Biden's trillion dollar climate agenda is blowing up and John Kerry has a lot to answer for

As much as the White House wants to kiss up to the climate lobby, it's clear the world still needs fossil fuels

Biden's trillion dollar climate agenda is blowing up and John Kerry has a lot to answer for

As much as the White House wants to kiss up to the climate lobby, it's clear the world still needs fossil fuels

By Liz Peek Fox News

Published January 16, 2024 5:00am EST

No wonder John Kerry is stepping down as climate czar. Joe Biden’s trillion-dollar green agenda is blowing up, and no one is more closely tied to the fast-deflating boondoggle than John Kerry. 

The push for electric vehicles is a bust, renewable projects like offshore wind farms are being canceled by the boatload, people are tired of being told they can’t buy things they want, like gas stoves and incandescent light bulbs and – guess what? – sane people in our country are willing to admit (finally) that the world will run on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. 

Even Wall Street elites are throwing in the towel; ESG funds, scorched by their high fees and avoidance of oil and gas stocks, are drying up. 

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Just last week, Chesapeake Energy announced it will spend $7.4 billion to purchase Southwestern Energy, creating what will be our country’s largest producer of natural gas. The combined companies will feed an ever-growing demand for U.S. gas to supply LNG exports, essential to loosening Russia’s grip on Europe’s energy.The acquisition signals confidence that Biden’s crack-down on oil and natural gas production has run smack into a reality brick wall; much as the White House wants to pander to the climate lobby, we need fossil fuels.

In 2022, Biden promised our NATO allies the U.S. would ramp up LNG exports to help supply their energy needs. Even as he did so, his confused administration continued to roll out regulations that make generating such supplies more costly and more difficult. Just last week, the White House proposed new fines on methane emissions, part of a broader crackdown that could reportedly make a large number of smaller oil and gas wells uneconomic and curb U.S. production by as much as 5%. 

Right now the feds are deliberating whether to permit construction of another LNG terminal on the Louisiana Coast. Will the White House climate zealots actually decide against it? 

At the same time, war in the Middle East is driving home once again that energy security is national security; the government’s war on fossil fuels looks dumber by the minute. Aggression from Russia’s Putin and Iran’s mullahs is funded by oil; they would have less money to invest in malicious activities were it not for the Biden White House discouraging U.S. production which could bring global prices down. US output is currently 13.2 million barrels per day, finally surpassing the 13 mb/d peak reached during the Trump presidency. But….it would be higher but for the delays in leasing, increased fees, and other obstacles thrown up by the Biden group.   

Kerry and Joe Biden have a lot to answer for.

After all, if the climate agenda were such a resounding success, why isn’t the president tooting his horn about solar fields and electric stoves instead of yelling that Trump is an existential threat to our democracy? John Kerry is reportedly going to join the campaign team to remind voters how successful Biden’s climate program has been. Will that boost Biden’s chances?

It’s hard to imagine Kerry touring the country and cheering on the White House’s push for electric vehicles, for instance. After all, in just the past several days, Hertz decided to sell the bulk of its EV rental fleet – 20,000 cars -- because they are sitting idle on their lots and cost too much money to maintain. Americans don’t want to rent EVs, and they don’t want to buy them either, in spite of the White House ladling out ever more money to make the pricey cars more affordable.   

Passing the huge Inflation Reduction Act, which even the liberal Economist admits is a "misleadingly" labeled climate bill, is considered a major achievement by the Biden team. The $370 billion bill was passed by Democrats, failing to garner a single GOP vote. 

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There’s a reason for that. Bloomberg, an organization all-in on fighting climate change, wrote last summer that the "price tag" for the biggest-ever climate bill "remains mysterious." Bloomberg’s best guess is that "the uncapped incentives of the Inflation Reduction Act mean spending… could triple initial estimates and push past $1 trillion." 

Much of the bill’s spending comes in the "form of tax credits that are uncapped," reported Bloomberg; there is "no restriction on how many businesses or citizens can claim new tax incentives made available to support everything from the purchase of electric vehicles to the production of green hydrogen and assembled-in-America batteries." 

See a problem here? As with the $800 billion Payroll Protection Program funding meant to sustain small businesses during COVID, there will almost certainly be massive spillage. Misused PPP funds went to absurdities like taxpayers footing the bill for Barbra Streisand’s gardener, charged with maintaining her $20 million Malibu mansion.   

Already, multiple business in the EV and battery space have collapsed. EV makers Proterra, Lordstown Motors and Electric Last Mile Solutions have all filed for bankruptcy; a dozen more companies are hanging by a thread.   

There will be more failures. The government is a terrible judge of possible commercial success and will disburse billions to worthless causes.  Worse, John Podesta, political apparatchik of the Clinton and Obama White Houses, is in charge of handing out the $380 billion-plus of "green" money. Watch to see how much money flows to ventures in toss-up states – those which will decide whether Joe Biden gets a second term.  

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Joe Biden receives higher marks on his handling of climate change than on nearly any other issue; 43% approve in a recent CNN survey, but few voters rank the issue high on their list of priorities. 

John Kerry, the jet-setting climate diplomat who was charged with getting other major polluters like China and India to commit to rein in emissions – failed to do that. Turns out those countries prioritize growth and economic success over saving the planet. I wish the Biden White House did the same.

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Liz Peek is a Fox News contributor and former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. A former columnist for the Fiscal Times, she writes for The Hill and contributes frequently to Fox News, the New York Sun and other publications. For more visit LizPeek.com. Follow her on Twitter @LizPeek.