Biden’s Climate Plan Is Bad Energy Policy and Bad Economic Policy

July 16, 2020

Earlier this week, Joe Biden released his ambitious climate plan to revamp the energy sector. The plan includes setting a 100% clean-electricity standard by 2035 and spending $2 trillion on clean energy over the next four years.

Biden’s plan raises obvious alarms from the start, especially with the lack of details outlined. The two major concerns if the plan were to be implemented are: supporting communities that depend on fossil fuels and ensuring the supply of critical minerals necessary for the renewable sector.

According to Forbes:

Decarbonization can be viewed as the 4^th industrial revolution, that leads to the permanent decline (and demise) of fossil fuel based economy. But this radical restructuring poses a huge problem for local communities who often cannot make a quick transition to a new industry. Consequently, they suffer a massive economic crisis, in terms of job- and pension- losses. This causes second-order effects on local commerce (the demise of downtowns) and declines in government revenue. Infrastructure begins to crumble and social chaos follows. A recent paper suggests that coal-dependent counties could lose almost 20% of their revenue with decarbonization policies.

Middle-American communities depend on the oil and gas industry for jobs, cheap and reliable energy, and government revenue the industry contributes both locally and nationally. Wiping out this entire industry will have dramatic effects across the country but to energy-dependent communities it will be ever so apparent. Biden’s proposed transition puts at risk the nearly 10 million jobs across the country the industry supports and would result in lower pay for blue-collar workers.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics states the average annual pay for gas and oil extraction workers was $91,000 in 2018 — about twice that for solar panel installers and about 60 percent higher than the mean salary for a wind turbine technician.

The U.S. significantly depends on imports for 29 of the 35 critical minerals needed for renewable energy. Within critical minerals is a subcategory known as “rare earths,” which the U.S. is completely dependent on imports for. But it gets better, China controls 70% of global “rare earths” supplies.

Biden’s plan wants to wipe out the valuable oil and gas industry that is vital to our countries national security, put at risk the millions of jobs the industry supports, and tear down energy-dependent communities. All while pushing our energy dependence onto China.

Power The Future recently conducted a study on how green extremists ignore China’s control of the vast majority of rare earths and how dependence threatens our economy and national security.