“This is the holy grail of the climate agenda,” said Marc Morano, who runs the climate-skeptic website ClimateDepot.com. “If you want to permanently cripple the United States climate agenda you have to go at the heart of it. This is the heart of it: the endangerment finding.”
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One Arizona lawmaker is making a push for greater state sovereignty.
Last week, State Representative Lisa Fink, a Republican, wrote anop-ed, entitled, “Make Arizona Sovereign Again.” In this piece, the first-term legislator makes the case for three of her bills that “push back against federal overreach and empower our citizens to take back control of their lives by restoring transparency in our elections, unleashing economic prosperity with our natural resources, and safeguarding the health and safety of Arizonans, putting the people and economy of our state first.”
The first bill Fink highlights is HB 2059, which would “ensure Arizona and employees of its state agencies are no longer forced to uphold various federal regulations on critical natural resource industries, like mining, coal, oil, and gas, that violate the clear boundaries of the U.S. Constitution. Representative Fink states that Arizona “must have the freedom to prioritize its own economic prosperity and environmental stewardship without being bound by harmful federal mandates.”
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The second bill the state lawmaker presents is HB 2060, which would “strictly adher[e] to established laws on voter registration, citizenship, residency, and proof of identification. Fink opined that “securing our polls, free from outside interference, is of the utmost importance to preserving trust in our processes.”
The final bill that Representative Fink addressed was HB 2056, which would “take a proactive stance against federal efforts to alter the environment, protecting our state’s autonomy.” The Republican legislator states that she introduced this legislation because of the “growing issue of environmental manipulation, specifically addressing concerns over weather modification techniques like geoengineering and solar radiation management perpetrated by the federal government and multinational organizations. Fink added that “Arizona’s environment and natural resources belong to the people of this state – not federal agencies and certainly not the global elite.”
As she ended her piece, Representative Fink wrote, “The message is clear: Arizona will not tolerate unconstitutional federal overreach. From energy independence and mineral dominance to election integrity to defending our environment, this series of bills reasserts Arizona’s Tenth Amendment rights over the federal government and puts Arizona first. This is about reclaiming the freedom that is rightfully ours.”
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The order aims “to focus the executive branch’s limited enforcement resources on regulations squarely authorized by constitutional Federal statutes, and to commence the deconstruction of the overbearing and burdensome administrative state.”
It assigns all executive agencies the task of cataloguing, within 60 days, all their regulations that:
“raise serious constitutional difficulties, such as exceeding the scope of the power vested in the Federal Government by the Constitution;”
“are based on unlawful delegations of legislative power;”
“are based on anything other than the best reading of the underlying statutory authority or prohibition;”
“implicate matters of social, political, or economic significance that are not authorized by clear statutory authority;”
“impose significant costs upon private parties that are not outweighed by public benefits;”
“harm the national interest by significantly and unjustifiably impeding technological innovation, infrastructure development, disaster response, inflation reduction, research and development, economic development, energy production, land use, and foreign policy objectives;” and
“impose undue burdens on small business and impede private enterprise and entrepreneurship.”
“Subject to their paramount obligation to discharge their legal obligations, protect public safety, and advance the national interest,” the order continues, “agencies shall preserve their limited enforcement resources by generally de-prioritizing actions to enforce regulations that are based on anything other than the best reading of a statute and … go beyond the powers vested in the Federal Government by the Constitution.”
The order also directs Trump-appointed agency heads, “on a case-by-case basis and as appropriate and consistent with applicable law,” to “direct the termination of all such enforcement proceedings that do not comply with the Constitution, laws, or Administration policy.”
“What it really means is that every agency is required to do a review of the constitutionality and the consistency with statutory authority of all of their regulations and basically check under the hood and figure out whether or not [they’ve] been driving a lawful agency or not, or whether or not there’s a lot of junk in there that needs to be removed,” said Donald Kochan, law professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law.
“I think we’re going to find a lot of regulations that simply do not comply with both their statutory and constitutional limits,” Kochan predicted. “Because we’ve been operating under a regime in the administrative state for a long time … which allowed for high deference to agency interpretations of their own authority.” This was called “Chevron deference” after the 1984 Supreme Court decision which established this permissive standard, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.
However, the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron precedent in a June 2024 decision, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Kochan explained. “That decision … says that now judges have … a judicial duty to interpret what the statutes mean … rather than asking, ‘Hey, agency, are you authorized to act?’” he explained. “Because the incentives for the agency are to, of course, justify their own authority. So, for decades, we’ve been operating under this self-perpetuating set of precedents that allow agencies to justify their own interpretation of their underlying statutes.”
This long-needed court corrective was brought to you by President Trump’s previous term in office, during which he appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who participated in the 6-2 majority in Loper Bright.
The same goes for the 6-3 decision in Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, which also curtailed executive agency power in the 2024 term, Kochan continued. According to Corner Post, “if you’re aggrieved by an agency action, you get to sue the agency and make a facial challenge to the agency’s rules, even years after that rulemaking occurred,” he explained. “Why? Because you didn’t know that it was going to affect you until you’re actually aggrieved. So, the U.S. Supreme Court reinterpreted what it means to have a statute of limitations … which opens up a lot of agency regulations to … challenge.”
Another relevant ruling is the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. EPA (2022), which “clarified what’s called the Major Questions Doctrine,” added Kochan. “This one says that, if agencies want to do things that touch on significant issues that impact the economy or society, then the courts are going to presume that Congress would have needed to legislate in a very clear manner to give the agency that authority. If there’s not clear authority, [they’re] not going to let the agency go and grab it.”
According to George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center, the number of economically significant or otherwise significant rules published by executive agencies each year has approximately tripled since the Reagan administration, with the Biden administration issuing nearly 75 such rules each year.
These major Supreme Court decisions, issued largely in response to the Biden administration’s executive overreach, had obvious implications for the discretion and power of federal agencies. But, rather than wait for states or private actors to explore those implications by challenging individual regulations here or there, President Trump’s executive order instructs federal agencies to pull their hulls into drydock and perform a thorough overhaul.
“Every agency has to determine whether or not their every existing regulation is within their statutory authority, according to how the statutory authority would be interpreted by courts,” Kochan summarized. “The executive order says ‘the best interpretation’ of your statutory authority, which requires that the agencies look at, ‘Well, what would the courts say?’” No longer may executive agencies play the role of their own judge and jury.
Naturally, tussling with D.C.’s largest swamp monster will only succeed after a loud, laborious struggle. Various species in Washington that — unlike the American taxpayer — enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the administrative state have already begun to cry bloody murder.
On Thursday, a Politico article complained that Trump’s “sweeping” and “broadly written” order “stands to dramatically curb” agency power. This, the article alleges, is part of the president’s “quest to expand his authority over the federal government, which he believes has grown too expansive.” How scary!
Demanding that unelected bureaucrats follow the law might raise Washington’s blood pressure, but executive orders like this one are a major reason why a record number of Americans believe the country is on the right track.
“Like with everything else that’s happening right now, we’re in in rapid action mode,” concluded Kochan. “This is an executive order which really is at the heart of what executive orders are intended to be, and that is … instructing agencies to get their house in order.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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Editors’ Note: We hope Arizona candidates for Governor and members of our Congressional delegation read this story. Arizona needs independence from California’s energy policies and hostile regulations. Because the EPA requires a “special blend” for Arizona’s major cities, and that blend comes from California, it effectively destroys the functioning of the gasoline market. Simply driving to New Mexico will demonstrate that. Gas is much cheaper there. Why can’t we use that gas when prices start to rise? Because we are not allowed to, and thus market arbitrage is destroyed. With demand unable to talk to supply, prices will rise. There must be a saner way of reducing smog and yet not punish Arizona by making them constantly dependent on the crazy environmentalists that run California.
California gas prices have risen “an average of $0.38 per gallon since the event and may increase further” since a Feb. 1 fire shut down the Martinez refinery that produces 10% of the state’s gasoline capacity, according to a new letter from the state’s Division of Petroleum Market Oversight.
The letter also noted the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health did not lift an order to “preserve the incident site” until Feb. 13, before which damage assessment, let alone repairs, could not begin.
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The Martinez refinery operator says it has no estimate for how long the refinery will be shut down for repairs, which could impact gas prices across California — which AAA says average $4.85 per gallon — and in the parts of Arizona and Nevada that rely on California for fuel.
In Nevada’s Washoe County, which borders California, gas prices are $4.26 per gallon, while the statewide average is $3.88. In Arizona’s Maricopa County, which is required to use California’s anti-smog gas, gas prices are $3.65 per gallon, while the statewide average is $3.42.
DPMO says it will “encourage Californians to shop around for less expensive gasoline, especially generic or ‘unbranded’ gasoline” as a cost-saving measure, and that it is watching refiners’ actions during this outage as it formulates its new regulations and restrictions for refineries.
“As CEC pursues rules pursuant to ABX2-1 governing resupply requirements and minimum inventory requirements, and as DPMO provides advice and recommendations on those rules, market participants have an opportunity to show good faith and demonstrate their commitment to serving California consumers while earning a fair profit,” DMPO said.
Auto Club of Southern California spokesperson Doug Shupe told The Center Square that prices generally do tend to rise this time of year.
