Tag Archives: California

Does Joe Biden oppose fracking? Will he shut down the oil and gas industries?

Far-left CNN fact-checks Joe Biden on fracking
Far-left CNN fact-checks Joe Biden on fracking

A very interesting thing happened after the debate on Thursday. Far-left CNN decided to fact-check Trump’s claim that Biden said on video that he wanted to ban fracking. Far-left CNN ruled Trump’s statement “correct”. During the debate, Biden also admitted that he wanted to eliminate all fossil fuel usage, including cars that use gas. Let’s take a look at Biden’s exact words.

Here’s the CNN fact check:

The Federalist reports:

Despite Biden and his vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s insistence that Biden never said he opposed fracking, Biden has repeatedly condemned fracking and the fossil fuels industry.

“We would work it out. We would make sure it’s eliminated,” Biden said about coal and fracking from the Democratic presidential debate stage just a few months ago.

“We are going to get rid of fossil fuels,” he also promised from the podium at a New Hampshire rally.

Harris, a proud co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, which would ban fracking, has also been vocal about her position.

Regarding shutting down the oil and gas industries, The Federalist reports:

Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden admitted during Thursday night’s final presidential debate that he going to end the oil industry if elected president.

“Would you close down the oil industry?” President Donald Trump pressed just before their closing statements.

“I would transition from the oil industry, yes,” Biden replied.

When asked by debate moderator Kristen Welker to clarify his statement, Biden claimed that he wants to shut down the oil industry because it “pollutes significantly” and needs to be “replaced by renewable energy over time.”

There are many problems with renewable energies, and you can find out all about them by looking at places that have tried to switch over to those energy sources.

Switching to Renewable Energy

Let’s start with California. California has long been at the forefront of converting their energy production to “green” sources.

Here’s an article from Forbes that talks about their results:

At the Democratic National Convention this week, presidential and vice-presidential candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will make the case for spending $2 trillion, or $500 billion per year, to transition the U.S. away from fossil fuels toward renewables like solar and wind.

[…]California’s big bet on renewables, and shunning of natural gas and nuclear, is directly responsible for the state’s blackouts and high electricity prices.

“We will be forced today to ask utilities to cut off power to millions today, and tomorrow, and beyond,” said Stephen Berberich, the President and CEO of California’s Independent System Operator, CAISO, on a Monday morning conference call. “Demand will greatly exceed supply.”

The immediate cause of California’s blackouts is a mismatch between electricity supply and demand.

[…]The underlying reason blackouts are occurring is because California lacks reliable, in-state supply. And the reason for that is California has been closing both natural gas and nuclear power plants.

[…]Despite these capacity shortfalls, the state is moving ahead with plans to remove 2,200-MW of reliable electricity from the grid.  That’s the amount of power produced by Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, which will be closed in stages in 2024 and 2025.

So, Green New Deal works great… if your goal is to feel good about yourself, and make emotion-driven people like you. But it isn’t very good at generating an abundance of low-cost electricity to power businesses. And it isn’t very good for poor people, who prefer to pay less for their electricity.

Well, how about Germany? They closed down their nuclear power plants in favor of wind and solar. It didn’t work.

Daily Caller explains:

Germany’s power grid almost collapsed in January due to poor performance from wind turbines and solar panels, according to data from a major trade union.

Wind and solar power plants under-performed in January, 2017, because of cloudy weather with little or no wind, setting the stage for massive blackouts.

[…]Green energy approaches failed to meet Germany’s stated energy goals, even after spending over $1.1 trillion. The country’s “Energiewende” plan to boost wind and solar production to fight global warming hasn’t significantly reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and may have actually caused them to go up.

[…]Due to the inherent unreliable performance of wind power and political opposition to nuclear power plants, Germany has been forced to return to coal to generate electricity. Coal now provides 44 percent of  Germany’s power,  This shift caused Germany’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to actually rise by 28 million tons each year following the policy shift.

All of Germany’s subsidies and support for green energy have sharply increased power prices, with the average German paying 39 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity. The average American only spends 10.4 cents per kilowatt-hour by comparison.

So, you get less electricity produced, more emissions, and elctricity prices go up. Just like in California.

Well, third try is the charm. How about Canada? They’ve gone Green New Deal for more than a decade. How is that working for them?

The National Post reported this in 2016:

Back in 2010, deep green environmentalist Rick Smith, then head of Environmental Defence Canada, hailed Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act regime as a cost-free operation that would catapult the province into the big leagues of renewable energy. Through fat subsidies and high prices offered to wind, solar and other renewable industry players, jobs and growth would boom and Ontario would be free of its dirty coal plants. It was the End of Coal, the government said. The birth of a renewable miracle.

