In his first few weeks in office, President Donald Trump has been busy bolstering the causes of energy choice and freedom for citizens of the United States. One of his first official acts was to pull us out of the Paris Climate Accord, the one-sided agreement that had imposed harsh and unfair restrictions on the United States.
Trump created a new National Energy Council led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, charged with streamlining energy permitting, expanding gas and oil exploration, and establishing American global “energy dominance.” Then, to round off his first day as our 47th President, he signed an executive order aimed at eliminating Biden’s “electric vehicle mandate” — shorthand for a series of subsidies and regulations aimed at artificially boosting demand for EVs.
Some of these measures, such as rolling back the EV tax credit, will at some point require congressional action. Moreover, even with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, those who disagree with energy choice and Trump’s energy freedom movements still have plenty of options at their disposal to push their “green” agenda forward.
One side-door tactic would be to use “blue state” legislatures to advance policies that would stand little if any chance of passing congressional muster. Vermont and New York already have passed “climate superfund” legislation, and similar bills are pending in other states.
Putting a price tag on a particular company’s contribution to the damage supposedly caused by climate change is a murky endeavor at best, and fraudulent at worst. As climate policy analyst Paul Driessen notes, climate activists are all too happy to “blame fossil fuels for heat waves, cold spells, hurricanes, wildfires (including those caused by arsonists, electric companies and forest mismanagement), floods, droughts, and abusive husbands.”
Science tells us that the climate of Planet Earth has been changing since our planet circumnavigating the Sun solidified some four billion years ago. It is only common sense that at least some current changes to our climate may to some degree be caused by human activity. The fact is, however, that nobody knows exactly how significant that part is, and anyone who claims otherwise is offering nothing but their personal opinion masquerading as factual analysis.
If the Left cannot force implementation of its so-called “green” policies through partnering with friendly state governments, the activist climate movement can always “forum shop” for climate-control-friendly judges willing to hit force fossil fuel companies with massive penalties.
Some of these lawsuits have accused fossil fuel companies of deceptively undermining the highly politicized scientific “consensus” on climate change, though this particular tactic has failed to bear much fruit. For example, on February 5, a New Jersey judge (who was appointed by former Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine) tossed one such case brought by the state’s Democrat attorney general, marking the fourth straight climate lawsuit loss.
If all else fails, the activist climate movement might place its hopes in a new wave of European climate imperialism. Unlike previous iterations, this imperialism would not involve conquistadors or colonial pith-helmeted overseers, but would instead rely on the European Union’s massive and liberal bureaucracy, which in May adopted a “Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive” (CSDDD), which threatens U.S. companies with steep penalties if they fail to meet European climate standards. (RELATED: Lee Zeldin Reportedly Takes Major Shot At Heart Of Dems’ Climate Agenda)
In September, a group of congressional Republican lawmakers raised the alarm in a letter to then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “The CSDDD’s extraterritorial scope amounts to a serious breach of U.S. sovereignty and a direct threat to the global competitiveness of American companies,” they wrote. “We are deeply concerned that the [Biden-Harris] Administration is surrendering its regulatory responsibilities to European officials, allowing them to force draconian social and climate policies on American companies.”
When you look past the climate rhetoric, it is obvious what is happening here. Europe has regulated itself into energy and economic stagnation and is failing to keep pace with the more dynamic U.S. economy. But jettisoning those cherished “green” regulations would mean admitting that their technocratic project has been a failure. So, rather than admitting defeat, they are trying to force our economy into becoming as sclerotic as theirs. That way, the EU gets to have its admittedly smaller cake and eat it too.
Although the activist climate movement suffered a major setback with Donald Trump’s victory in November, they are not giving up. Whether through blue state legislatures, lawfare, or internationalism, they continue their misguided quest to cripple America’s energy sector as they’ve done to theirs. (RELATED: Trump Admin Moves To Kill New York City’s Climate Toll Scheme)
European green advocates, however, will soon discover they have met their match in Donald Trump and his energy team.
Bob Barr currently serves as President of the National Rifle Association. He represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia, and serves as President of the National Rifle Association.
Reproduced with permission. Originally at Daily Caller.
