America’s Energy Achievements Will Be Short-Lived Under Green New Deal

October 6, 2021

In today’s Wall Street Journal, former undersecretary of energy for science Paul Dabbar highlights what is possible when the energy marketplace is freed from onerous regulations and allowed to innovate. The piece begins:

The U.S. in 2019 became a net exporter of energy and achieved energy independence. Once at the mercy of hostile foreign governments that used energy supply as a cudgel, the U.S. is now the third-largest energy exporter in the world—a stunning reversal that has driven down prices for American consumers and created more than 10 million jobs in domestic energy.

This is an incredible achievement that is often underplayed and undervalued in today’s media environment. Being a net exporter of energy has been a boon to the U.S. economy, created jobs for American workers, and has freed the United States from being impacted by the policies of other countries. Dabbar highlights two achievements in deregulation as being particularly important to this achievement.

The first was the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which exempted horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing from oversight by the Environmental Protection Agency. This allowed states to authorize energy production where the EPA would have certainly restricted it.

The other large deregulation came with the 2015 budget compromise, when Congress lifted the four-decade oil-export ban in return for extending tax credits for renewable energy sources. That change created market opportunities for U.S. crude oil that weren’t available domestically, making it possible for the U.S. to become a net exporter of energy.

When government gets out of the way, the energy marketplace is capable of producing low-cost, reliable energy that benefits Americans from every walk of life. So, it is unfortunate that the Biden administration and the eco-left in Congress are pushing for energy policies like the Green New Deal that will undo all of this progress.

As PTF has previously reported, the current budget reconciliation bill being put together in Washington has billions of dollars that serve as a down payment on the Green New Deal. With more government intervention in the energy marketplace, innovation will be disincentivized and costs will go up across the board. Unfortunately, America’s energy achievements of the past twenty years are in jeopardy with this administration and their proposals.