Francis Menton
The climate and energy fields are large enough to merit providing the incoming Trump administration with its own ideas. The Bidens are off track here, and the topic is far beyond what I can cover. I have to stick to some highlights.
communication.
As I pointed out in my last article, changing the previous administration’s communications approach should be a simple and obvious priority. However, the Trump team did a poor job on this issue the first time.
Climate and energy topics are ubiquitous on the websites of dozens of federal agencies. Let's look at just a few examples:
In the Department of Energy, there is a large department dedicated to “addressing the climate crisis.” From the introduction:
There is no greater challenge facing our country and our planet than the climate crisis. That’s why President Biden has enacted the boldest climate agenda in our country’s history, one that will spur an equitable clean energy economy and solidify America on the path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. . . The Department of Energy has long been a critical force in America’s effort to provide science and innovation 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 energy, electric vehicles, carbon capture and resilient grid infrastructure.
Let’s not forget the theme of “energy justice,” also known as a scam that provides massive wasteful subsidies for useless energy as some kind of quasi-reparations to minority communities:
Communities of color and low-income communities have long borne the brunt of pollution in the air, water and soil they rely on to survive and feed their families. The clean energy revolution must revitalize these left behind communities and ensure those who have been hit hardest benefit first.
At the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a giant “Climate Change” section on the website pretends that the regulatory onslaught on hydrocarbon fuels is about “human health.” example:
Understanding and responding to climate change is critical to EPA's mission of protecting human health and the environment.
A large amount of content about “climate change indicators” falsely claims that events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, and floods have been increasing and are evidence of dangerous climate change. example:
Tropical storm activity has increased in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico over the past 30 years. Storm intensity, a measure of intensity, duration, and frequency, is closely related to changes in tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures, which rise significantly during this period.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Space Agency (NASA) continue to issue press releases claiming that the last week, month or year was the “warmest on record.” Somehow they never mention that the data set in question only goes back to the late 1800s, and they lack any relevant data, such as for the Southern Hemisphere oceans, for almost any relevant period.
There's no reason why all this grandstanding, and hundreds of other similar examples, can't be dispelled on January 20th.
executive orders and actions
Since taking office, President Biden has taken multiple executive actions and signed a series of executive orders to guide a “whole of government” response to climate/energy issues. For example: “Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring a Science-Based Response to the Climate Crisis,” January 25, 2021; “Executive Order on Addressing the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” January 27, 2021; and “On Rebuilding and Executive Order Strengthening Refugee Resettlement Programs and Planning for the Impact of Climate Change on Resettlement,” February 4, 2021. Yes, the Biden administration's official line is that the main reason for the surge in illegal immigration at the southern border is “climate change.”
Also included in the executive action category are efforts by the Biden administration to limit leasing of drilling rights on federal lands and delay or deny permits for pipelines and other energy-related projects.
All of this can be erased with the stroke of a pen on day one.
Paris climate agreement
Obama joined the agreement through executive action. Trump exited the same way. Biden rejoined again on January 20, 2021, through executive action.
Trump can completely withdraw again according to the previous method. But my preferred suggestion would be to submit the agreement to the Senate as a treaty. There is zero chance of Senate approval. This will kill the thing safer than other methods.
regulations
“Regulations” are different from mere administrative orders and actions. In order to be passed, they need to go through some complex and time-consuming procedures stipulated in the Administrative Procedure Act. These procedures are designed to give these “provisions” some so-called legitimacy and weight, make them difficult to revoke, and distract a gullible public from the fact that they are not subject to effective legislative action as provided for in the Constitution. The only procedure is that it is passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President. The upshot of all the procedural red tape is that—if you believe in the legality of executive agencies enacting massive substantive regulations in the first place—the process of eliminating them will be as complicated and time-consuming as ever.