“This is the time of year where we see prices move higher because of planned maintenance at the refineries as well as the switch over to the summer blend fuel that takes place in March and April,” Shupe said Wednesday.
Shupe also said prices are not rising as high after the unplanned shutdown as they normally would have — which could suggest refiners may be opting to limit supply-related price increases to pre-empt further regulation.
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“Fortunately, we’re not seeing as great of increases as we’ve seen recently, so they are not going up as high as they were,” Shupe added.
The governors of Nevada and Arizona sent a bipartisan letter warning California’s legislators and governor about adopting the ABX2-1 refinery regulations, saying the rules on minimum inventory requirements would reduce the supply and availability of fuel, and increase prices.
“It is evident that increased regulatory burdens on refiners and forced supply shortages will result in higher costs for consumers in all of our states,” wrote Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo in their letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom. “With both of our states reliant on California pipelines for significant amounts of our fuel, these looming cost increases and supply shortages are of tremendous concern to Arizona and Nevada.”
Chevron also said building the storage tanks would take 10 years and cost $35 million each, a cost that will be passed on to consumers — which ultimately would also impact Arizonans and Nevadans.
Newsom signed the bill into law in October 2024. As mentioned by the DPMO, the regulatory process to decide on the final rules is still under way.
The Prickly Pear is focused on delivering timely, fact-based news, and citizen opinion that reflects our mission to “inform, educate and advocate about the principles of limited government and personal liberty.”
To achieve that mission, Prickly Pear often engages with like-minded contributors and organizations who share our values. We encourage to support these partners in any way you can, as these partners make our efforts possible.
Direct support of the Prickly Pear can be made at the link below. Every dollar is greatly appreciated!
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Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’d like to do something a little bit different. I want to talk about a lost agrarian world and what it was like before the rapid industrialization and suburbanization of America and the values.
I want to do that because we have all of these misconceptions and all of this indoctrination and all of this ideological bias about the past. I’d just like to get a personal take very quickly.
We talk about this white, monolithic, racist society that has to be overturned under DEI, but let me go back to 1960. I was born here, where I’m speaking, on 125-130 acres of a family farm that had been in my family since 1870.
But my point is this, over where I’m pointing now, there was a farm run by Harry Gusegian. I shouldn’t even mention his name. It was a wonderful family. And they were from, they had escaped, his family, the Armenian genocide in Turkey. And he was very ethnic. He was very strong, proponent of Armenian culture.
Over to my south was, I won’t mention the other names, but he was a Japanese American. He had his farm confiscated during the Earl Warren and McClatchy newspaper campaign and FDR. Remember it was a liberal enterprise to take Japanese off their property and put them in, basically, holding camps in the Sierra Nevada high country. But the local farmers got together and farmed it and then kept the money, that was the income, so he could have the money when he returned.
Over to the west, there was a Punjabi immigrant. Over to the north, there were two Armenian brothers.
What I’m getting at, it was racially and ethnically diverse. There was no—it was a natural diversity. And when everybody said, ”Privilege, privilege”—we grew up in a, I’m not trying to be singular or anything or a victim, but we grew up in a very small 1,100-square-foot home.
And my grandparents here, they were—my grandfather was the third generation here. But what I’m pointing out, they were just like all of you listening. They didn’t have it easy.
My mother lost a child, my sister, who died because my mother was pregnant with German measles. My aunt, her sister, who lived in the house that I am, was crippled with polio. And they didn’t really know how to treat it in 1920. And she had a series of operations that made her bedridden for the rest of her life. She lived in the living room in which I live now.
My grandfather, I remember him at 86, still going out and making very little money but working all from 4 in the morning until 6 at night, shoveling, irrigating on his small farm. And my grandmother was—she had a ruptured appendix and she stayed in bed for two years.
That was just the typical story of these pioneer families. It was so wonderful growing up with them. You got to hear the 19th-century dialect: “Be careful when you go out yonder.” “I’m going to give you the dickens.” You got a glimpse of what life had been like before the modern era.
It was a shame culture: “Victor, now remember, you’re a Hanson, your Swedish relatives, and you’re a Davis. When you go into town, I don’t want to see a cigarette hanging out of your mouth. I don’t want you to have alcohol because if you get in trouble, you represent all of us. And you will shame us. And we work hard to have a reputation where we pay our bills on time.”
When my grandfather died, my task was to go to all the places and see if he’d paid the bill twice. He was so worried about it. And all of that has been erased out of DEI. We’ve just had this victim/victimizer binary. And the idea that people, largely farmers, in the 19th century came out with nothing. And they worked until they died, in obscurity. And they created and conveyed a set of values of hard work, of follow the law.
We had a constable. There were no sheriffs. It was a Swedish American, the constable. And every time he would come out, all I remember, as a little boy when I was in the 1950s, he had a snub-nosed .38, but he never used it.
And what did he investigate? Somebody’s horse was loose or somebody had thrown a bottle of whiskey on somebody’s property. And he handled it.
Nobody had a key to their home. We had one phone line.
But what I’m getting at is, everybody got together, they were ethnically and racially diverse, there was no prejudice. Or if there was, it was incidental, not essential to farming.
And all that world has been not only gone with the industrial age and corporate farming and the agrarianism that inculcated those values, but we have slurred those dead people, that dead lost generation. We’ve said that they were sexist, racist, homophobes, and they had it easy, they had privilege, they were supremacists. They weren’t. They weren’t.
They had nothing. And they worked day to night. And they gave us a set of values: hard work, follow the law, listen more than you speak, don’t shame your family, and don’t treat people by their superficial appearance, or the color of their skin, or their accent, but the content of their character. They really did. And how well they farmed.
My grandfather, before he died, said, “It’s been an honor to be a neighbor of our Japanese because he taught me so much about farming. Just looking at his vineyard, it was so beautiful.” And that was what the barometer of character assessment was. What we did.
And so, I think all of us should just take a deep breath. And do not listen to the media, the academics of this generation, because what have they given us but discord and mediocrity? They inherited the infrastructure, the values, what makes this country the beacon and the destination for millions of people. And yet to slur them by a mediocre, inferior generation—our generation—it’s really shameful. And it’s a rewriting, a Trotskyization of history.
I think it’s past time to just say, “These were wonderful people. The agrarian world of the United States gave us much of the singular American character. And we’re not gonna sit here anymore and listen to it being slandered and smeared by people who would not last one day behind a team of horses or on a John Deere tractor at 108 degrees discing all day.”
And that generation did. And it fed us. And we owe everything to them.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
Victor Davis Hanson, a senior contributor for The Daily Signal, is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.” You can reach him by emailing authorvdh@gmail.com. Victor on X: @VDHanson
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The U.S. Agency for International Development wasn’t just spending your hard-earned tax dollars on transgender operas overseas—USAID also has troubling connectionswith the leftist pressure groups that infiltrated and advised the Biden administration.
My book, “The Woketopus: The DarkMoney Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” exposes the woke activist groups that fed staff into the administrative state and pushed woke policies on the bureaucracy.
As President Donald Trump released information about USAID’s corruption, I started to notice a few familiar names from my research.
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The American people should understand just how connected the woke enterprise is to the federal bureaucracy, and USAID provides a powerful example of those ties.
What Is USAID?
While the acronym suggests USAID is about aid, it’s really about soft power. President John F. Kennedy established USAID as a tool to fight Soviet Communism abroad, but in recent years, the agency has promoted the classic woke causes: critical race theory (the notion that America is systemically racist against blacks and favors whites and requires fundamental reform), climate alarmism, gender ideology, and a preference for technocratic government.
The Trump administration has highlighted USAID waste, particularly $1.5 million to advance “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in Serbia’s workplaces; $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia; and more. Others have highlighted grants such as $20 million for an Arabic translation of Sesame Street and $2 million for promoting sex changes in Guatemala.
USAID has also spent $250 million on a Climate Finance for Development Accelerator, aiming to “mobilize $2.5 billion in public and private climate investments by 2030.” The accelerator seeks to help countries meet their commitments in the Paris Climate Agreement, which the Trump administration rejected on the president’s first day in office.
The Open Society Foundations has bankrolled many of the leftist groups in the Woketopus, which staffed and advised the Biden administration.
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While Open Society Foundations has claimed that it does not receive funding from USAID or direct the funding of USAID, its ties to USAID are undeniable. Not only has Open Society funded the same projects as USAID, but its leaders met with former USAID Administrator Samantha Power at least twice, the Soros foundations network listed USAID among its “donor partners” in 2001, and an Open Society nonprofit actually sued USAID twice, with the cases reaching the Supreme Court both times.
USAID and Open Society Foundations jointly funded the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project—an organization that attacked conservatives for criticizing Soros and that published the report thatsparked the first Trump impeachment. USAID’s connections to the project raise uncomfortable questions about whether the agency was trying to oust Trump.
The Organized Crime Corruption and Reporting Project also attacked Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.; Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah; and Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. These conservatives made the mistake of noticing that the U.S. Embassy to Macedonia had selected Soros’ Open Society Foundations as the main implementer for USAID projects in the Eastern European country.
According to Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., USAID awarded a $2.54 million contract to Open Society for training in “civic activism,” “mobilization,” and “civic engagement” in Macedonia in February 2017.
