Economy
Why Democrats Make Energy Expensive (And Dirty)
Progressives say they care more about working people and climate change than Republicans and moderate Democrats. Why, then, do they advocate policies that make energy expensive and dirty?
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Progressive Democrats including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the head of the House progressive caucus, have sent a letter demanding the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) investigate whether “market manipulation” is causing natural gas prices to rise 30 percent on average for consumers over last winter, an astonishing $746 per household.
But the main reason natural gas prices are rising is because progressives have been so successful in restricting natural gas production. Sanders, Jayapal, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), as individuals and as part of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, have successful fought to restrict natural gas production through fracking and to block natural gas pipelines, including the Atlantic Coast pipeline.
In 2020, Sanders celebrated efforts by progressives to cancel the Atlantic Coast pipeline. Today, New England is facing rolling blackouts and importing natural gas from Russia. “Getting [natural] gas to [progressive Senators Ed] Markey and [Elizabeth] Warren’s Massachusetts is so difficult,” reports The Wall Street Journal, “that sometimes it comes into Boston Harbor on a tanker from Russia.”
Bernie Sanders @SenSandersThis is a major victory for the millions-strong climate justice movement, which fought for years to stop this pipeline. Together, we will secure clean air and good jobs building a renewable-energy economy that protects the only planet we have. 
Energy companies cancel construction of Atlantic Coast PipelineDominion Energy and Duke Energy have canceled their Atlantic Coast Pipeline project, a natural gas pipeline that was to stretch hundreds of miles across West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, citing “legal uncertainty.”cnn.com
July 6th 2020
1,033 Retweets5,760 Likes
Democrats aren’t the only reason the United States isn’t producing enough natural gas to keep prices at the same low levels they’ve been at for the past decade. There is higher demand as the economy emerges from covid. There is greater demand for natural gas internationally due to a bad year for wind energy in Europe. And President Joe Biden, for his part, has resisted many progressive demands to restrict oil and gas production.
But the main reason there isn’t enough natural gas production is because of successful progressive Democratic efforts to restrict natural gas production in the United States, Europe, and other parts of the world in the name of fighting climate change, as I was one of the first to report last fall. Sanders and Jayapal talk about “market manipulation” and “profiteering” but to the extent there is any of either it’s because of inadequate supplies of natural gas and the pipelines to transport it.
Successful shareholder activism, known in the industry as “ESG” for environmental, social, and governance issues, resulted in less investment in oil and gas production, and more weather-dependent renewables, which result in higher prices everywhere they are deployed at scale. Even ESG champions including Financial Times, Goldman Sachs, and Bloomberg all now acknowledge that it was climate activist shareholder efforts that restricted oil and gas investment.
Such efforts also directly led to increasing carbon emissions. Last year saw a whopping 17 percent increase in coal-fired electricity, which resulted in a six percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions. It was the first annual increase in coal use since 2014. The reason for it was because of the scarcity and higher price of natural gas, coal’s direct replacement, not just in the U.S. but globally, since the US exports a significant quantity of natural gas.
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The other reason the U.S. used more coal in 2021 is because progressive Democrats are shutting down nuclear plants. “When a nuclear plant is closed, it’s closed forever,” noted Mark Nelson of Radiant Energy Fund, an energy analytics firm, “whereas coal plants can afford to operate at relatively low levels of capacity, like just 30 to 50 percent operation, and thus wait for natural gas prices, and thus demand for coal, to rise.”
Progressives like Sanders, Jayapal, and AOC claim to care more about poor people, working people, and climate change than either Republicans or moderate Democrats, who they defeat in Democratic primary elections. Why, then, do they advocate policies that make energy expensive and dirty?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOCOctober 8th 2020
81,570 Retweets648,545 Likes
Strategic Ignorance
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A big part of the reason progressives make energy expensive appears to be that they just don’t know very much about energy. The fact that they are demanding that FERC investigate higher prices suggests they want to keep energy prices low. But it could also mean that their letter is just public relations cover so they are not blamed for raising energy prices.
Indeed, it would be naive to think that Sanders and other progressives didn’t realize that blocking pipelines, opposing fracking, and subsidizing renewables would make energy expensive, given that making energy expensive has been the highest goal of their main climate advisor, Bill McKibben, who subscribes to the Malthusian view that there are too many humans and we must restrict energy and development.
If renewables were cheaper than the status quo then the policies they advocate — no permitting of pipelines, restrictions on fracking, and subsidies for renewables — would not be necessary. Besides, mainstream energy experts and journalists today admit that weather-dependent renewables make electricity expensive…
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From LifeSiteNews
An April study has found that 42% of Gen Z and 39% of Millennials are putting off starting families due to a lack of work-life balance spurred by an increase in the cost of living.
A survey has found that more Canadians are delaying starting a family due to a lack of work-life balance spurred by the rising cost of living.
According to an April 24 Express Employment Professionals-Harris Poll survey, one-third of employed job seekers stated that they are putting off starting a family due to a lack of work-life balance, including 42% of Gen Z and 39% of Millennials.
“The most common thing I hear from candidates who are putting off starting a family is that the cost of living is too high,” Jessica Culo, an Express franchise owner in Edmonton, Alberta stated.
