President Biden is committed to Democrats’ radical climate agenda. So much so that next week, he and nearly all his Cabinet are traveling to the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference to lobby for a global Green New Deal. Biden’s trip comes while his proposed $5.5 trillion spending spree – that’s full of wasteful, reckless and destructive Green New Deal policies – faces an uncertain fate in Congress.
Americans need to keep a close eye on their wallets, however, as House progressives aren’t about to back down from pushing their big-government agenda that would increase taxes and energy prices on American families and businesses. Despite worrying economic conditions in the United States, like historic price hikes, Democrats have doubled down on their anti-fossil fuel agenda that will raise gas prices, drive jobs overseas and make our nation dependent on foreign energy again.
The Green New Deal would cripple our economy and disproportionately hurt lower-income families in several ways. First, the package includes a program called the Clean Energy Performance Program that will effectively eliminate fossil fuels. This is breathtakingly naïve and dangerous. Renewable sources of energy show great promise, but around 80% of U.S. energy comes from coal, natural gas and petroleum. With less than 5% being wind and solar, these renewables are simply not ready to take the place of fossil fuels to keep our lights on.
It also takes aim at cleaner-burning natural gas by preventing natural gas from being counted as “clean energy.” This stance is anti-science and anti-growth. Nothing has done more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the past 20 years than expanding the use and availability of natural gas using technologies such as fracking, a process that has made it far easier to access cleaner-burning natural gas. Yet, by canceling the Keystone Pipeline and pushing the Green New Deal, the Biden administration and congressional Democrats have made energy more expensive for families and businesses.
The Clean Energy Performance Program would also increase our reliance on critical minerals imported from often-hostile regimes. These minerals are essential for batteries for electric vehicles and other sources of renewable energy. Our chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan put the Taliban in control of vast reserves of these resources, and China is already working to take advantage of Biden’s miscues.
Second, the package would increase energy costs on American families and businesses through other new provisions such as a methane tax. This provision unfairly targets small independent or marginal oil and gas producers and would make our environment less clean by undermining innovation in this sector and increasing global reliance on less clean forms of energy.
Not all oil and gas basins are similar in their hydrocarbon makeup. For example, Kansas is generally a “dead oil state” – meaning that gas levels found in Kansas crude are very low, along with the potential for meaningful methane release. This measurement is referred to as the Gas to Oil ratio (GOR).
Biden’s methane tax would unfairly punish Kansas independent oil producers with lower-than-average GORs who are by and large family-owned small businesses with fewer than ten employees. Targeting these wells would raise energy prices even further across the U.S. While many are small family-owned operations, they produce almost 7.5% of entire U.S. oil production. I’ve introduced the Marginal Well Protection Act to protect these critical small producers from being unfairly targeted by the administration.
Biden’s Green New Deal provisions would also spend $2.25 billion to create a taxpayer-funded “climate army,” or Civilian Climate Corps. This program would be controlled by the Biden administration and would likely be used to finance left-wing environmental activists. Thankfully, there is still bipartisan opposition to the program – most notably from Sen. Joe Machin (D-WV).
The reality is we already have a civilian climate corps. They’re called America’s farmers and ranchers. The farmers and ranchers I know in Kansas are the best environmentalists in the world. They should be honored and respected, not harassed by woke coastal environmental activists who often have zero world experience when it comes to environmental stewardship.
These policies and others, like the recently floated Carbon Tax, will break President Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on families earning less than $400,000. According to a new analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’ non-partisan tax scorekeeper, more than 85% of all taxpayers will face a tax increase or enjoy no benefit under this plan.
If progressives decide they are serious about protecting the environment rather than using climate alarmism to push their socialist agenda, they should join conservatives who embrace economic freedom. Studies show that freer economies are twice as clean as less free economies. Countries that have smaller governments, lower taxes, less regulation and strong protections for private property owners are more prosperous and cleaner than countries like Venezuela that suffer under socialist policies.
It’s time for the interests of American families and main street businesses to be put ahead of the demands of left-wing radical environmental activists who won’t be happy until they’ve destroyed the entire economy.
Ron Estes, one of only a handful of engineers in Congress, worked in the aerospace, energy and manufacturing sectors before representing Kansas’ 4th Congressional District since 2017. He is a fifth-generation Kansan, former state treasurer, and serves on the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Joint Economic Committee.
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