Now, Canadians are paying more:

The doubling of electricity prices since 2005 is big politically, but it is just the top-line item on a long list of problems, misconceptions and outright fabrications that lurk within the Liberal government’s decade-long pursuit of radical greenism.

Because they didn’t listened to engineers… they listened to their hearts:

Ontario’s Society of Professional Engineers has issued more than half a dozen critical reports on the Liberals’ tendency to let green talk and politics override sound policy. Instead of following the expert advice of engineers and people who understand the intricacies of electricity production and distribution, the government took to issuing directives right out the Premier’s office.

Now, I know some people on the secular left are going to disagree with these facts. But they don’t have facts to counter these facts. There isn’t a single country that has gone Green New Deal that has lower electricity prices and a net increase in jobs.

We have to do what works. What works is more natural gas (fracking) and more nuclear power.

What happens in places that adopt Green New Deal Democrat energy policies?

What green energy policies did to electricity costs in California
What green energy policies did to electricity costs in California

The secular leftist approach to politics is to suggest policies that make them feel good and look good to others. It doesn’t matter if the policies work for people. Conservatives believe in looking at what has worked in other times and places, and doing what works. After all, a wise man learns from successes and failures of other people. We can’t try everything ourselves, we should just do what works.

Let’s start with California. California has long been at the forefront of converting their energy production to “green” sources.

Here’s an article from Forbes that talks about their results:

At the Democratic National Convention this week, presidential and vice-presidential candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will make the case for spending $2 trillion, or $500 billion per year, to transition the U.S. away from fossil fuels toward renewables like solar and wind.

[…]California’s big bet on renewables, and shunning of natural gas and nuclear, is directly responsible for the state’s blackouts and high electricity prices.

“We will be forced today to ask utilities to cut off power to millions today, and tomorrow, and beyond,” said Stephen Berberich, the President and CEO of California’s Independent System Operator, CAISO, on a Monday morning conference call. “Demand will greatly exceed supply.”

The immediate cause of California’s blackouts is a mismatch between electricity supply and demand.

[…]The underlying reason blackouts are occurring is because California lacks reliable, in-state supply. And the reason for that is California has been closing both natural gas and nuclear power plants.

[…]Despite these capacity shortfalls, the state is moving ahead with plans to remove 2,200-MW of reliable electricity from the grid.  That’s the amount of power produced by Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, which will be closed in stages in 2024 and 2025.

So, Green New Deal works great… if your goal is to feel good about yourself, and make emotion-driven people like you. But it isn’t very good at generating an abundance of low-cost electricity to power businesses. And it isn’t very good for poor people, who prefer to pay less for their electricity.

Well, how about Germany? They closed down their nuclear power plants in favor of wind and solar. It didn’t work.

Daily Caller explains:

Germany’s power grid almost collapsed in January due to poor performance from wind turbines and solar panels, according to data from a major trade union.

Wind and solar power plants under-performed in January, 2017, because of cloudy weather with little or no wind, setting the stage for massive blackouts.

[…]Green energy approaches failed to meet Germany’s stated energy goals, even after spending over $1.1 trillion. The country’s “Energiewende” plan to boost wind and solar production to fight global warming hasn’t significantly reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and may have actually caused them to go up.

[…]Due to the inherent unreliable performance of wind power and political opposition to nuclear power plants, Germany has been forced to return to coal to generate electricity. Coal now provides 44 percent of  Germany’s power,  This shift caused Germany’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to actually rise by 28 million tons each year following the policy shift.

All of Germany’s subsidies and support for green energy have sharply increased power prices, with the average German paying 39 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity. The average American only spends 10.4 cents per kilowatt-hour by comparison.

So, you get less electricity produced, more emissions, and elctricity prices go up. Just like in California.

Well, third try is the charm. How about Canada? They’ve gone Green New Deal for more than a decade. How is that working for them?

The National Post reported this in 2016:

Back in 2010, deep green environmentalist Rick Smith, then head of Environmental Defence Canada, hailed Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act regime as a cost-free operation that would catapult the province into the big leagues of renewable energy. Through fat subsidies and high prices offered to wind, solar and other renewable industry players, jobs and growth would boom and Ontario would be free of its dirty coal plants. It was the End of Coal, the government said. The birth of a renewable miracle.

