DUMBEST ENERGY POLICY EVER? [UPDATED AGAIN]
In less than a year in office, the Biden administration has produced a clownish energy policy. It is simultaneously suppressing petroleum production in the U.S. and begging Saudi Arabia and Russia to produce more. This is idiotic, but Jennifer Granholm apparently thinks it’s funny.
You might think the administration’s energy policies couldn’t possibly get worse. But now the New York Times reports: “Biden Administration Plans Wind Farms Along Nearly the Entire U.S. Coastline.”
The Biden administration announced on Wednesday a plan to develop large-scale wind farms along nearly the entire coastline of the United States, the first long-term strategy from the government to produce electricity from offshore turbines.
Speaking at a wind power industry conference in Boston, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said that her agency will begin to identify, demarcate and hope to eventually lease federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of Maine and off the coasts of the Mid-Atlantic States, North Carolina and South Carolina, California and Oregon, to wind power developers by 2025.
So at the same time the administration is trying to block oil and gas leases on federal lands, it contemplates leasing federal waters for wind turbines. Wind turbines are environmentally awful and produce electricity less than half the time, so along with wind farms watch for many billions of dollars to be spent on natural gas plants that will operate the majority of the time when the wind turbines produce no electricity.
I didn’t think it would be possible to produce an energy policy this mind-numbingly foolish, but the Biden administration has exceeded my expectations.
UPDATE: Having killed the Keystone pipeline, the Biden administration now admits that it is contemplating shutting down Enbridge Pipeline #5, which serves Michigan. Governor Whitmer tried to close the pipeline at least temporarily, and several Indian tribes have demanded that the pipeline be dismantled.
The Biden administration acknowledges the obvious fact that closing Pipeline #5 would raise energy costs in Michigan. At this point, I say: go ahead, do it. For years you have been telling us that you are opposed to fossil fuels and intend to phase out their use. Fossil fuels provide Americans with the large majority of our energy, and are by far the most efficient source of energy for most uses. But the Democrats don’t like them. Fine: force voters either to go without electricity and gasoline, or pay skyrocketing prices for those commodities. Then run for re-election. After years of meaningless chatter from the Left, it is time to put up or shut up.
FURTHER UPDATE: Congressman Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin writes:
John posted about the potential closure of Line 5 in Michigan. He correctly cited the harmful impact to Michigan.
It is so much worse, though. Crude oil via Line 5 is transported to refineries in Canada and Ohio. Plus we in Wisconsin will lose one of our most important sources of propane. My district has the most users of propane for home heating of any congressional district in America. 27% of residents in WI CD-07 use propane to heat their homes. Last year in August propane was selling for $.80 per gallon. This year it was $1.50 in August and now over $2.00 per gallon.
The Line 5 closure would be disastrous for residents of northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as well as the entire Great Lakes region.
Sometimes it seems that the Biden administration’s goal is to damage America to the greatest possible extent.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/11/dumbest-energy-policy-ever.php
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