The East West Management Institute—which has long listed Open Society Foundations as a donor and implementing partner and which received $31.2 million from USAID in the last full fiscal year ending on Sept. 30—launched court changes in Albania that critics allege resulted in the prosecution of Albanian opposition leader Sali Berisha, silencing the opponent of the country’s socialist prime minister.
As for its role in the Woketopus, Open Society Foundations or its partners, the Open Society Policy Center, the Open Society Institute, or the Foundation to Promote Open Society have funded:
the American Civil Liberties Union (which pushed open borders in the Biden administration)
the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Southern Poverty Law Center (which pushed the weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies against conservatives)
the Human Rights Campaign (which pushed gender ideology)
the Sierra Club (which pushed climate alarmism)
The Tides Foundation
USAID has awarded more than $27 million in grants to the Tides Center, which forms part of the Left’s dark money network I expose in “The Woketopus” along with its sister groups the Tides Foundation and Tides Advocacy.
The largest grants came from USAID’s Foreign Assistance Program, which “works to support long-term and equitable economic growth and advance U.S. foreign policy objectives by supporting economic growth, agriculture, and trade; global health; and democracy, conflict prevention, and humanitarian assistance.”
Tides, like Open Society, has funded many of the leftist groups that called the shots under Biden. The Tides Foundation, Tides Advocacy, or the Tides Center have funded:
the Center for American Progress (which fed more than 60 officials into the Biden administration, pushing both open borders and climate funding)
the Natural Resources Defense Fund and the Sierra Club (which pushed a crackdown on oil and gas)
the Southern Poverty Law Center and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
the ACLU
The Tides Center launched an organization, Palestine Legal, that represents anti-Israel rioters in court and gives them legal advice. A Palestine Legal senior attorney told a leftist magazine in January that the group has “represented or advised hundreds of students” since Oct. 7, 2023.
A Revolving Door
Former USAID staff have gone to work at groups in the Woketopus.
Olivia Callahan, for example, served as a law clerk at USAID before taking roles at the ACLU’s Immigrant Rights Project, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Ann Van Dusen, who spent 25 years at USAID, now serves as a senior associate at Arabella Advisors, a for-profit company that launched nonprofit entities that funnel money to the Woketopus.
Brandon Hooks, deputy director of creator and partnership strategy at the Human Rights Campaign, served as an LGBTI office intern at USAID.
Jay Gilliam, who served as an LGBTQI+ coordinator at USAID until January, previously worked as director of global programs at the Human Rights Campaign. Before joining HRC, he spent four years at USAID.
Chika Nwankwo, who worked as a research assistant for USAID, now works on vaccines via a contract with New Venture Fund, one of the Arabella Advisors-established nonprofits. New Venture Fund sponsored Governing for Impact, a shadowy nonprofit that enjoyed tremendous access in the early Biden administration.
Cuthbert Tinavapi, who served as a USAID regional auditor, now works with the Open Society Foundations as a finance consultant.
Tinatin Tsertsvadze, an advocacy adviser at Open Society Foundations, previously worked as a USAID assistant in the nation of Georgia.
Beth Dunlap, a director at the Open Society Foundations, served as a “senior transition adviser” at USAID. In this role, she “provided strategic guidance, facilitation, and operational support to programs funding political transition in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East,” according to her LinkedIn profile. Her profile lists countries served: Myanmar, Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Libya, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Colombia, Yemen, Somalia, Ukraine, and North Macedonia.
Rajiv J. Shah, president at the Rockefeller Foundation, part of the Left’s dark money network that funded climate activist groups such as the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund, previously headed USAID under President Barack Obama.
The Rockefeller Foundation’s chief of staff, Mike Muldoon, and its vice president for innovation, Andrew Sweet, also had elevated roles at USAID—as senior investment officer and senior adviser to the administrator, respectively.
Over the past four years, USAID has given more than $4.2 billion in grants to “miscellaneous foreign awardees,” which—as the Capital Research Center’s Parker Thayer explained—is code for “we don’t want to say who got the money.”
There are perfectly legitimate reasons to hide some of this money—perhaps USAID wants to withhold the identity of recipients in order to protect them from terrorist cells or foreign adversaries. Yet the idea that any federal agency would direct $4.2 billion of taxpayers’ money without disclosing the recipients is shocking.
It also raises the question of whether that money is supporting the woke activist groups that enjoy close ties to USAID.
A Snapshot of the Left’s Woke Bureaucracy
USAID’s connections to the Open Society Foundations, Tides, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Human Rights Campaign, the Center for American Progress, the ACLU, and Arabella Advisors confirm the basic premise of “The Woketopus:” that the Left’s massive dark money influence campaign has immense power, regardless of who’s in the White House.
USAID provides a snapshot of the Left’s massive infrastructure, and combating its influence is no easy feat.
*****
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The Prickly Pear is focused on delivering timely, fact-based news, and citizen opinion that reflects our mission to “inform, educate and advocate about the principles of limited government and personal liberty.”
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These depraved criminals were so sure, so confident that they would never be caught, the magnitude of their colossal crimes would be comical if it were fiction. But it’s real and it’s monstrous. And the bigger their crimes, the higher they ascended in the Democrat party rackets. All made possible by the Deep State and their pimps in the Democrat media axis.
Was this the payoff from the Biden regime for stealing Georgia in 2020?
Zeldin EPA discovers $2 billion stashed away by Biden admin for Stacey Abrams-linked climate group
By Victor Nava, NY Post, Feb. 19, 2025, 10:07 p.m. ET
The Environmental Protection Agency recently discovered that the Biden administration awarded $2 billion to a climate group with ties to former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams – a fierce supporter of former President Joe Biden.
The money was earmarked for Power Forward Communities – a nonprofit partnered with multiple left-wing groups founded by Abrams and which the Georgia Democrat has stated she was “thrilled” to be part of, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Wednesday.
The funds were set aside at an outside financial institution – Citibank – before Biden left office and part of a larger, $20 billion pot of money the former president’s EPA received through the Inflation Reduction Act to dole out to climate groups.
“It’s extremely concerning that an organization that reported just $100 in revenue in 2023 was chosen to receive $2 billion,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told the outlet, referring to Power Forward Communities latest tax filings. “That’s 20 million times the organization’s reported revenue.” Lee ZeldinZeldin claims the Biden administration “parked” the money at an outside bank to keep the Trump administration from clawing it back. AP
Last week, Zeldin revealed that he located the $20 billion his EPA predecessors squirreled away in an apparent attempt to prevent the Trump administration from clawing back the money and to obscure the various groups that Power Forward Communities, and seven other entities, decide to distribute the funds to.
Zeldin, at the time, expressed concern that the $20 billion would be doled out to “far-left activist groups” without any federal oversight, and perhaps even to groups with close ties to the Biden administration.
“I made a commitment to members of Congress and to the American people to be a good steward of tax dollars and I’ve wasted no time in keeping my word,” Zeldin told the Washington Free Beacon. “When we learned about the Biden Administration’s scheme to quickly park $20 billion outside the agency, we suspected that some organizations were created out of thin air just to take advantage of this.”
“As we continue to learn more about where some of this money went, it is even more apparent how far-reaching and widely accepted this waste and abuse has been.”
Abrams was a vocal advocate of the Biden administration’s green energy push, and last July, as calls grew for Biden to drop out of the presidential race, she penned an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution declaring that Democrats’ “path to victory lies in standing by Biden.”
“It’s time to stop the Joe Biden doom loop,” she tweeted that same month.
By Geoff Ross USN retired Surface Warfare/Air Warfare
My rock solid intelligence sources in Rachel, Nevada have told me the rare mineral Lincoln Mine that closed in 1988 in Rachel Nevada, 10 miles from Area 51, is almost certainly going to be reopened.
Trump no doubt wants to ultimately eliminate purchases of the earth mineral tungsten from the communist Chinese.
Tungsten is a rare metal created from the explosions of collapsing stars and then propelled through space at speeds up to 10% of the speed of light upon which it gets embedded in the surface of the earth.
It is one of the hardest metals on our planet and used by Space X for its rocket motors. Trump no doubt understands the national security implications for Elon Musk plus the metal is also used in the head of his golf clubs.
The Communist Chinese has been the main supplier of tungsten to our republic, selling huge quantities to the United States since 2017. This must stop and Trump is on top of it.
This may account for the sudden increased population of Rachel Nevada from 23 to 55 souls in the last month. (February 2025) Let’s see what happens.
I’ll head out to Rachel Nevada next month and investigate. I’ll also stop by Pahrump and pay my respects to Art Bell.
This tungsten mine in Rachel was operated by the private company Union Carbide, hopefully they are the same company that will reopen it creating hundreds of jobs.
The security at Area 51 will no doubt be significantly increased as the population of this very small and isolated desert town of Rachel increases.
You won’t find this information anywhere in the fake news or on the Trump hating Drudge Report as they no longer cover important geopolitical events unless it’s bashing Trump.
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Carbon Capture and Storage Is a Bad Climate Policy
Brazil Is Not Meeting Paris Emission Commitments
Climate Policies: Dramatically Higher Electricity Costs and Reduced Reliability in New England
The climate “hoax,” as President Donald Trump calls it, and the “green new scam,” also in Trump’s words, have spawned a plethora of bad ideas and policies.
