Democrats will wage war on affordable energy. Here’s President Trump’s best weapon to fight back. - TEA

By Gary Abernathy

If any doubt remained that high energy prices are the most predictable factor in American politics, last week’s “blue tsunami” in the midterm elections should erase it once and for all.

While various pundits try to stake Republican defeats on self-serving arguments, exit polls tell the real story. By far, voters cited economic concerns, led by high gas, diesel and heating oil costs, as their top priority.

As Reuters reported in a post-election recap, “Record Election Day diesel and gasoline prices helped push Americans toward Democrats in Tuesday’s midterms,” and despite President Trump’s promise that relief was coming soon, “many voters in rural states who depend on diesel, gasoline and heating oil to earn a living and warm their homes could not wait for his promised fuel-price drop.”

In politics, timing is everything, and as The Hill reported on Nov. 3, “Gas prices today are at a record high for an Election Day, hovering at an average of $4.11 a gallon nationally as of Tuesday afternoon, according to GasBuddy.”

What’s tragic is that Americans who voted for Democrats hoping they will reduce energy costs will soon be faced with a rude awakening. The Democratic Party is driven by an ideology determined to end fossil fuels in exchange for “alternatives” that survive on subsidies and government mandates. Rather than reduce costs, the far-left, socialist-style initiatives favored by Democrats will put catastrophic price pressures on our most abundant and reliable energy sources.

Part of the strategy of the climate change zealots is making gas, diesel and other legacy fuels so expensive that Americans are forced to abandon them. If Democrats have their way, Americans may look back on the days of four-dollar gas with fondness.

But before Democrats take power in January, President Trump can make the left’s war on affordable energy less likely to succeed by turning energy security into official policy. Trump should immediately issue an executive order implementing the Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security (ARC-ES) Act, based on legislation that was introduced in Congress last year by Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH).

As defined on a recently unveiled webpage detailing ARC-ES, the policy is defined by three simple concepts:

Affordable energy is a low-cost method of producing electricity, factoring in the full system cost of an energy source.
Reliable energy is energy readily available to meet demand 24/7 with minimal interruptions.
Clean energy is energy that meets our current national air quality standards.

“ARC-ES energy doctrine ends politically motivated games with our energy supply,” the site explains. “This legislation will set fair and sensible rules under which the best energy options for ALL Americans win.”

A presidential executive order is not merely symbolic. It officially utilizes federal resources in a way that positively impacts all households and businesses. Grounded in law, executive orders can result in meaningful consequences for all Americans.

It’s true that future presidents can reverse executive orders. But for the next two years of the Trump administration, an executive order making ARC-ES the official policy of the United States will thwart the efforts of a new Democrat-controlled Congress as it seeks to return to Biden-era climate and energy policies. And at the end of two years, the benefits of ARC-ES will be so obvious that few politicians – even liberal Democrats – will be foolish enough to abandon it.

Rising electricity prices were another issue in the midterms, serving as the boogeyman for the Democrats’ attack ads. But now that the election is over, even the mainstream media is admitting that data centers are not to blame for spikes in electricity costs.

In a story published by the Washington Post three days after the election about a study of the relationship between electricity costs and data centers, Serguei Netessine, professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-author of the study, said, “So far we have no evidence that data centers increase prices all that much.”

Instead, according to the story, prices have increased mainly due to “rising gas prices, an aging electricity grid, and wildfires and hurricanes requiring improvements to the grid and recovery after disaster.” Now the truth can be told.

Climate change alarmists would have us become more like Europe in our policies. But the cost of electricity in the U.S., even when it rises, pales in comparison to most European countries.

A contrast based on data from Eurostat and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, looking at the most recent available comparisons, shows that the average European Union electricity cost is nearly 90 percent higher than the U.S. for the same consumption. And yet, the “progressive” European practice of worshiping at the altar of climate change is the example that the radical environmentalists would have Americans emulate. No thanks.

The radical left has won power in Washington and across many states. One of their first objectives will be to declare war on our most affordable and reliable energy sources. To arm himself and his party for the battle ahead, an executive order putting ARC-ES into action would be the most effective weapon at the president’s disposal.

Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms.