At the urging of Senate Democrats, Joe Biden is reportedly considering whether to declare a “national climate emergency” in another attempt to enact heavy regulations on fossil fuels without congressional authorization, even as gas prices remain nearly double what they were a year ago.
Biden may make the move to push through controls on the oil and gas industry that Democrats in Congress have failed to put in place.
“The president made clear that if the Senate doesn’t act to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, he will,” a White House official told the Washington Post. “We are considering all options and no decision has been made.”
Despite that hedge, White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein told the media on Monday that Biden would “aggressively fight to attack climate change.”
“I think realistically there is a lot he can do and there is a lot he will do,” Bernstein said.
No details have yet emerged on just what measures Biden thinks he can put in motion for this “emergency” he fears is befalling the nation.
Of course, left-wing activists and the White House know that there aren’t enough Democrat votes in Congress to push climate-change rules on the U.S. energy sector that would be strict enough to satisfy climate-change alarmists.
Many Democrats continue to hail high energy prices as the best spur to force the U.S. to adopt untested green-energy policies, but the political will in Congress is decidedly lacking to enforce the idea with legislation. Liberals are thrilled that Biden seems ready to make a move.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, was one of those who called on Biden Monday to declare the climate emergency, according to Reuters. He told the media, “This is an important moment. There is probably nothing more important for our nation and our world than for the United States to drive a bold, energetic transition in its energy economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy,” the Post noted.
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Merkley also praised the plan for Biden to declare the “emergency,” because doing so “unchains the president from waiting for Congress to act.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, agreed, adding, “I’ve talked to the White House about going on offense and being aggressive and doing all the things that it is within the executive powers to do that have not so far been done,” according to Reuters.
Extremist climate activists have been urging Biden to use executive action as an end run around Congress nearly since Biden took office. Despite the war on the U.S. energy sector that Biden has already perpetrated, activists say it isn’t enough to crush natural gas, coal and oil.
But should Biden suddenly announce tough new sanctions on the U.S. energy sector, he risks losing the recent small reduction in gas prices for which he had been desperately trying to take credit.
On the very day White House sources were telling the media that Biden was set to become more active against the energy sector, the White House was also trying to take credit for a 50-cent-per-gallon fall in the price of gas, Fox News noted.
The White House also pushed out a tweet making the claim:
I’ve been releasing about 1 million barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and rallied our global partners to release a combined 240 million barrels of oil onto the market.
Our actions are working, and prices are coming down. pic.twitter.com/5zrBPGvRJv
— President Biden (@POTUS) July 19, 2022
This sudden attempt to take credit for lower gas prices flies in the face of Biden’s Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, who only two months ago insisted that a president has no control over the price of gas, CNN Business reported.
Further, all these “savings” will likely be erased if Biden announces a renewed attack on energy.
It also seems likely that even if he does try to satisfy climate alarmists with strict energy rules made by executive fiat, the rules will be bogged down by lawsuits challenging them and won’t be implemented anytime soon, anyway.
Whether his new agenda is harsh or mild, though, it will cause prices to increase as the energy industry girds for more federal interference, hurting all Americans in the process. And whatever he does will never be reactionary enough for his left-wing supporters, anyway.