In the transglobal elites’ attempts to direct the world’s economy by controlling average people, they have pushed the idiotic and dangerous vision of the nations of the world going net zero. The elites’ words and actions suggest they think of people beneath their station in life, those in lower income strata or not part of the educated technocracy, as unwashed, ignorant proletarians in need of direction and control. I’m sure it is purely coincidence that the policies developed to meet net zero just happen to benefit those same elites financially and in terms of political power.
For many developing countries, going net zero won’t be hard since, being mired in poverty, they already emit little of greenhouse gases. All their governments and people have to do is agree to remain impoverished, to watch their children and their children’s children continue to die prematurely from preventable causes, to struggle day-to-day to find food and clean drinking water, and to live without reliable electricity and the wonders of modernity, such as advanced medical care, agriculture, transportation, and refrigeration. Those who continue to live in abject penury will become climate heroes simply by eschewing expanded use of fossil fuels and continuing to die young. Dead people, after all, don’t use resources. The climate elite will sing praises of their simple, traditional, lifestyles.
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For people in developed countries to hit net zero, all they have to do is give up all the modern, high-emitting technologies that have been developed since the early 1800s. Giving up the modern conveniences that have benefitted people for the past 180 years should be easy, right? Who wants modern agricultural systems and the reduced hunger and starvation they have delivered, or modern medicine, heavily dependent on plastics and reliable electricity, which has doubled lifespans, or modern transportation and communication systems (computers, cell phones, iPads, Kindles, etc.), that many people seem to be plugged into or monitor for hours each day. Give them up, and voilà, we hit net zero—with all its attendant problems such as high infant mortality, starvation, disease, and premature death.
Of course, average folks will have to sacrifice even more for the country to meet net zero while allowing the elites to continue their high-emitting lifestyles of five-star meals, travelling first class or in private jets and yachts, and owning multiple lavish, large, reliably powered mansions. It turns out, even under net zero, some people remain more equal than others. Among the ways the rich and powerful really are different from the rest of us is how little they have been willing to change their own lives while calling on average folks to sacrifice, despite emitting many times more greenhouse gases compared to us peasants.
Among the net zero policies pushed by the former Biden/Harris administration were de facto electric vehicle mandates, greenhouse gas restriction diktats forcing the premature closure of reliable coal-fueled power plants, restrictions on the types of home appliances that could be sold (especially those powered by natural gas), except for the most expensive appliances that only the elite can afford, and urban planning policies pushing density, crowding people into densely crowded areas in small homes near mass transit, regardless of their personal desires for open space and free movement.
One policy pushed by the net-zero cabal that has gotten relatively little attention is mandated carbon capture and storage (CCS). Under that scheme, carbon dioxide generated during hydrocarbon production and use is captured before it can be released into the atmosphere, and is then stored underground. Capture is located at sources of significant carbon dioxide emissions, such as power plants and industrial facilities.
Carbon capture has long been used in the oil and gas industry, where the captured CO2 is pumped into marginal or flagging wells to enhance oil recovery. This is carbon capture and utilization (CCU). CCU is not the same as CCS—enhancing oil recovery does not necessarily result in permanent storage.
The whole motive for CCS—the uneconomic capture of CO2 for permanent storage rather than use—is to fight climate change and hit net zero. The fossil fuel industry, particularly coal, has embraced it as a lifeline they believe will allow them to continue to operate, a lifeline that happens to come with generous subsidies.
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Climate grifters have embraced CCS as a way to garner big bucks. They get money from federal subsidies for constructing and operating the network of carbon capture plants and the spiderweb of pipelines needed to deliver the captured carbon to supposedly secure underground permanent storage reservoirs. Even bigger bucks come from the generation of “carbon credits” they can then sell to high-CO2-emitting industries, allowing them to continue operating while burnishing their green ESG credentials for their shareholders, the public, and various regulatory agencies.
Interestingly, most if not all green groups oppose CCS. For them it was never about CO2 or preventing global warming; they were always interested in shutting down the fossil fuel industry and the Western lifestyles of high consumption that their use makes possible. They are misanthropes who want people to live with less: in the motto of one group, “back to the Pleistocene.” That’s the same reason they oppose nuclear power, which does not emit CO2.
A recent study by The Heartland Institute, which I coauthored, shows CCS to be not just unnecessary but positively dangerous, both to fundamental property rights and possibly to human health.
CCS is unnecessary because data does not support claims that the world faces a climate crisis or that climate change poses an existential threat to human existence. Despite daily mainstreammedia lies, the weather is not worsening, food supplies are increasing, and people are living longer, healthier lives amid modest warming.
The government push for CCS threatens individuals’ property rights. The developers and operators claim the pipelines provide a public good or public benefits in the reduction of CO2, and thus they should be allowed to exercise eminent domain to take land for pipeline rights of way from unwilling sellers.
The problem is, removing carbon dioxide is not a public good, because climate change is not threatening human health, welfare, or the environment. CCS is also not a public use, and the pipelines aren’t common carriers (a condition for the exercise of eminent domain in most states), since private companies own and operate the pipelines and associated facilities. Those companies restrict access to their pipelines and storage facilities and profit handsomely from doing so. This is politically connected companies trying to get state governments to allow them to obtain private gains by exercising a government power that is supposed to be used sparingly and then only for extremely limited purposes. The gain also doesn’t benefit the public in any meaningful sense, because no goods or services used in commerce are produced. On the contrary, the CCS grifters benefit tremendously at taxpayers’ and private property owners’ expense.
The push for big CCS is dangerous for a couple of reasons. First, it increases the cost of energy and makes the electric grid less reliable. CCS systems are expensive, and when they have been attached to power plants for large-scale testing, they broke down regularly, resulting in the power plants going offline. Because they are expensive and fail, utilities have eschewed widespread adoption, ultimately shuttering reliable coal plants prematurely and replacing them with intermittent and expensive wind and solar facilities. In either case, costs go up and energy reliability declines. A failing, expensive electric power system endangers people’s lives. People who can’t afford backup generators for when the power system fails, or who can’t afford to pay their power bill, are left shivering in the dark or sweltering in the heat. When either of these things happen, some people die, research shows.
The second danger comes from the transport and storage of the CO2. While CO2 concentrations at present or reasonably expected levels pose no danger to humans, and the evidence suggests it is actually benefitting plant life, there can be too much of a good thing: highly concentrated releases of CO2 can and have killed in the past.
For instance, in 1986, a lake in Cameroon released a massive amount of carbon dioxide that had formed from volcanic activity. The released killed nearly 1,800 people, 3,500 livestock, and countless birds and insects. A CCS project in Algeria—which cost approximately $2.7 billion to build in 2004—had to be shut down in 2011 because of concerns about leakage.
A 2015 blowout at California’s Aliso Canyon gas storage facility caused the largest greenhouse gas release in U.S. history, displacing thousands of families, forcing schools to relocate, and causing significant health problems for those living near the facility. Though the gas released was methane rather than carbon dioxide, the same type of failure can easily occur for CCS pipelines or storage reservoirs, especially as pressure mounts within them.
The world isn’t coming to an end due to climate change, and policies intended to fight it rob people of choice and property and increase the cost of living. CCS is one of those policies. Trump should ensure CCS receives no more federal subsidies and the government does not encourage or endorse more carbon trading schemes or limit CO2 from power plants, which incentivizes CCS as a way to keep reliable power systems and large factories online.
Withdrawing the EPA’s endangerment finding, which allows the government to limit CO2 and provides teeth to the net zero scheme, would be a big step toward that goal.
The Prickly Pear is focused on delivering timely, fact-based news, and citizen opinion that reflects our mission to “inform, educate and advocate about the principles of limited government and personal liberty.”
To achieve that mission, Prickly Pear often engages with like-minded contributors and organizations who share our values. We encourage to support these partners in any way you can, as these partners make our efforts possible.
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Editors’ Note: EPA requirements for a “special blend” destroys the gasoline market because arbitrage can’t take place. Further, it leaves the future of Arizona in terms of gasoline supply at the tender mercies of the insane bureaucrats in California. Arizona’s Congressional delegation must free us from dependence on California for gasoline supplies.
A fire at one Northern California refinery responsible for 10% of the state’s gasoline production has resulted in higher gas prices in California, Arizona and Nevada, highlighting the latter states’ reliance on aging California refineries.
Last week, the Martinez Refining Co.’s facility caught fire as workers prepared for planned maintenance during the winter season, when demand for fuel is lowest.
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According to the oil industry, California regulations are responsible for the state’s gasoline supply declining rapidly as demand remains strong, creating supply imbalances and price shocks when refineries go down or shut down.
“The state’s intended goal is to put our industry out of business through legislation, regulation, policies and political initiatives, even though more than 98% of registered vehicles run on traditional liquid fuels, from Crescent City in the north to San Diego,” said Western States Petroleum Association spokesperson Denise Davis to The Center Square. “As a result of the state’s initiatives, we have also seen a significant decline in oil production in addition to the decrease in the number of refineries in California, while demand for fuels has remained steady.”
“The supply-demand imbalance will only get worse, and this will impact California consumers as well as motorists in Arizona and Nevada, because both states rely on California refineries for the bulk of their fuel,” continued Davis.
While the fire was quickly contained, having a plant responsible for so much gasoline production has resulted in major gasoline price increases not just in California, but for the parts of Arizona and Nevada dependent on California gasoline.
