The Patriot Post® · Biden's Coming 'Climate Emergency'

Energy is power.

Those nations that can produce the most abundant and affordable energy will be able to dominate the future. Thus, Joe Biden’s war against fossil fuels is a fool’s errand that will only hamstring America’s future and its global leadership. Indeed, it appears intended to do precisely that: make the U.S. subservient to a government of global elitists.

On the heels of the latest draconian emissions regulations from Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency — which mandate the near impossible, that coal-fired and natural gas power plants capture upwards of 90% of all their carbon emissions — the White House is also reportedly mulling the declaration of a “national climate emergency.”

Evidently, it’s not enough that Biden has targeted America’s fossil fuel industry with myriad industry-squelching regulations all under the guise of “saving the planet.” Or tried to force Americans into buying electric vehicles, an action that has clearly not paid off for the nation’s automakers, as sales of the expensive and impractical EVs are far from meeting the desired target of an all-electric near future.

No, Biden’s goal has been to end our nation’s fossil fuel industry. He promised as much back in 2019 when he told a young climate activist: “I want you to look at my eyes. I guarantee you. I guarantee you. We’re going to end fossil fuel.”

The trouble is, as any person with a modicum of common sense who looks at the real data can surmise, there’s no getting to Biden’s pie-in-the-sky all-electric future powered only by renewable energy. The nation’s need for energy is growing exponentially, largely thanks to Big Tech and the development of Artificial Intelligence. We can’t simply replace our existing fossil fuel-based energy production with renewables. Instead, we need to increase our energy production.

In Texas alone, it is estimated that the demand for power will grow by 40,000 megawatts by 2030. That’s seven times what New York City uses. The Wall Street Journal observes, “Texas power demand will nearly double over the next six years owing to data centers, manufacturing plants, crypto mining, and the electrification of oil and gas equipment.”

And yet Biden’s EPA is making it harder and costlier for the nation’s energy industry to produce electricity. Indeed, thanks to the EPA’s latest carbon capture rules for fossil fuel energy plants, many existing ones will have to shut down because it is simply too cost-prohibitive and energy-taxing to meet the new regulations. But that is apparently what Biden wants.

Furthermore, the supposed concern over limiting carbon emissions to “save the planet” is nonsense, given that China has, over the last five years, added 200 gigawatts of electricity to its grid via new coal-fired power plants. That, of course, eliminates any of the supposed benefits of the EPA’s latest carbon emissions regulations. It’s hard to empty a swimming pool with a bucket when someone else is filling it with a firehose.

But irrespective of the science, the math, and the economic reality, Biden is bound and determined to end fossil fuels. Ergo, the disastrous notion of declaring a “climate emergency” à la the COVID pandemic. While Biden has long flirted with the notion of declaring a climate emergency, the dubious legal rationale of doing so has likely stayed his hand.

However, given Biden’s alarming poll numbers, the White House is considering whether this move would excite the youth vote. As White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez recently argued, “President Biden has treated the climate crisis as an emergency since day one and will continue to build a clean energy future that lowers utility bills, creates good-paying union jobs, makes our economy the envy of the world and prioritizes communities that for too long have been left behind.”

The irony is that what has proven to be the biggest drag against Biden is the state of the economy under his leadership. With Americans suffering from sustained high inflation, the economy is the number one election issue for voters. However, it was Donald Trump’s lackluster response to the pandemic that most likely cost him the election in 2020, so Biden and company may be looking at a means of creating a similar scenario to maintain power.

Shutting down the economy in response to a once-in-a-century pandemic is one thing, but shutting down the economy in response to the leftist climate cult’s apocalyptic pronouncements is another. It’s so blatantly political that it could backfire spectacularly, as has subjecting Trump to lawfare.

Hopefully, for the good of the country, Biden refrains from attempting such an economy-destroying action. But don’t hold the CO₂ in your lungs.