Since the” Climategate” records were first leaked, there has been a lot of vigorous debate about the whole climate change discussion. To minimal influence, sad to say.
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What is infinite, obviously, is the amount of social vigorish that can be extracted from the problem.
You may remember that there’s a war going on in eastern Europe, following the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Soviet troops. They expected Ukraine to slide over immediately — otherwise, the battle’s gone on for more than three times then.
The Biden presidency talked large but was little good. One of their great activities was to impose restrictions on Russian oil and gas imports.
Europe, continuing the talking great and speaking little design, agreed with the restrictions — but kept buying Soviet oil and gas. Germany particularly had this problem — the Greens had pushed the German government to reduce nuclear power and force to solar and wind, evidently forgetting that Germany is very far north and has comparatively little sunshine when it’s coldest. So the answer was to, yes, obtain electricity and gas from Russia.
One point the US could do is raise liquified natural gas imports to Europe, making it easier for Germans to find heating and energy without buying gas from Russia. Should be a no-brainer — we have plenty, and selling it to Europe may make sense.
Or but you’d believe.
Sometimes, yet,” think” isn’t the first word to come to thinking about the Biden administration. Or, at least, thinking about anything but the next vote.
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There was really a research finished in 2023 saying that the US could raise LNG exports with little or no economic impact — after all, burning Soviet or British gas doesn’t make much difference — and it wouldn’t affect US prices.
This wasn’t what Biden wanted to hear. Fox News reported:
The draft report found that across all modeled scenarios, an increase in U. S. LNG exports and natural gas production did not change global or U. S. greenhouse gas emissions, nor did it correlate with a strong uptick in energy prices for consumers, Trump administration officials said.
” Secretary Granholm, and Biden White House told Americans that the increase in LNG exports would disproportionately increase prices for American consumers as well as from the environment”, an official said.
” And both these claims were refuted in the report that the Biden administration hid from Congress and the American public”, the official said.
So what did they do? They buried the inconvenient report, not just refusing to release it, but refusing to provide it to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. After all, there might be a war on, and Russia might be invading a supposed ally — even if it was one with which the Biden family had a complicated relationship — but there was an election to be won and political allies in this country to be placated.
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I picked up on this story via a column by Jonathan Turley, who makes this point:
What is most concerning is that our LNG exports help reduce the dependence on Russia and would have decreased the revenues to that country to support its war in Ukraine. However, critics charge that Biden ignored the national security and economic benefits. Supporters note that we still exported a massive amount of LNG.
When the U. S. ramped up exports to Europe, progressive Democrats like Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., went ballistic. This appears to have worked in shelving the study while slowing demands for further increases.
So, when they had the choice of helping Europe and hurting Russia, or making Democrat politicians mad, they chose…
Guess.
