March 23rd, 2023

• American natural gas is the world’s cleanest, most affordable, and most reliable energy. America’s energy independence and national security depends on it.
• Bay Area set to phase out natural gas furnaces, water heaters by 2027.
• Biden issues first veto, rejecting bill to reverse ESG rule.
• Republicans’ pro-energy push leaves industry unimpressed.
• Tennessee law prevents local bans on gas stoves.

When it comes to powering your home, natural gas is significantly cheaper than electricity, according to this report cited by Robert Bryce, the noted author and energy expert. In a side by side comparison, the cost of energy from natural gas was $12 versus electric at $42 for the same amount of residential energy.

Last week, Rewiring America announced that it has hired Georgia politician Stacey Abrams to help the group “launch and scale a national awareness campaign and a network of large and small communities working to help Americans go electric.”

The impractical elitists always think they know what’s best for the rest of us. American natural gas and the domestic energy industry have been under attack by the Biden administration, who continue to use regulatory and permitting limits to make natural gas less affordable. In fact, their stated goal to “electrify everything” will do nothing but tax lower-income and working families.

This likely could happen to households in cities or states that have already banned or are planning to ban the use of natural gas. It’s worth noting that households that use natural gas for heating, cooking and other appliances save an average of $1,068 per year compared with homes using electricity for such appliances.

Here is some insight into these so-called Dark Money environmental groups:

• Rewiring America is part of the Non-Government Organization (NGO) industrial-corporate-climate complex that, as Bryce reported last month, is now spending some $4.5 billion per year to promote anti-industry policies.
• It is one of four anti-industry groups that combined are spending about 83% of the amount that is being spent by the top 25 NGOs that support traditional energy sources.
• While their agendas vary and their funding sources remain largely unknown, the anti-industry NGOs are generally trying to mandate increased use of weather-dependent renewables, hinder (or stop) hydrocarbon production, prevent the construction of new hydrocarbon infrastructure and mandate building electrification.

Their ultimate goal clearly is to ban the use of natural gas in our homes and businesses. But these activists fail to mention, for example, that using a common cooking ingredient like olive oil generates over 11 times more emissions per hour than what is produced from the gas range.

Bottom Line: Two facts that bear remembering: Natural gas helps American households save money. And the green-at-any-cost movement is more about power and control than environmental good.

Look, it’s another final warning on the climate crisis from the hallucinating green-at-any-cost movement. We’ve heard these cries before … many times. Instead of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, it’s the climate hysterics saying the world will end soon…again.

“There is still one last chance to shift course, the new report says. But it would require industrialized nations to join together immediately to slash greenhouse gases roughly in half by 2030 … the world would have about a 50 percent chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Delays of even a few years would most likely make that goal unattainable, guaranteeing a hotter, more perilous future.”

They always make it sound so dramatic and dire. Here are some previous claims, all of course unfounded:

• In 1987, then-U.S. Senator Joe Biden Said, “Global warming, should it occur in accord with the direst predictions, would be a catastrophe of biblical proportions for the entire world.”
• In 1989, a United Nations study predicted that by 2000 entire nations would be wiped off the face of the earth from global warming.
• In 1995, another UN study predicted that rising sea levels would cause most of the beaches on the east coast of the United States to disappear by 2020.
• In 2014, in a joint appearance with then-Secretary of State John Kerry, the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said, “We have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”

You get the point. More scare tactics used by progressives to advance their agenda. There are numerous others and all are equally preposterous and meant to frighten the daylights out of people, using emotion rather than logic.

Biden has gotten into the act again, sort of. In August 2019, while campaigning, Biden called for “complete total elimination of fossil fuels by the year 2050.” He still trumpets that, when he’s not conceding that we need natural gas and oil “for at least another decade.”

We do not dispute that the world is warming slightly. But we take strong exception to the false claims that the world as we know it will end in 2030, 2040, 2050, etc.

Bottom Line: Reducing our global carbon footprint is an attainable goal that we should continue to pursue. But Americans have grown tired of the repeated “dire” predictions that never come true.

There was barely any movement on gas prices this week. The national average is now $3.44 per gallon, last week this time it was $3.45. Depending on where you live, there’s significant variability in what you’re paying at the pump. Californians are paying the most of any state in the lower 48 at $4.82, but just 3 states over in Texas, drivers are paying only $3.01. This comes as California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a deal with the state legislature to cap oil profits in an attempt to deflect attention from the fact that his state has the highest gas tax in the nation. Sadly, this anti-business approach will result in even higher gas prices for the Golden State, as oil companies pull back investments and supply dwindles.

Hearing On Interior Budget: On Tuesday, March 28, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies will have a hearing on the FY 2024 budget request for the Department of the Interior.

Hearing On EPA: On Tuesday, March 28, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies will have a hearing on the FY 2024 budget request for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Hearing On Infrastructure Act Implementation: On Tuesday, March 28, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit will have a hearing on implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Hearing On Interior Budget: On Wednesday, March 29, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies will have a hearing on the FY 2024 budget request for the Department of the Interior.

Hearing On Small Biz And Energy Production: On Wednesday, March 29, the House Small Business Subcommittee on Rural Development, Energy, and Supply Chains will have a hearing on the role of small businesses in domestic energy production.

Hearing On EPA Good Neighbor Rule: On Wednesday, March 29, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will have a hearing to examine the EPA Good Neighbor rule, focusing on healthier air for downwind states.

Hearing On “Oil Dependence”: On Wednesday, March 29, the Senate Budget Committee will have a hearing to examine the cost of oil dependence in a low-carbon world.

Hearing On Biden Energy Policies And Inflation: On Wednesday, March 29, the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs will have a hearing on “Fueling Unaffordability: How the Biden Administration’s Policies Catalyzed Global Energy Scarcity and Compounded Inflation.”

FERC Roundtable On Environmental Justice In Infrastructure Permitting: On Wednesday, March 29, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will hold a Roundtable on Environmental Justice and Equity in Infrastructure Permitting.

“This Administration continues to prioritize their radical policy agenda over the economic, energy, and national security needs of our country, and it is absolutely infuriating. This ESG rule will weaken our energy, national, and economic security while jeopardizing the hard-earned retirement savings of 150 million West Virginians and Americans.”

— Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), on President Biden’s veto of the bipartisan Senate bill to reverse ESG rule.