Unleashing American Energy Calls for Bold Action

N early 50 years ago, Ronald Reagan warned against a Republican Party that would try “to be all things to all people.” Yet that warning seems to have been lost on many today. Examples abound, but one of the latest is the party’s embrace of weak energy policies and its decision to play footsie with the Left’s climate hysterics for crass political purposes. Only through a bold energy-freedom agenda — not watered-down Democrat policies — will we ensure the American people have abundant, affordable, and reliable energy, while countering the rising threat of Communist China.

The energy crisis plaguing working Americans is a consequence of the United States’ long, determined drive toward energy poverty from disastrous, politically driven policies from both sides of the Washington establishment. President Biden has made this self-imposed destruction even worse with heavy-handed policies that stifle the American energy industry.

As a result of restricted oil production, gas and diesel prices are hitting record highs every day. This increases costs not only at the pump, but also of every single good that travels by truck. Electricity prices are skyrocketing and blackouts are becoming common as subsidies and mandates for unreliable “green energy” gut our grid. Now, millions of Americans have to worry about whether they will be able to cool their homes this summer.

President Biden called all of this an “incredible transition” away from fossil fuels toward a fantasy green-energy utopia. Why not go all the way and present us with a five-year-plan? Yet Republicans are proposing timid energy policies that both fail to meet the moment and tacitly accept assumptions that reinforce the Left’s climate hysterics. Instead of half-measures that will avail nothing, our current crisis cries out for a bold alternative.

What we need is an energy-freedom agenda that prioritizes American families over U.N. climate scientists, energy reliability over virtue-signaling, and affordability over cronyism and cowardice. This agenda should borrow from humanity-centric ideas like those of Alex Epstein and Life: Powered, not those of the global elites at the Glasgow Climate Conference who treat the human race as a virus. Most important, this agenda should be built upon the glaring truth that self-imposed energy poverty poses one of the single greatest threats to the survival of our freedom and, indeed, of our constitutional order.

To reverse damage already done, we must first reject the politically charged climate catastrophism that serves as the lens through which we view all energy policies. We as a country must withdraw from the disastrous Paris Climate Agreement, and Congress should revoke presidential authority to unilaterally reenter it. We also need legislation that systematically dismantles the climate hysteria entrenched in the federal bureaucracy by rescinding federal climate goals, eliminating agency climate offices, and defunding climate zealots like John Kerry who sabotage our sovereignty and our prosperity. Once we remove the scales of climate hysteria from our eyes, we can then look at a bright future of energy prosperity and freedom.

To that end, we must take a legislative sledgehammer to the tyrannical regulations that cripple energy production, infrastructure, and consumption. Republicans’ narrow focus on undoing President Biden’s de facto ban on federal oil and gas leases and approving the Keystone XL pipeline, while important, is simply not enough to truly unleash our energy resources. We need to go further with legislation that codifies our long-term commitment to American energy. That means statutorily repealing restrictive regulations, curtailing the size and scope of agencies like the EPA, repealing crony programs like the refinery-killing ethanol mandate, and substantially reforming environmental permitting. Such lasting changes ensure energy companies are not plagued by constant uncertainty stemming from the never-ending churn of regulation and deregulation between administrations.

Republicans also need to wake up and admit that “an all of the above” approach to energy sources only works up to a certain point. Subsidies and mandates for renewables massively distort energy markets by forcing reliable generation off the grid, leading to the pervasive blackouts Americans are facing. Republicans themselves are pushing further distortions, while conceding additional ground to the “net-zero” movement, by pushing expanded subsidies for things like carbon capture, which has been a colossal failure. We must counter the lurch toward weather-dependent energy, which will account for 63 percent of new U.S. electric capacity this year, by championing policies that ensure we can rapidly deploy and preserve reliable coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants. Ergo, we should repeal crony subsidies, mandates, and programs for renewables, overhaul restrictive bodies like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and end the EPA’s war on fossil-fuel generation. That would not only strengthen the grid; it would also reduce overall emissions and foster an environment in which innovators could responsibly usher in a new era of reliable technology.

Finally, Republicans need to get off the sidelines and tackle woke environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing — which is nothing more than a political movement led by institutional investors like BlackRock and other woke corporations — head-on. This perversion of free enterprise empowers climate activists to weaponize our financial system by restricting capital flows to energy companies that run counter to their radical agenda. Congress can hamstring this movement by restricting SEC’s facilitation of climate investing, prohibiting federal retirement dollars from flowing into ESG, and empowering everyday investors to counter woke institutional-investment firms. If we fail to rein in ESG investing, any energy bill we may pass will be effectively rendered null and void.

If Republicans acquiesce to the status quo, the American people will continue to suffer and our enemies — namely, the Chinese Communist Party — will continue to benefit. The CCP does not hesitate or wring its hands in the face of climate politics as our lawmakers do — and the threat could not be clearer. China’s economy is powered by over 1,100 coal plants, and the country builds new plants at a rate of one per week. China acknowledges the need for reliable energy. The U.S., meanwhile, has just 240 coal plants, which are rapidly retiring. It has no plans to build new ones. China plans to build 150 new nuclear reactors over the next 15 years, while the U.S. has just two reactors under construction. And as China continues to support its rapidly expanding economy with reliable power, we are hamstringing our economy by replacing reliable power plants with unreliable wind and solar technology that is, naturally, made in China.

Reagan implored us to raise a “banner of bold colors.” Unfortunately, the anemic proposals that are currently floating around Capitol Hill reflect pale pastels. Unapologetically fighting for real energy freedom is the only way for Republicans to take us off the self-imposed path of energy poverty. If we fail to do so, we will continue to devastate the American economy and reduce the standard of living for American families, all the while aiding and abetting China’s goal to dominate us.