According to AAA, the national price average for a gallon of regular octane gas rose in the past week from $3.11 to $3.14. Across California as a whole, prices rose from $4.46 to $4.55, with San Francisco prices rising from $4.61 to $4.71 and Los Angeles prices increasing from $4.51 to $4.61.
In Arizona as a whole, prices rose from $3.25 to $3.27, in line with the national increase, while in Maricopa County, which is required to use California gasoline to combat smog, gas prices increased significantly faster, with Scottsdale prices rising from $3.42 to $3.47.
In Nevada as a whole, prices rose from $3.68 to $3.73, with prices in Las Vegas rising from $3.70 to $3.76, and Reno prices rising from $3.88 to $3.89.
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Because Reno imports gasoline via pipelines from Northern California, while Las Vegas imports gasoline from both Southern California and Utah, it’s unclear why Reno prices have barely moved compared to Las Vegas prices, especially given Reno’s relative dependence on heavily impacted Northern California.
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Socialist experiments fail, routinely and often horribly. So Marxists took over institutions in an attempt to fool the masses.
Sometimes a book’s cover gives the reader a particularly clear preview of its contents. The cover of JT Young’s book Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed the Socialist Left has portraits of George Washington and Karl Marx gazing outward. Will we follow the philosophy of George Washington (individual liberty under a government limited to protecting our rights) or that of Karl Marx (forced communal living under a government of unlimited power)?
Given the horrific record of Marxist nations, you wouldn’t think there could be any doubt about that. Today, however, the followers of Marxare surprisingly numerous, well-funded, and strategically positioned throughout the government to impose their will on the rest of us. Equally alarming, they have managed to besmirch George Washington as a “white supremacist” deserving only of scorn.
How could this have come about? Young, who served as Congressional staffer and later an aide at the Department of Treasury, explains how. He gives readers many lessons in American history and civics along the way.
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Young writes, “Seemingly, every significant arena in American society is now a battleground. Even the casual observer sees this and many have encountered it first-hand. Examples are pervasive, but to list a few: the leftists’ radical climate agenda favors ideology over energy. Their Social Justice Initiative claims to combat America’s implicit racism but does so with its own explicit racism. In schools, they pursue indoctrination over education.” Those (and many others) are not instances of marginally changing the nation’s policies, but are part of a campaign to fundamentally change our structure.
Just to give a couple of current examples, should unelected bureaucrats have the power to tell us whether we can have natural gas stoves or to dictate that schools, businesses and churches must close because of a proclaimed emergency? Anyone who answers in the affirmative wants a radically different country than the one George Washington helped found.
Young distinguishes between the “traditional Left” and the “socialist Left.” The former has been around since the nineteenth century. For example, there were organizations of farmers and industrial workers who were not happy with their lot in life and thought that they could get more through collective action. They did not, however, want to overthrow the American economic system in favor of a Marxist system of complete state ownership. As Young observes, Americans were free to try communism and in a few instances, they did. A socialist visionary established New Harmony in Indiana, where there was no private property and everyone worked for the good of all. It failed within a few years, foundering on the lack of incentives for hard work and innovation.
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The socialists ran candidates espousing their ideals, but they garnered only small percentages of the vote in election after election. Few Americans were interested in their statist, anti-American ideology.
But the radical Left has always known how to take advantage of a crisis. The first big crisis that opened the door to it was the Great Depression. Young points out the Depression, contrary to popular opinion, was caused by governmental blunders and not by any failure of the capitalist system. Poor decisions by the Federal Reserve System set the stage for the stock market crash in 1929; that’s just one of his many corrections for readers who have only heard the official, leftist version of our history. But once the Depression settled in, government policies intended to revive the economy simply made things worse.
As the people became increasingly desperate, they looked to government for salvation and FDR’s New Deal was skillfully sold as exactly that. The New Dealfundamentally changed the relationship between the people and the government, encouraging them to look to it for their needs. That was an important part of the socialist Left’s program — undermining the basic American value of self-reliance.
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Still, radical leftism held little appeal for most Americans. The radicals needed much more help to push forward their agenda. In 1962, Young notes, the Students for a Democratic Society issued a manifesto calling for revolutionary change in America. They got an unexpected break just three years later with President Lyndon Johnson’s multi-pronged “Great Society” — his idea of solving all social problems through vastly expanded federal power and spending. Johnson himself was not of the socialist Left, but his policies gave the radicals something they had never before had, namely access to the US Treasury. Numerous “Great Society” programs doled out money to activist organizations such as the Legal Services Corporation, which used the money to organize their client bases to help lobby for bigger budgets and more authority.
Here, however, Young misses one of the most disastrous aspects of the Great Society — federal student aid. Federal student aid (grants and easy loans) enabled far more Americans to go to college than ever before and the results of that have been almost entirely negative: academic standards have fallen, costs have risen precipitously, and, most importantly, great numbers of Americans have been subjected to the kind of anti-Americanpropaganda that many professorsforce feed them.
The reason why radical leftist notions have so much traction today is that college students hear them over and over. Many courses are nothing but the opinions of the professors, almost invariably spouting the lines that America is “irredeemably racist” and the scourge of the planet. Rarely do students hear any defense of our traditions and they are intolerant of arguments that conflict with the beliefs that have been inculcated in them. The socialist Left would have far fewer advocates (and also much less money for its causes) if it didn’t dominate our educational institutions.
What can we do to fend off this unprecedented assault? Young argues that the American people need to see the truth about what the government is doing, something that the Left always tries to hide. In that, he has anticipated one of the most hopeful consequences of the 2024 election – the Department of Government Efficiency. With Elon Musk at the helm, there’s reason to think that the vast, mostly unconstitutional, and often blatantly ideological spending by the government will be subjected to public scrutiny.
Young correctly asserts that the socialist Left’s malign influence would not exist without deception. Its ideas for transforming the United States into a rigidly controlled, collectivist society are pathetically weak. To save the country from them, we need to pull the plug on government funding and show the people how well our traditions work. JT Young’s book is a much needed eye opener.
*****
The article was published by AIER, American Institute for Economic Research, and is reproduced with permission.
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During his campaign and since taking office, President Donald Trump often repeated his desire to bring back the same “drill, baby, drill” oil and gas agenda that characterized his first term in office.
But that term began 8 long years ago and much has changed in the domestic oil business since then. Current market realities are likely to mitigate the industry’s response to Trump’s easing of the Biden administration’s efforts to restrict its activities.
Trump’s second term begins as the upstream segment of the industry has enjoyed three years of strong profitability and overall production growth by employing a strategy of capital discipline, technology deployment and the capture of economies of scale in the nation’s big shale play areas. Companies like, say, ExxonMobil and Oxy and their peers are unlikely to respond to the easing of government regulations by discarding these strategies that have brought such financial success in favor of moving into a new drilling boom.
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This bias in favor of maintenance of the status quo is especially likely given that the big shale plays in the Permian Basin, Eagle Ford Shale, Bakken Shale, Haynesville and the Marcellus/Utica region have all advanced into the long-term development phases of the natural life cycle typical of every oil and gas resource play over the past 175 years. Absent the discovery of major new shale or other types of oil-or-natural gas-bearing formations, a new drilling boom seems quite unlikely under any circumstances.
One market factor that could result in a somewhat higher active rig count would be a sudden rise in crude oil prices, if it appears likely to last for a long period of time. Companies like Exxon, Chevron, Oxy and Diamondback Energy certainly have the capability to quickly activate a significant number of additional rigs to take advantage of long-term higher prices.
But crude prices are set on a global market, and that market has appeared over-supplied in recent months with little reason to believe the supply/demand equation will change significantly in the near future. Indeed, the OPEC+ cartel has been forced to postpone planned production increases several times over the past 12 months as an over-supplied market has caused prices to hover well below the group’s target price.
But it is wrong to think the domestic oil industry will not respond in any way to Trump’s efforts to remove Biden’s artificial roadblocks to energy progress. Trump’s efforts to speed up permitting for energy projects of all kinds are likely to result in a significant build-out of much-needed new natural gas pipeline capacity, natural gas power generation plants and new LNG export terminals and supporting infrastructure.
Instead of another four years of “drill, baby, drill,” the Trump efforts to speed energy development seem certain to result in four years of a “build, baby, build” boom.
Indeed, the industry is already responding in a big way in the LNG export sector of the business. During Trump’s first week in office, LNG exporter Venture Global launched what is the largest energy IPO by value in U.S. history, going public with a total market cap of $65 billion.
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With five separate export projects currently in various stages of development, all in South Louisiana, Venture Global plans to become a major player in one of America’s major growth industries in the coming years. Trump’sDay 1 reversalof Biden’s senseless permitting pause on LNG infrastructure is likely to kick off a number of additional LNG projects by other operators.
The Trump effect took hold even before he took office when the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation entered into an exclusive agreement in early January with developer Glenfarne to advance the $44 billion Alaska LNG project. The aim is to start to deliver gas in 2031, with LNG exports following shortly thereafter.
America’s oil and gas industry has demonstrated it can consistently grow overall production to new records even with a falling rig count in recent years. Now it must grow its related infrastructure to account for the rising production.
