Put Y'all Back in Chains, page 13
President Biden should buttress the efforts of local governments by offering federal assistance and expertise to fight crime. He should reverse his executive order unleashing “pattern and practice” investigations on local law enforcement and instead regularly hold White House events with officers who’ve served their communities in amazing ways. He should tell his party that they should end their public denunciations of law enforcement and promise Americans that his party understands their concerns and will work to ensure that they feel safe and protected in their communities.
In the 2021 State of the Union Address, President Biden announced to wide applause that he supports law enforcement. His real actions belie those words.
Conclusion
Leniency for violent criminals won’t improve society or the criminal element. It isn’t just naïve; it’s dangerous.
The crime waves in the nation’s urban centers should never have been allowed to take place. Furthermore, prosecutors should be committed to vindicating the livelihoods of victims. If necessary, they need to throw the book at violent offenders, especially if they are repeat offenders, who are the main problem. If they are removed from the community, crime rates will drop dramatically. But first-time rapists and car jackers should also receive severe punishments, both as a deterrent and also as a reflection of society’s condemnation of their predatory behavior. Prosecutors should not reduce felony charges to misdemeanors, and, where appropriate, they should ask that criminals be sentenced for each individual conviction separately.
But too many radical district attorneys and their supporters live in enclaves of wealth and security and never face the consequences of their actions. Those who pay the price for these deluded visions of grandeur are blacks, the poor, and the other marginalized groups like the working class.
Americans must demand that government restore accountability in the criminal justice system; Americans must be able to have confidence that prosecutors will do their job and enforce the law.
Chapter Five
America Is Running Out of Gas
Perhaps the most unpopular policy of Joe Biden has been his decision to prioritize climate change over abundant petroleum production.
In a Gallup survey in August of 2022, 3 percent of Americans volunteered that climate change was the most important problem facing the country.1 There are both short-term and long-term consequences to this misplaced prioritization, but the end result is that American households have been severely harmed, blacks and the working class most of all.
President Biden’s energy policies have hurt black Americans in several important ways. His extreme climate alarmism has raised energy prices, which has disrupting the nation’s economy and the household budgets of blacks across the country.
These policies are in sharp contrast to the policies of the Trump Administration, when deregulation of American energy production led to annual energy-cost savings of $2,200 per household.2 Jobs in the oil, natural-gas, and renewable-energy industries provided tremendous economic opportunities for Americans as well.3
White House Release.4
The energy-cost savings benefited those at the lowest incomes the most: the bottom twentieth percentile of American households were most likely to see their budgets positively affected by the pro-energy prices under President Donald Trump.
Americans—particularly black and working-class Americans—long for those days. But the priorities of the Biden Administration are focused on “climate,” not on allowing Americans to use affordable energy sources. This is ironic because Americans have struggled with energy costs for decades—what analysts in Washington refer to as “energy insecure situations.” In fact, it was during President Obama’s second term that the U.S. Energy Information Administration issued a report tracking this concern and discovered that more than 30 percent of households experienced “energy insecurity.”
The Energy Information Agency detailed the characteristics of households experiencing “energy insecurity,” and the contrast between the conditions under the Obama and the Trump administrations is revealing.
In every category, Americans were better off during the Trump presidency than they were during the Obama presidency.
But, to quote Ronald Reagan, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” After the painstaking effort of the Trump Administration to get energy prices to the lowest in a generation, Biden pushed to reverse nearly every one of those policies. The predictable result is a government-made shortage that has driven up electricity prices, and those who can least afford to pay them are people with lower incomes, of whom black Americans comprise a disproportionate number.
Climate First, Black Interests to the Back of the Political Bus
In 2020, candidate Biden pushed fighting climate change as one of his top priorities in a way that no President has ever done before. In the summer of 2020, shortly after receiving the Democratic nomination, he laid out an ambitious climate plan.5 Candidate Biden insisted that environmentalism was part of “racial justice” and promised to send Congress a “transformational plan for a clean energy revolution.”6 Biden pledged to spend billions on R&D for clean energy technology, upgrade four million buildings to make them more energy efficient, and make a priority of investing in public transportation for any city with more than 100,000 residents.7 In a dramatic act, at a live-streamed New Hampshire townhall meeting, candidate Biden walked over to 24-year-old Rebecca Beaulieu and took her hands, saying, “I guarantee you, I guarantee you, we are going to end fossil fuel, and I am not going to cooperate with them [the oil and gas industry].” At the October 2020 presidential debate, Biden said, “Global warming is an existential threat to humanity,” and promised that, if elected, he would move America away from oil and gas.8 On his campaign website, he committed to net-zero emissions by 2050 and a 100 percent clean energy economy, as well as pledged to refuse any financial support from the oil and gas industry.9 After he was elected, he created the National Climate Task Force,10 rejoined the Paris Climate Accords, and named former Democratic Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts as his climate envoy.11
In one of his Administration’s few bipartisan successes—the infrastructure bill—President Biden was able to get new grants for a nationwide charging network for electric vehicles and a significant boost in support for clean energy projects. Biden also killed the Keystone XL Pipeline and put a freeze on oil and gas drilling on federal land. Fortunately, he was overturned in federal court on the latter issue.
