision restricts the agency to regulating individual power plants and not the entire power sector.

“Congress did not grant EPA in Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act the authority to devise emissions caps based on the generation shifting approach the Agency took in the Clean Power Plan,” Justice Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

The case stems from an Obama-era EPA climate rule and addresses the scope of Congress’s ability to delegate legislative authority to executive agencies.

In August 2015, the EPA adopted the Clean Power Plan that sought to cut carbon emissions by 32% from power plants by 2030.

However, in early 2016, the Supreme Court blocked the plan’s implementation in a 5-4 vote. Plaintiffs successfully argued that the EPA had exceeded its congressional mandate under the 1970 Clean Air Act, which broadly authorizes the agency to issue the “best system of emission reduction.”

The Trump administration repealed the Clean Power Plan and created the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, which included looser restrictions and allowed states to regulate their standards.

“Unlike the Clean Power Plan, ACE adheres to the Clean Air Act and gives states the regulatory certainty they need to continue to reduce emissions and provide a dependable, diverse supply of electricity that all Americans can afford,” former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement at the time.

Hillsdale College Associate Professor of Politics Joseph Postell said the case has to do with the EPA’s authority to regulate major sources of air pollution that are stationary, like smokestacks.

“Does the statute allow the Obama administration to force the state of West Virginia to put more clean power into its energy grid as a means of reducing carbon emissions or does the Clean Air Act force the states to implement technology controls at the actual existing plants?” Postell said.

Postell said the new Trump rules regulated only the existing sources of air pollution rather than requiring new energy generation from sources like wind and solar.

“The Trump administration basically advanced version of what is now known as the major questions doctrine,” Postell said. “When there is a question of major importance or a major question. It has to be resolved by Congress and cannot be kicked over to the agency.”

In 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated everything the day before Biden’s inauguration, according to SCOTUSblog. While the Biden Administration could reinstate the Clean Power Plan, it has instead chosen to draft alternate power plant emissions rules.

The Biden Administration was awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling before releasing its plan, the Washington Post reported.

Following the repeal, West Virginia led a coalition of 20 other Republican-led states and coal companies to file an appeal to ask the Supreme Court to challenge the appeals court decision.

The plaintiffs argued that the appeals court wrongly grants “an agency unbridled power—functionally ‘no limits’—to decide whether and how to decarbonize almost any sector of the economy.” They asked the Supreme Court to preemptively intervene before the EPA issues additional emissions reduction plans or rules using this authority.

Click here to read the full decision: Supreme Court — West Virginia vs EPA

AUTHOR

JOSH HYPES

Contributor.

Biden Backs Changing Filibuster To Codify Roe V. Wade

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Recent Energy and Environmental News

November 9, 2020/in Energy, Environment/by John Droz, Jr.

Three brief overviews about the US elections, so far:

Due likely to God’s intercession, Republicans did FAR better than the media and pollsters were projecting,
Since the US voting public did not sufficiently cooperate with the plans of the Left, there appears to be a significant amount of shenanigans to keep the President from being reelected, and
It’s now mostly in the hands of lawyers and judges.

If you’ve witnessed election fraud or manipulation, fill out this report

If you’ve witnessed election fraud or manipulation, call these numbers

We have one objective regarding the 2020 US election:

that every legal vote, and only legal votes, are counted.

Here is a cross-section of sample articles that explain some of the details of what is going on:

As we’ve recommended before, please continue to pray about this election, as God can fix anything.

Thank you for your interest in, and support of, the principles of America.

PS — We are currently examining the Pennsylvania voting result for statistical anomalies (and have found considerable evidence for that (e.g. see here).

Additionally, the President’s team needs attorneys willing to help with Pennsylvania lawsuits (and likely other key swing states: AZ, WI, MI, GA, NV). If you’d like to assist with either of those actions, or how someone who would, please let me know.

Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g. PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.

Note 2: To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles, we’ve put together detailed archives — where you can search by year, or over the ten plus years of the Newsletter. For a detailed background about the Newsletter, read this. Please email me for a free subscription

Tag Archive for: environment

— This Newsletter’s Articles, by Topic —

Nuclear Power

France and Sweden

Ecological Problems

Expensive and Risky, but Worthwhile

US National Elections (General):

US National Elections (Politics):

US National Elections — Likely Corruption (General):

US National Elections — Likely Corruption (State Specific):