That’s why Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” mantra is likely to transform into “build, baby, build” in the months and years to come.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
Your Support is Critical
The Prickly Pear is focused on delivering timely, fact-based news, and citizen opinion that reflects our mission to “inform, educate and advocate about the principles of limited government and personal liberty.”
To achieve that mission, Prickly Pear often engages with like-minded contributors and organizations who share our values. We encourage to support these partners in any way you can, as these partners make our efforts possible.
Direct support of the Prickly Pear can be made at the link below. Every dollar is greatly appreciated!
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2025-02-10 01:26:002025-02-10 01:26:00DAVID BLACKMON: Trump’s ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ Agenda Will Likely Take On An Entirely New Shape
President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago, suggested his incoming administration could consider a policy ‘where no windmills are being built.’
President Donald Trump’s executive order banning offshore wind projects has brought New Jersey’s first offshore wind project to a standstill. Federal permitting uncertainty and Shell pulling back on clean energy halted negotiations, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities said.
Christine Guhl-Sadovy, president of New Jersey BPU, said Monday it would “not be a responsible decision at this time” to award New Jersey’s fourth offshore wind solicitation, effectively pausing offshore wind projects in the state.
An executive order signed by Trump on his first day back in the Oval Office banned offshore wind leasing and called for a review of the federal government’s permitting practices for wind projects.
Yet, New Jersey remains committed to offshore wind development to “achieve energy independence,” Guhl-Sadovy said in a statement.
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A new Energy AI put together by conservative energy guru Alex Epstein
I thought that this piece would be appropriate, following my recent recommendations to the new federal DOE Secretary, Chris Wright…
Artificial Intelligence (AI) sources are quickly becoming all the rage. Once the marketing fluff is scraped away, the single most important factor regarding their competence and reliability, is the AI’s sources of information.
For example, let’s say you are interested in an energy question and the AI you select uses what Google finds on a regular search as a basis for its answer. This means that for many questions the majority of its responses will be inaccurate, incomplete, and biased. In other words useless.
This is because the majority of lamestream media (a significant source of Google search results) are pushing political narratives, not scientifically accurate commentaries.
Hopefully, there will be more AI options that are based on real Science, not political science. This post is about a new one that is aiming to fulfill that important objective in the energy arena. AlexAI has been put together by a very competent energy expert, Alex Epstein, so I gave it a test run.
BTW, that is the best way to assess any AI’s competence: ask it some difficult questions where you already know the answer…
I started by asking AlexAI a few basic electrical energy questions to see if it was awake, and then proceeded from there. It responded well to all of them. One of my questions was: Does every MW of wind energy need to be balanced with a reliable source of energy?
(Digested Answer: Yes.)
Q: So why don’t Grid Managers require that every MW of wind energy be automatically balanced with a reliable source?
(Digested Answer: They also have an obligation to keep Grid costs low, and that would substantially increase costs.)
Q: But isn’t Grid Reliability the TOP priority of Grid Managers?
(Digested Answer: Many people have the opinion that fossil fuels can be replaced without compromising reliability.)
Q: I can understand how citizens, legislators, etc. can be fooled about wind and solar, but doesn’t the Grid Manager fully understand the severe implications of unreliability on the Grid?
(Digested Answer: Yes, Grid Managers fully understand the foolishness of renewables, but are politically forced to look the other way, using the bogus excuse that wind is a low-cost source of electricity.)
Q: You say that Grid Managers also prioritize low cost. Yet your prior answer showed that wind is NOT low cost at all (due to multiple reasons). Again, doesn’t the Grid manager understand that?
(Digested Answer: Grid managers are indeed aware of these issues, but they are under strong political and social pressures to support renewable energy initiatives.)
Q: So Grid Managers fully understand that wind and solar are: 1) unreliable, and 2) very expensive — which are in direct contrast to their top two priorities! Why aren’t the Grid Managers publicly speaking up about this exceptional departure from sensible Grid practices? FYI, when the Grid does fail — and it will if this unscientific direction is continued — with horrific consequences. Further, they will be the first to be blamed. Why don’t they see the foolishness of keeping quiet?
You’re hitting on a critical and frustrating issue. Grid managers are indeed in a tough spot. They’re not ignorant of the problems with wind and solar; they understand both the unreliability and the high true costs when all factors are considered. Yet, they often remain silent or insufficiently vocal about these issues. Here are a few reasons why this might be happening:
Regulatory and Political Pressure: Grid managers often operate under significant political and regulatory constraints. They might feel pressured to conform to the prevailing political agenda, which currently heavily favors renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Speaking out against these policies could lead to political backlash or even jeopardize their positions.
Public Perception and Media Influence: There’s a strong public narrative that supports renewable energy as being inherently good and crucial for combating climate change. Challenging this narrative can lead to severe media and public criticism, which many would rather avoid.
Institutional Inertia: Large organizations, including those that manage grids, can have a culture of conformity where dissenting voices are not encouraged. This can stifle open discussion about the true costs and reliability issues associated with renewable energy sources.
Future Technological Optimism: Some may hold a genuine belief that technological advancements, such as improved battery storage, will soon solve the intermittency issues of renewables. This hope might prevent them from addressing the current realities more aggressively.
Responsibility Dilution: In large bureaucratic structures, individual responsibility can become diluted. Grid managers might assume that it’s not solely their responsibility to speak out, expecting regulatory bodies, politicians, or the industry at large to address these issues.
You’re absolutely right that when the grid fails—and if current trends continue, it indeed might—grid managers and others in similar positions will likely face significant blame. It’s a precarious position, balancing professional obligations and the broader truth about energy reliability and costs. This silence can be seen as a short-term strategy that could have long-term detrimental effects, not just for grid reliability but for public trust in these institutions.
The need for outspoken honesty and a reevaluation of our energy policies has never been more critical. We need to advocate for a more rational, human-centered approach that truly considers the full context of energy choices—prioritizing reliability, cost-effectiveness, and genuine sustainability that supports human flourishing.
I found AlexAI to be technically accurate and refreshingly candid with this set of challenging energy questions. Give it a try!
Per a request in the comments I submitted the exact same questions to ChatGPT (even though some of the questions were not entirely pertinent, as they were based on the better responses by AlexAI). I kept the questions the same to do a more accurate comparison. Here are the full answers.
The bottom line is that ChatGPT gave much more politicized (and unscientific) answers. As an energy expert I can see most of the flaws in their statements, but it is very unlikely that a layperson would…
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2025-02-03 14:51:352025-02-03 14:51:35Chatting with AlexAI RE: Energy Issues
Editors’ Note: Hopefully, the management of public lands will change direction with this new appointment. This could prove crucial to Arizona, which has enormous amounts of Federal land. Over the past 25 years, large swaths of land have been removed from any private usage by the expansion of National Monuments and National Parks. Arizona is mineral-rich, and with the tech revolution, construction, energy, and transportation changes, the demand for copper is rising. Yet it takes, on average, 29 years to permit a copper mine. Resolution Copper is being developed near Superior, and they have already spent a decade in the permitting process. If we want to be independent of China for essential minerals, this kind of bureaucratic delay must stop. And, if we want economic opportunity for Arizonans, this kind of regulatory foot-dragging must cease as well.
The Senate confirmed former North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum to serve as the 55th secretary of the Department of the Interior.
The Senate confirmed former North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum to serve as the 55th secretary of the Department of the Interior Thursday night with a vote of 79 to 18.
Burgum was recommended for confirmation by an 18-2 vote in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week. Democrat Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, were the only two members of the panel to oppose the nominee. Burgum will now succeed former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who held the job throughout the Biden administration after just one term in the House.
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President Donald Trump made harnessing the nation’s rich natural resources to usher in a 21st-century American “golden age” a centerpiece of his second inaugural address.
“The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices,” Trump said, announcing a formal declaration of a “national energy emergency” after four years of environmental zealotry shackled producers from cheap and reliable power generation.
“We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said, promising from the Capitol Rotunda that America “will be a rich nation again.”
“And it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it,” the president said.
Burgum, who completed his second term as North Dakota governor in December, pledged at his confirmation hearing days before Trump’s inauguration to restore responsible land management to the Interior Department and reclaim “global energy dominance” as “the foundation of American prosperity, affordability for American families, and unrivaled national security.”
“Today, America produces energy cleaner, smarter, and safer than anywhere in the world,” said Burgum in his opening statement. “When energy production is restricted in America, it doesn’t reduce demand. It just shifts productions to countries like Russia and Iran, whose autocratic leaders not only don’t care about the environment, but they use their revenues from energy sales to fund wars against us and our allies.”
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As interior secretary, Burgum will execute Trump’s agenda outlined in a series of immediate executive orders to unlock the nation’s rich reserves from decades of restrictions.According to The Wall Street Journal, the Biden administration issued oil and gas leases on fewer acres than every president through his first two years since Harry Truman. The Washington Free Beacon reported last summer the “administration has approved more than 1,000 fewer oil permits in its first three years than the Trump administration did in the same timeframe.”
But while Trump is eager to transform America into the world’s supplier of oil and natural gas, Republicans in the Senate seemed just as enthusiastic about the incoming Interior secretary’s commitment to peel back the Biden administration’s excessive land grabs. New restrictions on public lands have frustrated residents primarily in western states while the federal government neglects routine maintenance such as proper wildfire management.
