U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) heads to the Senate floor on Jan. 26, 2021.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday (Jan. 28) sharply criticized the Biden administration’s energy policy, saying it is not only the “wrong prescription” for addressing climate change, but will destroy the foundation of the U.S. economy and cause a tsunami of unemployment. He also said Biden’s policies would only make competitors such as China (Communist Party of China) feel very excited.
McConnell said on the Senate floor Thursday that the Biden Administration‘s actions to date have been misguided, including the decision to revoke authorization for the Keystone pipeline and the decision to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement in the name of addressing climate change.
McConnell said there is nothing green about it at all when you see U.S. workers receiving a tsunami of furlough notices or having to use trucks and trains instead of pipelines to bring Canadian crude to the United States.
“This piecemeal Green New Deal is the wrong prescription (for addressing climate change). It’s the wrong (prescription) for addressing both the environment and national security. Most importantly, for American workers, if this continues, they will soon be former workers of America (meaning Americans out of work).” McConnell said.
“China (Communist Party of China), Russia and our other competitors must be thrilled, absolutely thrilled, that our new administration is essentially declaring war on some of our own economic base to satisfy the desire for symbolic gestures,” McConnell added.
“Deliberately putting our own people out of work, reducing our domestic energy security, raising costs and prices for working families – all without meaningful impact on global temperatures.” He said.
McConnell praised the Trump (Trump) administration’s policies saying, “The last four years have proven that strengthening our prosperity, reducing emissions and expanding domestic energy are not really contradictory – we can achieve all three.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the English-language Epoch Times.
Keystone XL oil pipeline permit revoked
McConnell called Biden’s decision to revoke the Keystone XL oil pipeline permit a “major setback to North American energy security. Former President Trump had allowed the pipeline to be built in 2017.
McConnell said it’s conceivable that 11,000 American workers, including 8,000 union workers who were counting on the work, are feeling the blow. Biden has “effectively closed the door on thousands of American jobs with the stroke of a pen.
In a recent interview with Fox, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-Ind.) said he opposes canceling permits for the Keystone XL oil pipeline project. He said the Canadian oil could have flowed to the U.S. through the pipeline that was going to be built, and now that the project is cancelled, the oil could be bought by China or another country or shipped to the U.S. by rail, which is very unsafe.
“As you know, the Canadians have to produce a lot of oil and sell it somewhere because there’s no place to store the oil that’s produced, and we need that oil right now. So either that produced oil is shipped to other countries or regions, including China, where the environmental standards for oil refining are much less demanding than they are on the U.S. side, or of course it can be shipped to plants in the U.S. that can do oil refining.” Lantz said.
“It used to be thought that pipelines were the most efficient way to move oil, but now in order to get it out there you have to use rail tank cars, even though that’s not as safe. Obviously the pipeline is the most efficient way to move about 830,000 barrels of Crude Oil a day, but now it’s only possible to move it by rail or ship it to another country.”
McConnell: Paris agreement does not curb CPC emissions reductions
In addition, McConnell said Biden’s Jan. 20 decision to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement will only cause “serious pain” to Americans.
“We’re back in an international agreement that will cause serious pain to working families, and it (the Paris agreement) failed to curb China’s emissions, and without joining the agreement, our own emissions are going down anyway.” He said.
McConnell said John Kerry, former secretary of state during the Obama-Biden administration and now Biden’s top environmental policy adviser, acknowledged that “even if the U.S. somehow got our carbon emissions down to zero, it wouldn’t have much impact on the global (climate) situation.”
McConnell explained that’s because rival countries like China are increasing their carbon emissions.
The U.S. officially withdraws from the Paris Climate Agreement on Nov. 4, 2020. Former President Trump first announced his intention to withdraw from the agreement in 2017, calling it “a complete disaster” for the U.S. economy by being too lenient on communist China and its greenhouse gas emissions.
China, under Communist Party rule, has become the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, with a “contribution rate” of 26.8 percent. China and India, another major carbon emitter, committed in the Paris climate agreement to reduce their emissions intensity relative to GDP by 2030. According to the Global Ecology Foundation, this means that China and India’s emissions will continue to increase over the next decade due to economic growth, while not contributing to the goal of reducing global emissions by 50 percent by 2030.
U.S. participation in the deal would cost the average American household $20,000 and $2.5 trillion in national GDP by 2035, while losing nearly 400,000 jobs overall, half of which would be in manufacturing, according to a 2019 report released by the Heritage Foundation.
Moratorium on approving leases to develop oil, gas on federal lands
Biden signed an executive order Wednesday (Jan. 27) to halt the issuance of new leases for the development of oil and gas on federal lands. McConnell questioned the decision.
“Yesterday (Jan. 27), the (Biden) administration put a sharp brake on further domestic energy development on large tracts of federally owned land. No new oil, gas or coal leases are allowed.” McConnell said.
“Our responsible use of these lands (produces) more than one-fifth of our domestic production, about 2.8 million barrels a day. The production from our own federal lands alone is almost equal to the daily oil production of Kuwait.” McConnell said.
But “some left-wing elites” are “unhappy” that in 2019 the U.S. will run an energy surplus for the first Time since the 1950s, with exports exceeding imports, he said.
John Kerry said Wednesday on behalf of the Biden administration that he hoped a large number of American workers in those industries would find better employment options. But McConnell questioned whether there are better options than the good jobs that can now feed their families and strengthen U.S. energy independence.
McConnell also said a study by energy consulting firm OnLocation concluded that a ban on leasing and development of federal lands and waters would mean the loss of nearly 1 million U.S. jobs by 2022.
“One million jobs will be lost by next year alone …… mass layoffs of our own citizens,” he stressed.
McConnell said states that tie much of their oil and gas production to federal lands would suffer significant job losses by next year if Biden’s federal ban continues. It is estimated that at least 16,000 jobs would be lost in New Mexico and 3,000 in Colorado.
McConnell added, “American workers in other industries will pay the price as well.”
Four House Democrats from Texas also joined the chorus urging Biden to rescind the order. They said it would lead to job losses, squeeze budget revenues, weaken America’s energy independence and would “hurt a community that is already suffering.
According to the study, the decision on federal lands could mean a cumulative increase of $19 billion in energy spending by American households by 2030.
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