Opinion: Biden backs green radicals even though Americans want U.S. energy
April 1, 2022
Americans are frustrated with skyrocketing gas pump prices, but they disagree dramatically with President Biden on how to fix the problem. A national survey just conducted by the Winston Group reveals a strong bipartisan majority of Americans prefer an “everything” energy approach – more oil drilling, more alternatives, maximum carbon free nuclear energy, and doing more to promote conservation. Yet, President Biden, facing record high inflation and record low approval ratings, remains committed to his political alliance with radical green environmentalists.
How disconnected is Biden from political reality? Among millennial/generation Z survey respondents, a group that regularly prioritizes the environment as a ballot box issue, 66% favor an all-the-above energy approach.
(Source: The Winston Group, National Survey, March 12-14, 2022)
While Americans want a return to stable energy prices, President Biden continues to cater to the international treaties that even Europe is abandoning. Let’s look further at what Biden has done. As one of his first acts in office, he shuttered construction of the Keystone XL pipeline; it was President Biden who ended federal oil leases and it was the Biden Administration who begged Riyadh and Caracas to produce more energy instead of allowing U.S. energy producers to fill the energy gap and keep prices in check. Now the Biden Administration is floating the idea of a gasoline stimulus. While Americans would temporarily benefit from a gas card, the larger actions of Biden and Congress underscore that there is no interest in being energy independent — just the opposite. They want us dependent on others, the federal government in particular.
In North Carolina, Speaker of the House Tim Moore, a Republican, brought together Governor Roy Moore, a Democrat, and a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers to pass the Modernize Energy Generation legislation. The North Carolina approach supports a mix of generation technologies including new combined-cycle natural gas power plants. The legislation also provides North Carolina’s public utility commission with important new regulatory options that would require utilities to meet new efficiency measures and adopt multi-year infrastructure planning. Utility companies will have to make sacrifices as well. The new energy plan will force the utilities to amortize the stranded cost of decommissioned plants, cap their earnings, and require any earnings above the cap to be returned to customers.
As Speaker Tim Moore and I wrote in July 2021: “At a time when people see choice and competition as central to success, congressional Democrats, extreme climate activists, and regulators want energy policies that have government deciding the careers we can have, the food we can eat, and the trips we can take.”
We went on to point out that “electricity produced by fossil and nuclear fuels is helping the clean energy transition. Because battery storage technologies capable of providing around-the-clock power do not yet exist, fossil fuel and nuclear generation facilities currently provide the “baseload,” or “always on” electricity people rely on during periods when the sun isn’t shining, and the wind isn’t blowing.”
Americans will soon cast their ballots in midterm elections and set the direction of our federal government. It is clear Republicans have heard the call for reliable, affordable, and cleaner energy. Yet, the only way to counter Biden’s bad decisions and reach an all-the-above energy policy is first to replace Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi with a resurgent GOP. Only then can federal and state leaders start focusing on a rational and reasonable energy policy.