Francis Menton
In the arena of climate and energy is large enough that it deserves its own ideas for the Trump administration to enter. The Bidens are going so far off the rails in this area that there are more topics than I can talk about. I have to stick to some highlights.
Communication.
As I said in my previous post, changing the communication of the previous administration should be a simple and clear priority. However, Trump’s people in particular did a poor job on this topic when it came out.
The subject of climate and energy spreads through the websites of dozens of federal agencies. Let’s note some examples:
At the Department of Energy, a large section is devoted to “Fighting the Climate Crisis.” From the intro:
There is no greater challenge facing our nation and our planet than the climate crisis. That’s why President Biden has prepared the boldest climate agenda in our nation’s history — one that will propel an equitable clean energy economy and put America on the path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. . . . DOE has long been the nation’s authority on scientific and innovative solutions to the challenges we face, including the climate emergency. Our program offices and 17 National Laboratories work every day to research, develop, and deploy the clean energy technologies of the future, including battery storage, renewable power, electric vehicles, carbon capture, and resilient grid infrastructure.
And don’t forget about “Energy Justice,” otherwise known as a scam to justify massively wasteful subsidies for useless energy sources as some kind of reparations for minority communities:
For too long, communities of color and low-income communities have borne the brunt of pollution in the air, water, and land they rely on to survive and raise their families. The clean energy revolution must lift up the communities that have been left behind, and ensure that those who suffer the most will benefit.
At the EPA, a large “Climate Change” section of its website pretends that the regulatory onslaught attacking hydrocarbon fuels is related to “human health.” Example:
Understanding and addressing climate change is essential to EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment.
A large section on “Climate Change Indicators” falsely states that things like hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts and floods are increasing and are evidence of dangerous climate change. Example:
Tropical storm activity in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico has increased over the past 30 years. Storm intensity, a measure of strength, duration, and frequency, is strongly correlated with sea surface temperature variability in the tropical Atlantic and has increased significantly over time.
At NOAA and NASA, endless press releases make claims that the latest week, month or year is the “warmest on record”. They somehow do not mention that the data set in question only goes back to the late 1800s, and they lack data for, for example, the Southern Hemisphere Ocean, for almost the entire period in question.
There is no reason why all this claptrap, and hundreds or thousands of other similar examples, can’t just be removed on January 20. Put something new and then you can start, but you don’t have to rush.
Executive Orders and Actions
Since the day he entered office, President Biden has taken several executive actions and signed a series of Executive Orders targeting a “whole of government” approach to climate/energy issues. Examples include: “Executive Order to Protect Public Health and the Environment and Restore Science to Address the Climate Crisis,” January 25, 2021; “Executive Orders to Address the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” 27 January 2021; and “Executive Order on Reconstruction and Enhancement Programs for Refugee Resettlement and Planning for Climate Change Impacts on Migration,” February 4, 2021. There are many more. And yes, the official Biden administration line is that the main reason for the increase in illegal migrants at the Southern border is “climate change.”
Also in the executive action category are the Biden administration’s efforts to limit the leasing of drilling rights on federal lands, to delay or deny permits for pipelines and energy-related projects, and more.
All this can be removed in a stroke of the pen on the first day.
Paris Climate Agreement
Obama joined this Agreement by executive action. Trump came out the same way. And Biden rejoined, again by executive action, on January 20, 2021.
Trump could follow his previous methods and just stop again. But my preferred suggestion is to send the Agreement to the Senate as a treaty. There is no chance the Senate will ratify it. That will kill this thing more safely than the other way.
regulation
“Regulations” are different from Executive Orders and acts, because in order to be adopted, they have gone through a complex and time-consuming process provided by the Administrative Procedure Act. The process is designed to give these “regulations” some legitimacy and weight, to make it difficult to undo, and to distract the gullible public from the fact that they did not go through the only process considered under the Constitution for legitimate legislative action. , which is passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President. The result of all the procedural rigamarole is that – if you buy the legitimacy to establish massive substantive regulations by administrative agencies in the first place – then the process to remove these regulations is a complicated and time-consuming mess that was previously carried out. adopt them.