The Biden administration has unveiled a series of major regulations aimed at limiting, hindering and ultimately eliminating the use of hydrocarbons. I've made numerous posts on multiple such regulations, such as this one from May 1, 2024, covering no less than four new regulations from the EPA, when newly passed regulations aimed at forcing a phase-out of fossil fuels Power plants, and this article was published on June 8, 2024, about two major new rules, one from the EPA and another from NHTSA, aimed at mandating the switch to electric vehicles. In total, these rules are thousands of pages long. There are other similarly mammoth regulations scattered among dozens of other federal agencies, such as a massive SEC rule requiring all public companies to cumbersomely disclose “carbon emissions.” All of these rules underwent a long and difficult “notice and comment” process, which included widespread dissemination of a notice of proposed rulemaking and gathering public comments (in these cases tens of thousands of comments) over the course of several months. ), etc.), respond to all comments, revise the proposed rule accordingly, and ultimately make the final rule public many months later. I should mention that all of these rules were immediately challenged by lawsuits filed by stakeholders, which in this case included a large number of red states.
Do Trump people really need to go through the same maze to get these rules repealed? I would take the following approach: First, declare that the Government's legal opinion is that the Rules are invalid under Supreme Court precedent (i.e., the Material Issues Doctrine). State of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency), so they are not enforced. Next, it was announced that power plants and other fossil fuel projects would be licensed as if the rules did not exist. Finally, it changed its position in the lawsuit and joined red states and other plaintiffs in seeking to invalidate the Rules. At the same time, revocation proceedings were initiated under the APA. It should be completed in about two years.
Net Zero Cost and Feasibility Studies
All of these ideas have been thought of by many other people so far. But how about this one I haven’t seen anywhere else: launching a cost and feasibility study of plans to transition the U.S. economy to “net-zero” carbon emissions by 2050.
Incredibly, our federal government embarked on the so-called “energy transition” and announced a target of “net zero” emissions by 2050, without any cost or feasibility study of whether this was feasible. Somehow bureaucrats think their job is just to order unprecedented trillion-dollar renovations and then the little guys will figure out the details. In the real world, the chance that this energy conversion can actually be accomplished is next to zero. Meanwhile, tremendous damage is being done.
There are many people who understand the issues that can be used to staff study committees. I'd love to volunteer!
Review NOAA and NASA surface temperature data
So-called “global mean surface temperature” records have been altered and manipulated to lower temperatures in earlier years and raise recent temperatures to better show strong warming trends and support narratives of dangerous climate change. For more details, see my 33-part series “The Greatest Scientific Frauds of All Time.”
As a first step, the incoming administration should replace existing website statements that the most recent month or year was the “hottest ever” with statements that surface temperature records have been altered and therefore should not be used by any public. Purpose. Then the review process begins. As part of the audit, the computer code that performs the “homogenization” process of temperature changes was fully disclosed and the extent of the temperature changes was quantitatively disclosed. Any smearing on the reputation of the scammer who made the modification is just a side benefit.
Withdrawal of risk identification
The foundation for all the bureaucracy's efforts to regulate CO2 emissions and “climate change” is the regulatory decision made by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shortly after Barack Obama took office in 2009, CO2 and other “Greenhouse gases” pose a “threat to human health and safety.” ”. What a clay pot. The first Trump administration never got around to repealing this ridiculous regulatory overreach. The existence of the EF provides an evergreen basis for environmental litigants to pressure agencies that are often very willing to cooperate to impose more and more regulations.
I recommend convening a committee of scientists to evaluate EF. Key tip: Anyone who receives funding from the government to study climate issues should be disqualified due to conflicts of interest. The CO2 Alliance should be able to bring out a large number of highly qualified and non-conflicting real scientists to study this problem. EF will disappear soon.
Finally – Repeal the Inflation Reduction Act
The fake “Inflation Reduction Act” is the source of trillions of dollars in subsidies for useless wind and solar generators. These subsidies come primarily in the form of tax credits and are uncapped, meaning they could amount to trillions of dollars.
Unlike other items on this to-do list, repealing the IRA clearly requires congressional action. Note, however, that this is a budget item and therefore can be included in so-called “reconciliation,” so only a simple majority of the Senate is needed, not the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster.
As I said, this topic is so broad and what I've listed here is just a start. I can't wait for them to go.
Relevant