“We definitely hear more and more that candidates are looking for flexibility, and I think employers understand family/work balance is important to employees,” she added.
Two-thirds of respondents further stated that they believe it’s essential that the company they work for prioritizes giving its employees a good work-life balance as they look to start a family. This included 77% of Gen Z and 72% of Millennials.
The survey comes as Canada’s fertility rate hit a record-low of 1.33 children per woman in 2022. According to the data collected by Statistics Canada, the number marks the lowest fertility rate in the past century of record keeping.
Sadly, while 2022 experienced a record-breaking low fertility rate, the same year, 97,211 Canadian babies were killed by abortion.
Canadians’ reluctance or delay to have children comes as young Canadians seem to be beginning to reap the effects of the policies of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, which has been criticized for its overspending, onerous climate regulations, lax immigration policies, and “woke” politics.
In fact, many have pointed out that considering the rising housing prices, most Canadians under 30 will not be able to purchase a home.
Similarly, while Trudeau sends Canadians’ tax dollars oversees and further taxes their fuel and heating, Canadians are struggling to pay for basic necessities including food, rent, and heating.
A September report by Statistics Canada revealed that food prices are rising faster than the headline inflation rate – the overall inflation rate in the country – as staple food items are increasing at a rate of 10 to 18 percent year-over-year.
While the cost of living has increased the financial burden of Canadians looking to rear children, the nation’s child benefit program does provide some relief for those who have kids.
Under the Canadian Revenue Agency’s benefit, Canadians families are given a monthly stipend depending on their family income and situation. Each province also has a program to help families support their children.
Young Canadians looking to start a family can use the child and family benefits calculator to estimate the benefits which they would receive.
Regardless of the cost of raising children, the Catholic Church unchangeably teaches that it is a grave sin for married couples to frustrate the natural ends of the procreative act through contraceptives, abortion or other means.
Such wisdom has even bled into the mainstream in recent years, with non-Catholic pundits like America’s Tucker Carlson advocating that young people “Get married when you’re too young, have more kids than you can afford, take a job you’re not qualified for, live boldly.”
From the Fraser Institute
One can legitimately ask whether the federal government has simply grown too big, complex and unwieldy to be managed at all
The Trudeau government’s 2024 budget landed with a thud, evoking little enthusiasm and drawing spirited criticism from business leaders, investors, provincial premiers and (of course) the opposition parties. Several elements of the budget have garnered outsized attention, notably the pledge to run endless deficits, the imposition of higher capital gains taxes, and various new programs and policy initiatives intended to address Canada’s housing crisis.
But the budget includes a few eye-catching data points that have been downplayed in the subsequent political and media commentary.
One is the sheer size of the government. The just-completed fiscal year marked a milestone, as Ottawa’s total spending reached half a trillion dollars ($498 billion, to be exact, excluding “actuarial losses”). According to the budget, the government will spend $95 billion more in 2024-25 than it planned only three years ago, underscoring the torrid pace of spending growth under Prime Minister Trudeau.
One can legitimately ask whether the federal government has simply grown too big, complex and unwieldy to be managed at all, even if we assume the politicians in charge truly care about sound management. How many parliamentarians—or even cabinet ministers—have a sufficient understanding of the sprawling federal apparatus to provide meaningful oversight of the vast sums Ottawa is now spending?
The ArriveCAN scandal and chronic problems with defence procurement are well-known, but how good a job is the government doing with routine expenditure programs and the delivery of services to Canadians? The auditor general and the Parliamentary Budget Officer provide useful insights on these questions, but only in a selective way. Parliament itself tends to focus on things other than financial oversight, such as the daily theatre of Question Period and other topics conducive to quick hits on social media. Parliament isn’t particularly effective at holding the government to account for its overall expenditures, even though that ranks among its most important responsibilities.
A second data point from the budget concerns the fast-rising price tag for what the federal government classifies as “elderly benefits.” Consisting mainly of Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, these programs are set to absorb $81 billion of federal tax dollars this year and $90 billion by 2026-27, compared to $69 billion just two years ago. Ottawa now spends substantially more on income transfers to seniors than it collects in GST revenues. At some point, a future government may find it necessary to reform elderly benefit programs to slow the relentless cost escalation.
Finally, the budget provides additional details on the Trudeau government’s epic bet that massive taxpayer-financed subsidies will kickstart the establishment of a major, commercially successful battery and electric vehicle manufacturing “supply chain” in Canada. The government pledges to allocate “over $160 billion” to pay for its net-zero economic plan, including $93 billion in subsidies and incentives for battery, EV and other “clean” industries through 2034-35. This spending, the government insists, will “crowd in more private investment, securing Canada’s leadership” in the clean economy.
To say this is a high-risk industrial development strategy is an understatement. Canada is grappling with an economy-wide crisis of lagging business investment and stagnant productivity. Faced with this, the government has chosen to direct hitherto unimaginable sums to support industries that make up a relatively small slice of the economy. Even if the plan succeeds, it won’t do much to address the bigger problems of weak private-sector investment and slumping productivity growth.
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