The Keystone Pipeline Timeline
►February 2005—The Keystone Pipeline Extension is originally proposed by TransCanada.12 It is to be a 3-foot diameter crude oil pipeline beginning in Alberta, Canada and extending to Nebraska in the US.13
►March 2008—The Bush Administration issues a presidential permit to allow the $5.2 billion project to proceed.14
►June 2010—the pipeline starts operation.15
►August 2011—The U.S. State Department issues a final environmental impact statement determining “there would be no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed project corridor”.16
►December 2011—President Obama delays a decision on approval for the project. Congress pushes a measure that requires the president to act on the application within sixty days, prompting Obama to deny the application. He announces that TransCanada could re-apply however.17
►May 4, 2012—TransCanada reapplies and restarts the federal review process for the Keystone pipeline.18
►March 1, 2013—The State Department issues an environmental review report that raises no major objections to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and indicates that other options to get oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries are worse for the climate.19
►June 25, 2013—In a speech, Obama declares that fighting climate change would be a major priority of his second term and explains that he will only approve the project if it doesn’t worsen carbon pollution.20
►February 2014—A state judge in Nebraska strikes down the state law that allowed the pipeline, throwing the project into legal limbo.21
►February 2015—Congress passes fast-track legislation a second time in February of 2015. Obama vetoes the bill days later, and Congress is unable to over-ride it.22
►In a reversal, candidate Hillary Clinton announces in September 2015 that she opposes the pipeline, although when she was Secretary of State, the State Department had greenlighted the project at least three times.
►November 2015—President Obama denies Trans-Canada a permit.23
►June 2016—TransCanada seeks $15 billion in damages from the federal government in response to the Obama administration rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline.
►January 2017—Trump issues an executive order expediting the approval of the Keystone Pipeline.24
►January 2017—TransCanada resubmits its application for approval.25
►March 2017—State Department issues a presidential permit at the direction of President Trump.26
►November 2017—the Nebraska Public Service Commission votes three to two to approve construction of a portion of the Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska, although the commission rejects TransCanada’s preferred route for the pipeline.27
►November 2018—U.S. District Judge Brian M. Morris blocks the permit issued by the Trump administration. Morris rules that a supplemental environmental review has to be completed before the construction could proceed.28
►March 2019—President Trump attempts to over-ride the requirement for a “supplemental” environmental review by issuing an executive permit for construction, connection, operation, and maintenance to TransCanada in March of 2019.29
►May 2020—US District Judge Morris enjoins the U.S. Corps of Engineers from undertaking necessary activities for allowing the pipeline to proceed until appellate courts determine that President Trump’s executive permit order is lawful. 30
►January 2021—President Biden signs an executive order that revokes the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, officially killing the project.31
The Keystone Pipeline is a desperately needed energy project. It would connect the world’s third largest energy reserve (Canada) with the largest refining market (USA)32 and generate thousands of jobs and billions in economic growth for both the US and Canada.33 It would double the current capacity of oil transported in the U.S. per day and ensure that the US has a stable source of crude oil, while increasing employment and economic growth in the process.34 It would contribute more than $3 billion towards our country’s GDP. Additionally, taxes paid by the project would mostly benefit the towns and counties it passes through.35 As planned, it would have been the single largest construction project happening in the U.S.36
It almost made it.
In other words, the 1,120-mile Keystone XL segment was on track to be completed in 2022, with operations starting in early 2023.37 Especially during a period of elevated energy costs, having access to the pipeline would apply significant downward pressure on prices while obviating the need for President Biden to go “hat in hand” to Nicolas Maduro, the despot in Venezuela asking for assistance.
Eliminating the pipeline has done nothing to alleviate the need for it. In fact, some of the Canadian crude is now being moved by rail or truck, both of which are more expensive and require a larger carbon footprint.38
The White House isn’t satisfied with killing the Keystone Pipeline. It’s still working on a byzantine effort to make federal bank regulators stop investors and companies from promoting industries that are designated as climate threats.39 This scheme is breathtaking. Banks would be forced to assess how their actions affect Biden’s climate change goals.40 In other words, rather than regulate emissions and pollutants, the Biden White House would simply strangle financial access for certain types of projects like refineries. If fuel costs are high now, imagine what they’ll be if this effort is allowed to go forward.
