July 28th, 2023

• Stay up to date on all things energy by visiting the TEA Newsroom.
• Natural Gas CARES: It is the world’s Cleanest, Affordable, Reliable Energy Source
• Oil, gas companies would pay more to drill on public lands.
• House GOP committee chairs launch probe into Ford-China battery deal.
• Biden goes all-in on offshore wind.
• North Dakota Gov. Burgum: Biden’s energy policy 100% backwards.
• Solar panels are more carbon-intensive than claimed.
• Opinion: What our climate overlords fail to understand about fossil fuels.
• Supreme Court reinstates Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Major American corporations have gotten drunk on the kool-aid of President Biden’s Green New Deal agenda. Unfortunately, initiatives like environmental, social and governance (ESG), carbon credits and EV mandates will result in lost jobs, lower shareholder returns and ultimately, higher prices for consumers.

Nobody wins except for Biden and his wealthy, entitled friends. The real losers here are the American consumer, investors and blue-collar laborers.

As voters study their options for the Nov. 5, 2024 general election, it’s not too early to take a hard look at what Biden has been saying and doing regarding energy and — as a result — the economy.
His extremist green-at-any-cost policies, including his strong push for electric vehicle manufacturing, is the wrong path for automakers, for organized labor and for America.

Companies like Amazon and BlackRock have already bought in. Now Biden is trying to seduce the Big Three automakers General Motors, Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) and Ford Motor Company and, along with them, the United Auto Workers and its roughly 400,000 members — even though the new EV mandates are projected to cost the UAW plenty of jobs.

Biden’s goals are both unrealistic and risky.
Proposed Biden administration regulations would require electric vehicle sales to increase from 6% to 67% of all U.S. auto sales by 2032. Industry analysts — including liberal organizations — have warned that this EV transition would eliminate many existing auto manufacturing jobs.
The primary reason for this is that electric vehicles require fewer parts and less labor to manufacture than vehicles powered by internal combustion engines (ICE).

How many jobs could be lost?

• According to the America First Policy Institute report, the Biden administration’s mandate would eliminate a net 117,000 auto manufacturing jobs nationwide.
• The Midwest would bear the brunt of these good paying-job losses. Even under a best-case scenario, the Biden EV mandate would cost Michigan 25,000 jobs, Indiana 16,000 jobs and Ohio 14,000 auto manufacturing jobs.
• Another estimate shows that 32,000 mechanics would lose their jobs just in the state of California over the next two decades under the EV mandate.

Bottom Line: The all-in push for EVs and the ESG policies that Biden supports are both good reasons to look elsewhere for a presidential candidate. Or for a job, if you happen to be a skilled auto industry worker.

Two familiar targets for the Biden administration are domestic energy producers and American consumers.

Example 1: Oil and natural gas companies would pay more to drill on public lands under a new rule unveiled last week. Again, the administration refuses to work with domestic energy producers and seeks ways to hinder or stop their production.

This barrier is set up by the federal government with the intended result of curbing future energy production.

• The new royalty rate set by the climate law is expected to remain in place until August 2032, after which it can be increased.
• Oil industry observers are still wading through the more than 300-page rule package published by the Bureau of Land Management on Thursday, but all agree that the administration’s new regime for public lands would have drillers paying more.
• That includes higher royalties and — for the first time since the 1950s and ’60s — hiking up required bonding, the money secured ahead of drilling to cover cleanup costs when wells are abandoned.

The rule change will only serve to discourage oil and gas production in the United States. When it’s not targeting domestic energy producers, this administration sets its sights on the American consumer.

Example 2: After failing to get any momentum going to ban gas stoves, the newest proposal is pushing for tighter efficiency rules for new home water heaters. This follows an assault on gas stoves, washing machines, air conditioners, gas-powered vehicles, refrigerators, dishwashers and furnaces.

• With the proposed new rules for water heaters, the Biden administration has now targeted 18 different home appliances for efficiency “updates” in the name of combating climate change.
• The new rules set up by the Department of Energy would require electric hot water heaters to include new heat pump technology and gas-fired ones to include condensing technology beginning in 2029.
• The department says the new rules will make buying and installing new heaters more expensive, but insists that most customers will recoup those costs over the life of the appliance via lower energy bills.

Republicans in Congress, already miffed about the proposals for other appliances, said the move is yet another example of the administration’s regulatory overreach in the name of combating climate change. A Kentucky congressman, Thomas Massie, took to Twitter, saying, “Leave us alone.”

Millions of Americans agree with Massie. They’re simply not buying what this administration is selling.

And they shouldn’t buy home appliances or other items based on the government’s choices, rather relying on their personal choices and budgets.

Bottom Line: Each week it seems a new rule is put in place to stifle American energy production. And each week another appliance becomes the target of the Biden admin. Consumers get hit twice, with higher energy prices and expensive new appliances.

Don’t look now, but it seems the “Biden bill” at the gas pump is making a triumphant return. Over the past week alone, the average price for a gallon of gasoline is up 15 cents to $3.73. This marks the highest level of gas prices for 2023 so far, and experts predict that we could reach the $4 mark in the near future. Check out the helpful chart below for an idea of how the price for gasoline has changed since the beginning of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Nothing on the calendar for next week as Congress enters their summer recess!

“All necessary permits have been issued and approved, we passed bipartisan legislation in Congress, the president signed that legislation into law, and now the Supreme Court has spoken: construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline can finally resume, which is a major win for American energy and American jobs,”

— Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.