Trump and the Supreme Court should restore our national energy and climate sovereignty
Paul Driessen
The United States has long looked to Europe as a model and leader in culture and political thought. We often cite European law, policy, and opinion as guidance on how the United States should change or behave on multiple issues.
Even after America overtook continental Europe economically, militarily, and (some say) culturally over the last century, we generally continued to do so. We've even done this with energy policy in recent years, in response to claims that the Earth's climate is changing dangerously due to human activity.
We have done this despite the fact that we have witnessed skyrocketing electricity prices in Germany, the UK and Europe, millions of jobs lost in industry, and people unable to afford proper home heating as a result of these climate and energy policies .
President Obama unilaterally followed Europe in signing the Paris Climate Treaty, requiring the United States to stop using abundant, reliable, and affordable fossil fuels and instead use expensive, unreliable, weather-dependent wind and solar energy for power generation, transportation, manufacturing, and national defense; Pay tens of billions of dollars in climate change “compensations” to “developing countries” every year; and let the United Nations and foreign politicians and bureaucrats exert control over America's future.
Trump 45 withdrew the United States from the agreement. President Biden has reconquered us. The Trump 47 plan is to get us out again – but the treaty should also be sent to the Senate for prompt attention, debate, and possible rejection under our Constitution's “Treaty Clause” (Article II, Section 2), as It should have been done years ago.
It would be an important step toward delivering on his promise to restore common-sense regulation, energy dominance, and a renewed economic vitality.
Meanwhile, a legal ruling in The Hague, a week after Trump was re-elected, suggests that Europe's view on energy policy may similarly be returning to common sense.
On November 12, a judge at The Hague Court of Appeal overturned a May 2021 order by the District Court requiring Shell Oil to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030, based on the company's 2019 greenhouse gas emissions. The discharge reduction standard has been accelerated to 45%.
The 45% ruling reflects the goals of the Paris Agreement and will apply to Shell’s direct and indirect operational emissions (drilling, production, refining and pipelines), as well as emissions from its global oil and gas customers. If the lower court's opinion holds, Shell will be forced to cut its “net carbon intensity” by more than twice its existing commitments.
Appeal judges declined to impose any specific emissions reduction targets on Shell, citing the company's extensive efforts to reduce emissions and the lack of scientific consensus on the percentage reductions in greenhouse gas emissions required by individual energy companies.
Unfortunately, they still believe Shell has a general legal obligation to curb the effects of climate change. How does this happen given the rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions from China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and other rapidly developing countries?
Apart from “red counties” and the new Trump administration, is the United States moving towards common sense? With climate lawsuits pending in more than 30 U.S. states and localities, the jury is still out. However, there is at least one bright spot in all these lawsuits.
In July, a Maryland circuit court dismissed a lawsuit from the city of Baltimore accusing multiple energy companies of violating Maryland's nuisance, trespass and deceptive marketing laws. Judge Videtta Brown ruled that emissions generated outside Maryland were beyond the scope of state law.
She also called the city's efforts to hold energy companies accountable for the alleged misinformation “an attempt to get something through the back door that they can't get through the front door.”
This is the third climate lawsuit against an energy company that has been dismissed (New York City filed in 2021) or narrowed (Delaware filed earlier this year) whose claims were largely preempted by federal law.
Judge Brown's analysis mirrors the pro-industry arguments made by 19 state attorneys general, who have challenged the Supreme Court in a lawsuit led by Connecticut, California, New Jersey, Minnesota and Rhode Island seeking to regulate all 50 states. Energy and Business.
Notably, the states most concerned about climate change and wind, solar and battery generation already have the most expensive residential electricity among the 48 states. cents), Massachusetts (21.1 cents) and Connecticut (21.6 cents), but more expensive than Louisiana (9.4 cents), Tennessee (10.8 cents) and 32 other states .
However, despite Maryland's legal bright spot, more than 30 other cases are still pending – because green activists rigged the court system in their favor.
Activists from the Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Justice Project (CJP) have helped “educate” more than 3,000 judges on how to understand the “facts” of climate change relevant to legal issues. Even more troubling is the fact that CJP’s materials were produced by activists who advised state attorneys general and municipalities in these cases and/or supported their claims through legal briefs.
It’s all part of a concerted “think global, prosecute local” strategy—it just doesn’t take into account the global greenhouse gas emissions of China, India, or other developing countries. It also hinders efforts to develop reliable, affordable, and accessible coal, oil, and natural gas; it makes it easier for state and local governments to mandate and subsidize expensive, intermittent, and environmentally harmful wind, solar, and battery power.
These cases seep into liberal national politics and impact American consumers across the country.
Liberal politicians want “green, renewable” electricity but know it's expensive. To make it look cheaper, they support tax funding and deficit-increasing subsidies — as well as state and city governments dragging energy companies into $5 trillion tobacco-style legal settlements to help pay for the eventual $100 trillion in pseudo-renewable energy infrastructure.
Of course, consumers across America will ultimately foot the bill through higher rates and taxes—as well as job losses, lower living standards, and power outages—to support alarmist policies and the “privilege” of having unreliable all-electric “green” power. society.
Climate fearmongers argue that there is nothing voters and consumers can do to stop this because the process is in state courts, where the views and votes of climate realists don’t matter.
However, President-elect Trump has multiple energy and climate options at his disposal. Perhaps more importantly, the U.S. Supreme Court has expressed interest in hearing two climate cases: City and County of Honolulu v. Sunoco and ALABAMA v. . california.
Courts could rule that energy companies are not legitimate targets of “climate crimes” lawsuits that produce products that America and humanity need to survive and thrive. It may also say that the federal courts have jurisdiction over these cases and are appropriate Because fossil fuel use, greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change are interstate, regional, national, and international in nature, no state, let alone any municipal government, has the jurisdiction or authority to impose parochial rules on law, science, and commerce , provincial interpretation.
Hopefully the Supreme Court will follow the common sense of The Hague when hearing these cases and rule in favor of fossil fuel energy, which is indeed the foundation of health, welfare, prosperity and security.
Paul Driessen is a senior policy analyst at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and the author of books and articles on energy, environment, climate and human rights issues.
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