“Hey Siri, what’s the Biden Bill?”

In Rome over the weekend, Pope Francis met with world leaders ahead of the upcoming United Nations Conference of Parties (COP 26) meeting in Glasgow, Scotland. Business and political leaders from around the world, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, heard the Pope’s message to take action on the climate and especially give attention to the most vulnerable communities.

But it is the vulnerable communities that are being hurt most by rising energy prices. Americans living paycheck to paycheck are the least able to afford prolonged inflation or higher utility bills. And, there are billions of people around the globe living in energy poverty—with little or no access to electricity at all.

Vulnerable Americans, including retirees and those living on a fixed income, are going to need help this winter paying heating and grocery bills as prices continue to rise due to energy shortages. Wind and solar are not going to meet the demand so we need to promote reliable domestic energy. To truly help vulnerable communities, we don’t need more climate speeches, we need to bring down costs and increase access to affordable, clean and abundant sources like natural gas.. today.

The Bottom Line: This winter, vulnerable Americans will be hit with a new regressive tax, the “Biden Bill”. His reckless spending and “green at all costs” policies are coming at the literal “cost” of affordable energy.

This week, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that would ban gas-powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers. (‘Cause, you know, California has been doing great with all its other energy bans and mandates, so why not another?)

This newest ban will impact over 50,000 small businesses across the state plus homeowners who personally care for their properties. Zero-emission equipment is available but prices are nearly double the gas-powered devices. A $20,000 lawnmower is probably out of reach for most households and is a crushing doubling of costs for small businesses. Nonsensical “solutions” like this are another example of how Green New Deal-style policies are starting to hurt every day Americans in all walks of their lives.

The Bottom Line: If cutting emissions means drowning the state’s small business community, count Newsom in. It’s like his encore performance after his Covid policies put 40,000 mom and pop shops out of business.

Try as he might, President Biden’s silence on the Line 5 pipeline in Michigan is not going to last. Less than two weeks after the Line 3 pipeline through Minnesota came back online, the Canadian government took steps to take the ongoing battle with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and put it squarely on the President’s desk by invoking a 1977 treaty.

Like all pipelines, Line 5 supports thousands of jobs and billions in economic activity and supplies refineries throughout the Midwest. But, possibly even more important as we head into a winter with already crushing energy prices, the pipeline brings 756,000 gallons of propane a day to Michigan, where 315,000 homes rely on the gas for home heating.

The Bottom Line: Call us crazy, but it seems like the President, not Canada, should be leading the charge to lower energy costs for Americans.

COMMON SENSE QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“There’s a natural gas shortage around the world, hence the need for the United States to continue to export natural gas,”

– Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary (surprising, we know).