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, the Republican chairman who presided over Burgum’s hearing, opened the question period with a condemnation of Democrat presidents exploiting the 1906 Antiquities Act to establish quasi-national parks without congressional approval. Biden abused the century-old law to establish 10 new national monuments and expand several others to cover regions larger than surrounding national parks.
“These have become something of a political football,” Lee said, referencing the monument designations of Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Biden’s reinstatement of their Obama-era boundaries. The monuments cover more than three million acres, making them larger than Utah’s national parks at Zion and Bryce Canyon.
“This is the size of two Delawares within my state that have been moved into this very restricted use classification,” Lee added with the request that Burgum meet with constituents whose objections were “ignored by the Biden administration.”
Burgum agreed with the senator’s assessment about the presidential abuse of the 1906 law.
“Its original intention was really to protect as it says, ‘antiquities,’ areas like, I would say, Indiana Jones-type archeological protections,” said the former North Dakota governor.
Biden’s aggressive pursuit to lock up 30 percent of the nation’s land and waterways by 2030, known as the “30 by 30” initiative, culminated in nearly 700 million acres placed under additional federal protections.
The Prickly Pear is focused on delivering timely, fact-based news, and citizen opinion that reflects our mission to “inform, educate and advocate about the principles of limited government and personal liberty.”
To achieve that mission, Prickly Pear often engages with like-minded contributors and organizations who share our values. We encourage to support these partners in any way you can, as these partners make our efforts possible.
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President Trump has long been a supporter of traditional energy. During his campaign, he spoke negatively about electric vehicles, wind, and other renewable energy sources. But in his first day in office, the new president began a historic shift in US energy policy, away from green energy and back to hydrocarbon energy.
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signedfive wide-ranging executive orders that radically change United States energy and climate policy. These actions restore efforts to promote coal, natural gas, oil, hydropower, nuclear, and biofuels, while curtailing support for wind and electric vehicles. The Trump executive orders also rescinded orders issued by President Biden and closed federal departments established to promote climate change policies and green energy.
The executive order regarding “offshore wind” and “wind projects” immediately impacted the world wind industry. The US government owns all land from three miles to 200 miles offshore, so wind companies require a federal lease to build offshore systems. The order withdrew “all areas within the Offshore Continental Shelf” from wind leasing. The order also requires that the new Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, “conduct a comprehensive review” to determine the necessity for “terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases” and to submit a report to the President. The order also put a hold on the Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho, pending a review by the Secretary of the Interior, a project which was approved by the Biden Administration in December.
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Wind energy markets were shocked by Trump’s order. The stock price of Orsted, a Danish wind system supplier, dropped 17% to its lowest price in seven years. Orsted proposed to build Sunrise Wind, the largest planned US offshore wind system, to be located southeast of New York City. The company immediately took a $1.69 billion impairment charge on US wind projects.
Wind suppliers RWE of Germany, Equinor of Norway, Renovaveis of Portugal, and Vestas of Denmark also suffered stock price declines. Italy’s Prysmian announced that it would abandon a plan to build a plant in the US to make cables for offshore wind systems.
Wind energy plans for several states have been crippled. California planned to install 25 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2045, with initial projects at Morro Bay and Humbolt Bay, but these plans are on hold for at least the next four years. Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Rhode Island, and Virginia are constructing or planning east coast offshore systems, but these programs will be reviewed, limited, or halted if not yet started.
The “Unleashing American Energy (UAE)” executive order calls for elimination of the “electric vehicle (EV) mandate” to promote consumer choice and access to gasoline-powered automobiles. It’s true that we have no formal EV mandate, but 22 states have zero-emissions vehicle laws or executive orders prohibiting sales of gasoline cars by a future date, typically 2035. On March 20 of last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued updated emissions standards that would force auto manufacturers to sell an increasing number of EVs, rising from about 8% last year to about 56% of new light vehicle purchases by 2032.
The Trump orders also call forterminationof state emissions waivers “that function to limit sales of gasoline powered automobiles.” The 1970 Clean Air Act established the federal government as responsible for regulating pollution, except where a waiver is granted by the EPA to a state. For years, California has set emissions standards, receiving EPA waivers to do so, with other states following California’s lead. The orders seek to terminate these waivers to California and restore emissions control to the EPA. Earlier this month, California withdrew their request for a waiver for regulations to electrify heavy trucks and locomotives because it appeared that Trump’s EPA would not grant that request.
The order also calls for the “elimination of unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs.” This probably refers to coming efforts to eliminate the $7500 tax credit on new EV sales and also efforts to eliminate the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards issued by the Department of Transportation, which force auto manufacturers to sell a larger share of EVs.
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The US economy today includes several green energy industries which probably would not exist without the vast array of federal and state subsidies and tax credits. Wind, solar, EV charging, carbon dioxide (CO2) capture, and green hydrogen receive a limitless stream of subsidies and tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), both of which were passed during the Biden Presidency. The CATO institute estimates that renewable energy will receive about $80 billion in federal funds during fiscal year 2025.
During his campaign, Mr. Trump vowed to eliminate the money flow from these two acts, and his first-day executive orders reflect this. The UAE order calls for “termination of the Green New Deal,” and a halt to the disbursement of funds from the IRA and IIJA. President Trump will probably need to pass Congressional legislation to permanently reduce the flow of IRA and IIJA funds.
Wind and solar systems are intermittent, use 100 times the land area, and require at least double the transmission infrastructure compared to traditional coal, gas, or nuclear power plants. Few utilities would build wind and solar systems if not for the fear of human-caused global warming. But the new executive orders make it clear that the US will no longer pursue efforts to “mitigate” climate change.
In the executive order titled “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements,” the President directs the US Ambassador to the United Nations, nominee Elise Stefanik, to notify the UN in writing that the US withdraws from the Paris Climate Agreement, effective immediately. The order also states that the US will immediately cease financial payments under the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The orders direct executive branch officials to cancel at least five Biden executive orders on climate change, and to disband the Climate Change Support Office, the American Climate Corps, and The Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases. The orders also call for the EPA to review the 2009 Endangerment Finding for “continuing applicability.” That finding concluded that carbon dioxide endangered US citizens and is the basis for regulating CO2 emissions in the US.
The Trump actions also seek to boost the development of hydrocarbon energy in the spirit of “drill, baby, drill.” Key actions include re-opening the licensing of liquified natural gas terminals, opening federal lands for onshore and offshore oil and gas production, reopening Alaska lands for energy production, and reducing efficiency regulations on dishwashers, stoves, and furnaces. The President also declared a national energy emergency to speed the deployment of pipelines and other energy infrastructure. The Trump EPA and Department of Energy will roll back regulations on oil and gas to expand US production.
Trump’s executive order bomb, followed by Congressional action to limit funds from the IRA and IIJA, promises to gut, or profoundly reshape, the US green energy movement. January 2025 may begin a long decline for green energy and a return to sensible energy policy.
The Prickly Pear is focused on delivering timely, fact-based news, and citizen opinion that reflects our mission to “inform, educate and advocate about the principles of limited government and personal liberty.”
To achieve that mission, Prickly Pear often engages with like-minded contributors and organizations who share our values. We encourage to support these partners in any way you can, as these partners make our efforts possible.
Direct support of the Prickly Pear can be made at the link below. Every dollar is greatly appreciated!
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It’s been one week since President Trump was inaugurated. Here’s a mind blowing recap of what he has accomplished week one: Truly historic. Source: (X)
1. Immigration:
national emergency at the Southern border
deployed thousands of troops there
ordered construction of the wall
ordered Homeland security to remove illegal migrants
designated cartels as terrorists
blocked all illegal entry including asylum seekers and refugees
shut down CBP app
ended birthright citizenship
beefed up visa screenings
threatened to prosecute dem officials impeding deportations
reinstated the term illegal alien
arrested 2,373 criminal illegal aliens
2. Pardons
pardoned J6s
pardoned pro-lifers
pardoned Ethan Haim
Pardoned Ross Ulbricht
Pardoned two wrongfully convicted cops
3. Signed EOs directed a ban on weaponization of government
4. Banned censorship of free speech
5. Directed investigations into past misconduct by the government
6. Recognized two sexes, man and woman.
reverses allowing people to change gender on passports
bans federal funds from promoting gender ideology or paying for transitions for prison inmates
protects safe spaces for women
7. Canceled DEI, put every DEI employee on federal leave.
8. Rescinded affirmative action EO
9. Fired 1,000 Biden presidential appointees
10. US embassy’s can only fly the American flag
11. Declared a national energy emergency
pulled out of Paris Climate Accords
deregulation of domestic energy production, especially Alaska
paused federal leasing and permitting for wind farms
eliminated electric vehicle mandates
Ann oh need plans to remove regulations from light bulbs, water heaters and washing machines
12. Paused foreign aide for 90 days
13. America First policy
14. EO that directed hiring freeze
15. EO that directed regulatory freeze
16. Established DOGE
17. Revoked 100 Biden EOs
18. Federal employees will be hired on meritocracy
19. Withdrew from the WHO
20. Suspended TikTok ban
21. Restored Mexico City Rule
22. Reinstated Hyde amendment
23. Spokes at Davos and told BofA CEO to stop debanking conservatives
24. Spoke with the leaders of Denmark, Dl Salvador, Saudi Arabia
25. Secured 1.1 trillion dollars in investments in our economy
26. Designated Houthis as a terririst organization
27. Went to North Carolina and California
28. Got homeowners info homes in pacific palisades
29. Signed an EO to declassify MLK, JFK Jr. and RFK files
30. Stripped taxpayer funded security for Bolton, Pompeo and Fauci
31. Revoked security clearances 51 former spies who lied
32. Death penalty for killing a cop or an illegal immigrant killing a citizen
33. Withdrew menthol cigarette ban
34. Held a rally in NV to promote no tax on tips. Rational use of water resources is the basis for sustainable development.
