Carbon Tax

A made-in-China electric vehicle will arrive at U.S. dealers this summer offering power and efficiency similar to the Tesla Model Y, with sticker price of about $8,000 less. The $35,000 window sticker of Volvo’s compact SUV (the EX30 )–a five-seater electric SUV that will have a 275-mile driving range and a five-second 0-60 mile-per-hour time–will provide a more affordable electric vehicle to U.S. markets. Volvo is the Swedish luxury brand owned by China’s Geely. The competitive...

Biden’s policies of forcing electric vehicles on the American public and domestic auto manufacturers through regulations and standards is playing into China’s hands. China, with few oil and gas resources of its own, has found electric vehicles to be a way to dominate the world’s auto market. China achieved number one ranking in EV sales last year. As with other commodities, Chinese companies have an operating edge on EV production with cheap energy and labor, operational efficiencies...

On April 15, Biden’s Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) finalized a new rule requiring federal offshore oil and natural gas leaseholders to provide an estimated $6.9 billion in additional financial assurances to cover offshore decommissioning costs. The goal of the financial assurances is to limit the number of abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and  to address concerns related to aging OCS infrastructure, property...

The Biden administration is expected to block an agency of the State of Alaska’s application to build a 211-mile road through northwestern Alaska to reach an area long known for its mineral richness. The road-building project is proposed by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) and is needed to access major copper and zinc deposits needed for Biden’s “clean energy” transition , including transmission lines, wind turbines and photovoltaic cells. Biden’s...

President Biden’s administration worries about gas prices reaching or exceeding $4 a gallon—a price where the electorate looks for an alternative to the incumbency in a Presidential election. Last time, gas prices were that high was before the 2022 mid-term elections when President Biden released billions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, leaving it at its lowest level in 40 years. Since that alternative has largely been diminished with few barrels bought back to...

The Biden administration has been active over the past month in producing policies to put future domestic oil and gas production on public lands in jeopardy. Specifically, he has proposed removal of 13 million acres from the National Petroleum Reserve—Alaska, finalized policies that increase the cost of producing oil and gas on federal land, and cut the amount of land to be leased for oil and gas development in a New Mexico auction by over 3000 acres. These are on top of holding the...

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), its emissions tailpipe rule will reduce total greenhouse gas emissions over 2027 to 2055 by 7.2 billion metric tons. Applying EPA’s climate model, the rule would reduce global temperatures in 2100 by 0.0068 degrees Celsius — an effect far too small to be detectable, which is why EPA admits  it “did not…specifically quantify changes in climate impacts resulting from this rule in terms of avoided temperature change or sea-level...

A major flaw in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is that there is effectively no cap on the tax subsidies that President Biden provides to his favorite “green” technologies. Despite more than four decades  of subsidies for wind and solar technologies, the IRA continues to subsidize these technologies as if they were still emerging, which they are not. As Biden continues handing out taxpayer funds that promote these technologies, their intermittent production is causing instability to...

The United States could be a major global lithium producer if it were not for policies and regulations by the federal and state governments, which are hampering efforts to break China’s control of the critical minerals sector. Global lithium demand is expected to outpace supply by 500,000 metric tons  annually by 2030 due to the push for a “clean” energy transition. Unless the United States can increase its lithium production, the country’s manufacturers will be reliant on China and...

On March 29, 2024, Good Friday, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rolled out its new electric truck mandate, which will require that electric semi-trucks make up an increasing share of manufacturer sales from 2027 through 2032, similar to its recent rule for passenger cars. EPA’s rule would effectively require electric models to account for 60 percent of new urban delivery trucks and 25 percent of long-haul tractor sales by 2032. The electric truck mandate is  even more...