Restoring America’s Energy Renaissance

A lthough the United States has massive resources of oil and natural gas, Americans now face energy scarcity, an electric grid that is less reliable, and shortages of natural gas and oil — all of which have imposed higher prices on consumers and the economy.

Worse, none of this had to happen. This is an entirely avoidable reversal of America’s energy renaissance, which began in the first decade of the 2000s. It transformed the United States from a net energy importer (of oil and natural gas) into an energy-independent and then energy-dominant state.

The next Republican administration will surely start using our nation’s abundant resources to provide people with more affordable energy. This means repairing the damage done in the past couple of years and making America a place where energy companies want to do business.

Rather than encourage energy companies to take advantage of this abundance, the Biden administration has focused on renewable energy, made with components imported primarily from China. The Department of Energy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must change course through a new set of policies.

Our current energy crisis is caused not by a lack of resources but by extreme “green” policies. Under the rubric of “combating climate change” and, shortly, by giving regulatory support to ESG (an investment discipline in which actual or prospective portfolio companies are scored against various environmental, social, and governance standards), the Biden administration is increasingly using executive overreach to change America’s energy landscape. These ideologically driven policies are directing resources to favored interests, such as wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles, and making America unhealthily dependent on adversaries such as China for the equipment or raw materials that the energy “transition” toward renewables will require.

In the name of combating climate change, trillions of taxpayer dollars have been (or will be) funneled to renewable energy and electric vehicles. Companies are subsidized to manufacture these products, and consumers are subsidized to buy them. Despite the subsidies, these expenditures increase people’s energy costs, make businesses less competitive, and increase America’s dependence on China.

The Biden administration, either directly or in conjunction with banks, Wall Street investment-management firms, and other institutional investors, is influencing the flow of capital to energy projects in a way designed to discourage investment in the fossil-fuel sector. But government control of energy is control of people and the economy. This is one reason why the trend toward the de facto nationalization of our energy industry through government mandates, the restriction on the production and use of oil and natural gas, and the reorganization of the electric grid is so dangerous.

Adversaries such as China, Russia, and Iran may use renewables (to varying degrees), but they do not let them constrain their economies. And China, famously, continues to build large numbers of new coal-fired power plants.

Rather than favoring renewables, Americans would be served better by an energy policy that harnesses the best attributes of every resource for the benefit of the American people. This means speeding up onshore and offshore permitting and pipeline construction and removing tax provisions that favor one form of energy over another.

We should also focus on protecting our energy infrastructure from cyber and physical attacks, including interference with timing signals from the Global Positioning System. An electricity grid based on fossil fuels is more resilient against blackouts than a grid based on wind and solar power because wind does not always blow, and the sun does not always shine. Furthermore, integrating these power sources into the grid is more complex than using dense energy to operate a power plant.

This approach will benefit not only Americans but also our allies abroad. Increasing the production of cleaner natural gas will enable us to expand our exports, making up for some of the natural gas that Russia is no longer shipping to Europe.

Numerous agencies are now slowing down domestic-energy development on the grounds that America is transitioning toward an era when fossil fuels will no longer be needed. This needs to stop.

For instance, rather than slowing down pipeline approval, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should focus on speeding it up. The Bureau of Land Management should prioritize approving both onshore- and offshore-drilling permits. The Securities and Exchange Commission should abandon its move into climate policy, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency should not take into account the climate effects of bank loans.

But while a new administration could dial back on executive-branch overreach, it cannot solve America’s energy problems alone. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act authorize hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for renewable energy, electric vehicles, and other associated expenditures. Congress should repeal portions of these spending bills and rescind all funds not already spent by these programs. On top of that, such an administration should make U.S. energy dominance a key component of its foreign policy while ensuring that domestic and international goals are aligned.

American energy dominance would allow the United States to secure affordable energy for its citizens, markets for its energy exports, and access to new energy and natural resources. It would also provide valuable additional tools for U.S. policy-makers to assist our allies and deter our adversaries.