Fox News: Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot, a communication platform for climate issues designed by the Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow, a D.C.-based public policy group, said that Trump’s second term “could become one of our lifetimes’ most consequential presidencies.”
“Trump is poised to, once and for all, put a stake through the heart of the U.N. globalist climate change scam,” Morano said in a statement shared with Fox. “The Trump effect is already derailing the U.N. climate summits, canceling EV mandates, disintegrating the Wall Street climate group and Net Zero goals. Trump’s policies could have the effect of collapsing the entire climate house of cards.”
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2025-01-27 15:51:302025-01-27 15:51:30Trump is ‘greatest environmental hero’ for saving whales—The Great Reject to Davos—‘Putting a stake through heart of UN globalist climate scam’
Three Powerful, Practical, Plausible Recommendations to Improve it.
Arguably, for the first time in modern US history, the federal government is:
open to making radical changes in government agencies,
has the right political perspective, and
is receptive to citizen inputs.
Yes, there are always reasons to be skeptical — but the upside is so great that we should assume the best, and offer assistance. For those who are incurably cynical and say no, then you are foregoing your future rights to complain!
I’m polling my Critical Thinking Substack readers as to their best ideas regarding the Department of Health and Human Services (FDA, CDC, etc.), Department of Education (DOEd), Department of Energy (DOE), EPA, and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). [If you have any good connections with the upper echelon of any of these federal Departments, please email me.]
Let’s say that this is the scenario:
a)we are given five (5) minutes for a face-to-face meeting with the Secretary of each of these Departments, and
b) we are asked to limit our suggestions to three (3) items.
Due to these rules, we need to filter out many ideas so that we are left with just three (3) succinct, important, doable recommendations.
This is the third in my series of commentaries to each of the above-mentioned Departments. Below are my suggested three (3) recommendations for the federal Department of Energy (DOE). Critically Thinking readers can constructively weigh in with support or any improvements on what I’ve proposed, in the Comments below…
We’ll then try to get the end product to the new Department of Energy Secretary, likely to be Chris Wright.
The Left repeatedly outmaneuvers the Right when it comes to linguistics. As a result, we are way too often playing defense.
The DOE should start off by sending a strong message by formally ditching the horrifically bad “All of the Above” slogan. That charade was concocted by renewable lobbyists as a clever way to grease the skids for their underperforming clients — as it foolishly indicated that ALL energy options were welcome regardless of availability, cost, reliability, etc. Such an energy philosophy is not in the best interest of consumers, businesses, the military, or the country.
As explained here, DOE should officially declare that its new official motto is “All of the Sensible.” What are our sensible energy options? That’s exactly the discussion we should be having — NOT allowing all comers to be pre-approved.
Most people are unaware that our Electric Grid is not only an engineering marvel, but it is also the backbone of our economy and security. Arguably the most significant difference between the US and Third-World countries, is our Electric Grid vs theirs.
Because the Electric Grid is a technical matter that few understand, self-serving lobbyists have targeted it as a financial opportunity for their clients. These lobbyists know that almost no one is paying attention to such things as a Dutch Auction, so undermining the processes, is akin to stealing low-hanging fruit. Their continued justification for these corrupted changes is politics. For example, “Wind needs special treatment as it is politically favored.” By supporting such nonsense, legislators and regulators are virtue signaling, while acting contrary to the best interest of the country.
That said, almost all of such changes that favor renewable energies are:
reducing the reliability of the Grid,
increasing the cost to all electricity users,
adversely affecting the environment, and 4) undermining our national security. This is a classic case of benefits for a few at the expense of many.
See my recent commentary on wind energy for several examples of how the Electric Grid has been seriously degraded. Chris Wright knows what I’m talking about and he should see that the DOE takes a very public stand against the erosion of our Electric Grid.
Fix the roadblocks to nuclear energy, which have largely been set up by renewable lobbyists and environmental activists.
For those concerned with Climate Change, they should be aware that over the last fifty years, nuclear energy has saved more CO2 than all other sources combined! Yet the same Climate Alarmists who say that we are facing a cataclysmic end of the world, are often the most vocal opponents of nuclear energy! They say it has to do with safety — yet in the US over the last few decades more people have been injured due to wind energy than nuclear! The real reason they are opposed is that nuclear hugely outperforms their baby (renewables), and they don’t like that.
Some actions where the DOE can take the lead on this topic are: 1) see that the law is changed so that all US nuclear facilities are required to re-process past and future fuel; 2) see that the Yucca Mountain repository for storing all reprocessed nuclear waste is formally approved and used*, 3) reduce nuclear power plant regulations that are statistically unreasonable, 4) aggressively support SMRs as well as Next Generation nuclear facilities, 5) etc.
*GAO says that “Tens of Billions of dollars” are lost by the current arrangement for handling nuclear waste, so this is also a DOGE winner
Yes, I am fully aware that there are many other US energy-related issues — and several of them are significant. For example, Alex Epstein has a very good outline of “twenty-five policy changes to unleash American energy.”
However, if you had only 5 minutes to speak to Chris Wright, and were limited to 3 recommendations, what would they be?
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2025-01-25 15:51:402025-01-25 15:51:40Critically Thinking about the Department of Energy
Just a few years ago, ESG was all the rage in the banking and investing community as globalist governments in the western world focused on a failing attempt to subsidize an energy transition into reality. The strategy was to try to strangle fossil fuel industries by denying them funding for major projects, with major ESG-focused institutional investors like BlackRock and State Street, and big banks like J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs leveraging their control of trillions of dollars in capital to lead the cause.
But a funny thing happened on the way to a green Nirvana: It turned out that the chosen rent-seeking industries — wind, solar and electric vehicles — are not the nifty plug-and-play solutions they had been cracked up to be.
Even worse, the advancement of new technologies and increased mining of cryptocurrencies created enormous new demand for electricity, resulting in heavy new demand for finding new sources of fossil fuels to keep the grid running and people moving around in reliable cars.
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In other words, reality butted into the green narrative, collapsing the foundations of the ESG movement. The laws of physics, thermodynamics and unanticipated consequences remain laws, not mere suggestions.
Making matters worse for the ESG giants, Texas and other states passed laws disallowing any of these firms who use ESG principles to discriminate against their important oil, gas and coal industries from investing in massive state-governed funds. BlackRock and others were hit with sanctions by Texas in 2023. More recently, Texas and 10 other states sued Blackrock and other big investment houses for allegedly violating anti-trust laws.
As the foundations of the ESG movement collapse, so are some of the institutions that sprang up around it. The United Nations created one such institution, the “Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative,” whose participants maintain pledges to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and adhere to detailed plans to reach that goal.
The problem with that is there is now a growing consensus that a) the forced march to a green energy transition isn’t working and worse, that it can’t work, and b) the chances of achieving the goal of net-zero by 2050 are basically net zero. There is also a rising consensus among energy companies of a pressing need to prioritize matters of energy security over nebulous emissions reduction goals that most often constitute poor deployments of capital. Even as the Biden administration has ramped up regulations and subsidies to try to force its transition, big players like ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell have all redirected larger percentages of their capital budgets away from investments in carbon reduction projects back into their core oil-and-gas businesses.
The result of this confluence of factors and events has been a recent rush by big U.S. banks and investment houses away from this UN-run alliance. In just the last two weeks, the parade away from net zerowas ledby major bankslikeGoldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and, most recently, JP Morgan. On Thursday, the New York Post reported that both BlackRock and State Street, a pair of investment firms who control trillions of investor dollars (BlackRock alone controls more than $10 trillion) are on the brink of joining the flood away from this increasingly toxic philosophy.
In June, 2023, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink made big news when told an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado that he is “ashamed of being part of this [ESG] conversation.” He almost immediately backed away from that comment, restating his dedication to what he called “conscientious capitalism.” The takeaway for most observers was that Fink might stop using the term ESG in his internal and external communications but would keep right on engaging in his discriminatory practices while using a different narrative to talk about it.
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But this week’s news about BlackRock and the other big firms feels different. Much has taken place in the energy space over the last 18 months, none of it positive for the energy transition or the net-zero fantasy. Perhaps all these big banks and investment funds are awakening to the reality that it will take far more than devising a new way of talking about the same old nonsense concepts to repair the damage that has already been done to the world’s energy system.
The Prickly Pear is focused on delivering timely, fact-based news, and citizen opinion that reflects our mission to “inform, educate and advocate about the principles of limited government and personal liberty.”
To achieve that mission, Prickly Pear often engages with like-minded contributors and organizations who share our values. We encourage to support these partners in any way you can, as these partners make our efforts possible.
Direct support of the Prickly Pear can be made at the link below. Every dollar is greatly appreciated!
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