Report: How Did The Biden Administration Do On Solving "Climate Change"?

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  • We are now in the last hours of the Biden Administration. Today the Bidenauts complete four full years in office.

  • And as we all know, their number one priority from the day they took office was to address what they called the “climate crisis” (or sometimes, the “profound climate crisis”). Famously, after lavishly promising on the campaign trail to address and solve the crisis, newly-installed President Biden then issued multiple Executive Orders on the subject in his early days in office, most notably this one from January 27, 2021. He promised an “all of government” approach, with every department and agency explicitly tasked to make addressing the climate crisis central to their mission. In the following years, Biden proposed and then pushed through Congress legislation containing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of subsidies and tax benefits for so-called “renewable energy,” said to be the solution to the climate crisis through replacing carbon-emitting fossil fuels with clean and green wind and solar substitutes.

  • To remind you of the level of the promises that were made, consider the preamble of that January 2021 EO, which had the title “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”:

  • The United States and the world face a profound climate crisis.  We have a narrow moment to pursue action at home and abroad in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of that crisis and to seize the opportunity that tackling climate change presents.  Domestic action must go hand in hand with United States international leadership, aimed at significantly enhancing global action.  Together, we must listen to science and meet the moment.

  • With Biden now leaving office, this is an appropriate moment to take a look at exactly what “progress” has been made toward the promised reductions in emissions. The answer is, any emissions reductions have been so tiny as to be almost imperceptible.

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How The Régime Treats Is Enemies, And Its Friends

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  • Throughout my life, no matter who has been in charge of federal or state prosecutions, there have been voices alleging some level of politicization of the law enforcement process. Mostly, those allegations have been about improper use of government resources to protect those in power, who should be relying on their own private lawyers when their own conduct is at issue.

  • But then there is the subject of use of the government’s law enforcement and regulatory authority to harass, disable and convict political opponents of the régime. Prior to the Trump Derangement Syndrome era, those sorts of abuses had been notably rare during my lifetime.

  • But there is nothing remotely comparable in our history to the diversion of law enforcement resources during the past four years toward the effort to take down the political opponents of the régime.

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The Real Insurrectionists: The Federal Workforce

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  • The word “insurrection” has been liberally applied in the press to describe the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot that ended with intrusion by demonstrators into the Capitol Building.

  • If the word “insurrection” can be applied there, then how about to the current efforts of federal bureaucrats to insulate themselves and their chosen policies from the control of newly re-elected President Trump?

  • In this post on October 1 (title: “The Greater ‘Threat To Democracy’ — Part III: Democrats Rule Even If Republicans Win”), I discussed multiple instances of efforts within the Biden administration to insulate its policies from getting changed by a new administration elected by the voters. Examples discussed in that post included efforts at NIH and EPA to entrench the idea that “The Science” somehow requires continuation of the policies of the current administration on things like Covid and climate change.

  • In that post, I promised more examples to come. Here is a small roundup:

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A Look At President-Elect Trump's Picks For The Key Energy Policy Positions

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  • Over the past two weeks, President-elect Trump has engaged in rapid-fire announcements of his picks for the cabinet and other top positions.

  • Among the announced selections are Trump’s nominees for the three top positions in climate and energy policy: EPA Administrator (Lee Zeldin), Secretary of Energy (Chris Wright), and Secretary of the Interior (Doug Burgum). In this post I will take a first look at these nominees.

  • Without doubt, these three Trump appointees will be an enormous improvement over the Biden administration functionaries they will replace (EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland). The three outgoing Bidenauts are all committed fanatic climate warriors, fighting every day to restrict development and use of hydrocarbon fuels, and thus to make America weaker and Americans poorer. Having them in office has been like having the country’s energy policy under the control of a cabal of its worst enemies.

  • But is there anything about President-elect Trump’s nominees for these positions that we should be at least somewhat concerned about?

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Ideas For An Incoming Trump Administration: Climate And Energy Edition

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  • The arena of climate and energy is sufficiently large that it deserves its own post of ideas for the incoming Trump administration. The Biden people went so far off the rails in this area that there are far more topics than I can cover. I’ll have to stick to some highlights.

  • Communications.

  • As I noted in the previous post, changing the communications of the prior administration should be an easy and obvious first priority. However, the Trump people notably did a poor job on this subject the first time out.

  • The subject of climate and energy is pervasive through the websites of dozens of federal agencies. Let’s just note a few examples:

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Ideas For An Incoming Trump Administration

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  • Eight years ago, the incoming Trump administration did not “hit the ground running,” to say the least. Indeed, many have speculated that Trump was surprised that he had won.

  • Whether or not that is true, he was not ready with a slate of people to fill the top cabinet and other posts. On top of that, many of his early initiatives quickly got stalled or hobbled by an orchestrated barrage of attacks from the Deep State.

  • This time around, I expect a very different scenario. The Trump transition project looks much better prepared. Nobody is going to buy the kind of Deep State scams that stalled Trump’s first administration. Both houses of Congress look like they will be supportive. There is a real opportunity for Trump’s team to come in with an immediate “shock and awe” cascade of initiatives to put the Deep State on the back foot.

  • So herewith some ideas for early actions that I would hope Trump will take.

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