The Biden administration has seen a blizzard of major regulations designed to limit, hobble, and eventually eliminate the use of hydrocarbon fuels. I have several posts about these different regulations, for example, this one from May 1, 2024 about no less than four new Rules from the EPA, recently adopted, which are intended to force the phase out of fossil fuel power plants, and post This is from June 8, 2024 in two big new rules, one from the EPA and the other from the NHTSA, intended to force the conversion to electric vehicles. These rules in aggregate are thousands of pages long. There are other giant Regulations comparable to dozens of other federal agencies, such as the SEC Rule requiring disclosure of “carbon emissions” for all public companies. All of these Rules have gone through a long and arduous “notice and comment” process, which includes circulating notices of the proposed rulemaking, collecting public comments for months (in this case tens of thousands of them), responding to all comments, revising The proposed rule, and finally unveiled the final rule after months. I must mention that all these Rules were soon challenged by the court brought by interested parties, which in this case included a large number of red countries.
Do the Trump people really have to go through the same maze to repeal the Rule? Here’s the approach I’ll take: First, declare that the administrative law opinion is that the Rule is invalid under Supreme Court precedent (ie, the “main question doctrine” of West Virginia v. EPA), and therefore will not be implemented. Next, it announced that allowing power plants and other fossil fuel projects would proceed as if the Rules did not exist. Finally, switch sides in the litigation, and join the red states and other plaintiffs who want the Rule invalidated. Together, start the rescission process in APA. It should be completed in about two years.
Cost and feasibility studies from Net Zero
So far, all these ideas have been something that other people have thought about. But what about this I haven’t seen anywhere else: launching a cost and feasibility study of a plan to transition the US economy to “zero” carbon emissions by 2050.
It is incredible that the federal government has launched an “energy transition”, with the declared goal of achieving “net zero” emissions by 2050, without any cost or feasibility studies into whether this is possible. Somehow, the bureaucrats have the idea that if their job is to manage the unprecedented multi-trillion dollar transformation, then the little people will know the details. In the real world, the probability of this energy transformation being possible is approximately zero. Meanwhile, massive damage was done.
There are many people who know the problem that can be used to staff the study commission. I would love to volunteer!
Audit of NOAA and NASA surface temperature data
Records of so-called “global average surface temperatures” have been altered and manipulated to lower temperatures in previous years and increase more recent temperatures, the better to show a strong warming trend and support the dangerous climate change narrative. For more details than you’d expect, check out our 33-part series “The Greatest Science Frauds of All Time.”
As a first step, the incoming administration should replace the statement on its existing website that the most recent month or year is the “warmest” with a statement that surface temperature records have changed and are therefore not available to the public. purpose of wisdom. Then start the audit process. As part of the audit, the full disclosure of the computer code that performs the “homogenization” of the temperature change process, and reveals quantitative information on how much the temperature has been changed. Any discrediting crooks who have done the change is just a side benefit.
Revoke Endangerment Findings
Above all bureaucratic efforts to regulate CO2 emissions and “climate change” is the regulatory determination made by the EPA in 2009, shortly after Barack Obama first took office, that CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” are “threats to human health and safety. . ” What a crock. The Trump administration never repealed this absurd regulatory overreach. The existence of EF gives environmental litigants an evergreen basis to try to force more and more regulation from agencies that are too willing to participate.
I recommend creating a commission of scientists to evaluate EF. Key advice: anyone receiving government funding to study climate issues should be disqualified for conflict of interest. The CO2 Coalition should be able to produce a large number of high-quality, non-conflicted genuine scientists to study the matter. EF will disappear.
And finally – Repeal the “Inflation Reduction Act”
The fraudulently touted “Inflation Reduction Act” is the source of trillions of dollars in subsidies for useless wind and solar energy generators. These subsidies are usually in the form of tax credits and are uncapped, meaning they can run into the trillions of dollars.
Unlike the other items on this to-do list, repealing the IRA clearly requires an act of Congress. Note, however, that this is a budget item and thus can be included in “reconciliation”, so it only requires a simple majority vote in the Senate, rather than the 60 votes needed to override the filibuster.
As I said, this topic is very broad, so the list here is just the beginning. I can’t wait for him to go.
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