This effort wouldn’t stop with banking. With significant fanfare, in the fall of 2021, the Office of Management and Budget attempted to lay out new requirements for the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to ensure that the federal supply chain minimizes the risks of climate change; created a Climate-Related Financial Risk Task Force under the Federal Credit Policy Council to “advance interagency analysis”; and established a Flood Resilience Interagency Working Group that forces the Federal Emergency Management Agency to focus federal efforts on climate change and energy-use reduction.41
In another disappointing move, in the spring of 2022, the White House closed off nearly half the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) to all oil and gas drilling, even as prices at the pump were rising.42 Claiming that the policy would balance protecting “special areas and wildlife habitat with responsible resource development,” the White House reversed a Trump-era policy that would have allowed oil development on more than 80 percent of the area.43
Meanwhile, at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, the weekend before Hurricane Ian hit Florida, President insisted (as he has on other occasions) that he wanted to make sure that oil companies didn’t “gouge” the American people due to weather related disruptions.44 No member of the press asked how he would square that statement with his policies that clearly make fuel prices higher than necessary.
All of these policies have hurt America’s energy independence and created significant pain for American households. Today, some 30 million American households face a “high” energy burden, meaning that they spend more than 6 percent of their income on energy bills.45 Nearly a third of households skipped food or medicine to pay their energy bill in 2021.46 According to the Energy Information Administration’s “Winter Fuels Outlook” in 2021, half of American households will spend at least 30 percent more for natural gas heating than they did the year before.47 Yet when asked about these pressing concerns, the official response from the Biden Administration is always a variation of “Don’t blame me, check the guy behind the tree.”
In March 2022, Fox News’ Peter Doocy challenged then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki about the harmful effects of the Biden energy policies.48 “Why did you guys decide to rebrand the rise in gas prices as the #PutinPriceHike?” Doocy asked.49 In a non-sequitur, Psaki claimed that no one could have predicted Russia would invade Ukraine. She added, “President Putin’s buildup of military troops is leading to volatility and an increase in oil and prices, hence you have a Putin gas-price pump rise.”50
Doocy then turned to drilling. He asked Psaki whether the Biden administration would “cut red tape” to help American oil and gas companies expand drilling in the country.51 Psaki replied that energy companies already had the permits they needed adding, “I don’t think they need an embroidered invitation to drill.”52 Everything Psaki said that day was either false or intentional double-speak. She would have Americans believe that the President’s policies on oil and gas exploration and the shutdown of the Keystone pipeline have had no impact on energy prices.
This exchange happened in March of 2022, at which point the price of gas was $4.17 a gallon, even though it had been $2.53 a gallon the day Biden was inaugurated. 53 Even if a few pennies of the increase were related to the February 24th invasion of Ukraine by Russia, there had been quite a jump in gas prices before the conflict ever occurred.
Let Them Eat Cake
But it wasn’t just the press secretary who ignored the concerns of the American people. While families were struggling with forty-year-high inflation and trying to figure out how to make ends meet, Biden Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm suggested, “[i]f you are low income, you can get your home entirely weatherized.”54 Adding insult to injury, she went on to add, “if you are moderate income, today you can get 30 percent off the price of solar panels.”55
According to a Berkeley Lab report in 2021, Blacks communities aren’t interested in solar panels.56 Instead, solar panels are attractive to the well-heeled, highly educated, overwhelmingly white wokesters that make up the backbone of the progressive movement.57 It remains unclear how the Biden Administration expects families to make these investments or how it will offer any real help with ever increasing energy costs at a time when their official policy is to continue to depress production.
Here’s the truth: this Administration has been more hostile to oil and gas exploration than any other in America’s history, and it should be no surprise that American consumers have paid the price—black families most of all. Even on his campaign website, candidate Biden had promised that he would ban new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters in pursuit of his climate agenda.58 If enacted, the ban would affect nearly a quarter of all fossil fuels that run cars, heat homes, generate electricity, and operate factories.59
According to an early September 2022 Wall Street Journal scoop, the Biden Administration has the lowest rate of oil and gas leasing than any other administration, dating back to the end of World War II.60
America has felt the consequences of President Biden’s energy policies prices across the board.
EIA Winter Fuels Outlook.61
Most natural gas is used for heating and electricity generation.62 Roughly a third of American’s energy use is from natural gas; however, production hasn’t kept pace with demand.63 Among carbon energy sources, natural gas is a cleaner-burning fuel. The International Energy Agency (IEA) says that these plants have between 45 percent and 55 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions than coal-fired plants.64 Notwithstanding this reality, the Biden Administration has delayed issuing leasing agreements.65 As a result, production has been lagging, and as demand has internationally increased, especially in Europe, the U.S. market has been strained, since it didn’t have a buffer to rely on.66 Consequently prices have risen dramatically67—in the summer of 2022, natural gas prices spiked to a fourteen-year high.68