Now, Canadians are paying more:

The doubling of electricity prices since 2005 is big politically, but it is just the top-line item on a long list of problems, misconceptions and outright fabrications that lurk within the Liberal government’s decade-long pursuit of radical greenism.

Because they didn’t listened to engineers… they listened to their hearts:

Ontario’s Society of Professional Engineers has issued more than half a dozen critical reports on the Liberals’ tendency to let green talk and politics override sound policy. Instead of following the expert advice of engineers and people who understand the intricacies of electricity production and distribution, the government took to issuing directives right out the Premier’s office.

Now, I know some people on the secular left are going to disagree with these facts. But they don’t have facts to counter these facts. There isn’t a single country that has gone Green New Deal that has lower electricity prices and a net increase in jobs.

We have to do what works. What works is more natural gas (fracking) and more nuclear power.

Democrats punish whistleblowers who exposed organ harvesting by abortion providers

Planned Parenthood senior executive: organ harvesting so she can get a Lamborghini
Planned Parenthood senior executive: organ harvesting so she can get a Lamborghini

A while back, I posted about some whistleblowers who managed to get abortion providers on camera confessing that they performed abortions in a way to maximize profits from selling the body parts of the unborn children. Rather than punish the abortionists, California decided to go after the whistleblowers. Here is the latest on that story from The Federalist.

It says:

An undercover reporter has been arraigned in California and charged with ten felonies for secretly recording conversations, and it’s time to revisit how the judiciary and the law can stifle the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press.

The accused, David Daleiden, used standard media undercover techniques to investigate and expose Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted fetus body parts.

[…]Daleiden faces a legal system that has unleashed both criminal and civil actions against him for a variety of supposed violations of law, including criminal trespass, fraud, and breach of contract, even federal civil racketeering. A jury in the civil trial awarded the plaintiffs more than $2.2 million in damages, enough to permanently silence Daleiden’s small pro-life and nonprofit operation. We are appealing.

It was actually former Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris who disregarded the abortionists and went after the pro-life whistleblowers – even going so far as to raid their houses:

The criminal case, the one more likely to chill undercover work, was the product of then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris. A judge threw out six of 15 criminal charges against Daleiden and co-investigator Sandra Merritt but ruled that the other counts can go to a criminal trial. Thus, the arraignment. Never mind that Harris violated shield laws protecting reporters by raiding Daleiden’s home and capturing previously unpublished raw journalism materials.

Note that Harris only pressed these charges and used these powers against the pro-lifers:

How ironic, because about the time that Daleiden published his findings, animal rights activists were praised for ­documenting abuse in the poultry industry. Unlike in Daleiden’s case, Harris launched probes of the poultry industry and didn’t charge the reporters.

That Harris received campaign donations from, and touted her support for, pro-choice groups suggests she was motivated by political bias. Same for the judge in the civil case, who was affiliated with an organization that had a joint venture with a Planned Parenthood affiliate whose successor is now one of the entities suing Daleiden.

No one can be blamed for thinking that the legal actions were inspired and carried out by pro-choice organizations to punish and silence their opponents. What does it tell you that the Daleiden case may have been the first time that any journalist has been criminally charged with violating the California recording law in the many years it has been on the books?

Although Kamala Harris has bowed out of the 2020 Democrat primary, she has endorsed Joe Biden. And that’s in part because Joe Biden has substantially the same views on abortion as she does. Not only does he have the same views, he has a very strong record of supporting abortion throughout all 9 months of pregnancy.

Life News explains:

When it comes to abortion and appointing federal judges who have the power to determine the direction of abortion legislation, Biden made it clear he would not compromise as president.

[…]Biden went further. He said if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade, he would push for a national law allowing abortions up to birth.

[…]Biden… says he will support forcing Americans to fund abortions up to birth with our taxpayer dollars.

[…]Biden has a strong pro-abortion voting record that goes back for many years, and he supported President Barack Obama’s leadership as the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history. What’s more, pro-abortion movement leaders say they “trust” Biden to protect abortion on demand. As the vice president, he supported the administration’s pro-abortion policies, including Obamacare, which forced religious employers to pay for drugs that may cause abortions.

From 2001 to 2008, Biden’s voting record on pro-life issues was close to zero, according to the National Right to Life Committee. In 2005, for example, he voted against the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits funding to overseas groups that promote and/or perform abortions. He also voted repeatedly to require that military service members’ abortions be covered by taxpayer dollars.

If Joe Biden is elected president, I think we will see what California did to pro-lifers happening all over the country, in every state. Big government Democrats love to pass legislation at the federal level, and overrule state laws.