Originally published: September 19, 2024
The costs of Biden-Harris's "government-dictated green energy" policies have been enormous so far, would have been catastrophic if not for their opponents' resistance, and will be apocalyptic if not stopped in the future.
My testimony to the Budget Committee (video below)
My name is Alex Epstein. I am a non-partisan philosopher and energy expert. I am grateful to share with members of both parties my analysis of “government-dictated green energy,” which is the essential energy policy of the Biden-Harris administration and of much of today's world.
The basic idea of government-dictated green energy is that the government should force us to rapidly replace our use of fossil fuel energy with so-called green energy—above all, solar and wind—such that we reach net-zero GHG emissions by 2050.
There are three basic truths you need to know about the costs of government-dictated green energy:
1) They have been enormous so far
2) They would have been catastrophic had it not been for the resistance of their opponents
3) They will be apocalyptic if not stopped in the future
All the energy-related problems we have experienced in recent years—higher gasoline prices, higher heating bills, higher electricity bills, and unreliable electricity—are the result of government-dictated green energy policies.
When you shackle the most cost-effective and scalable source of energy, fossil fuels, and subsidize unreliable solar and wind, energy necessarily becomes more expensive, less reliable, and less secure. It's that simple.
Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris administration is engaged in a denial campaign, blaming our energy problems and the problems they lead to on everything but their own policies, especially Putin (a derivative factor) and industry greed (a lie).
High fossil fuel prices have not primarily been a “Putin price hike.” They have been caused by government-dictated green energy—which made fossil fuel prices artificially high before Putin’s war and prevented the free world from quickly increasing production in response.
High fossil fuel prices have certainly not been determined by "greed," including "price gouging." Prices are determined by supply and demand. If oil and gas companies could control energy prices in their favor, why didn’t they do so from 2015-2020 when they were losing money?
The truth is that government-dictated green energy policies are fundamentally responsible for all the energy-related costs we experience today compared to a decade ago. In fact, were it not for these policies energy would have gotten considerably cheaper and more reliable.
And it gets worse. Since energy is the industry that powers every other industry, by making energy more expensive and less reliable we make everything more expensive and less reliable—which means government-dictated green energy drives price inflation.
But even blaming Biden-Harris's government-dictated green energy policies for all the increasing energy-related costs we experience today is not enough. We have to recognize that these policies would have done far more damage had they not been vigorously opposed.
In action after action, the Biden-Harris administration has shown us that it will do anything it can get away with politically to rapidly eliminate fossil fuels: pipeline blocking, Federal leasing bans, LNG prohibitions, power plant shutdowns, EV mandates, SEC rules, etc, etc.
Most of what this administration has tried to do to rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use has been, thankfully, slowed by opposition: lawsuits over power plant shutdowns, courts reversing illegal leasing bans, etc. Without this opposition they would have already caused energy ruin.
Consider our grid: America desperately needs more reliable power plants given huge demand from AI and (Biden-Harris mandated) EVs.
But our EPA has tried to shut down all coal—1/6 of reliable capacity!
Were it not for Biden-Harris opponents we’d already have a 3rd-world grid.
I hope you can understand why I’m so concerned about our energy future: the costs of government-dictated green energy have been enormous, and would have been truly catastrophic had the Biden-Harris administration done everything they wanted to.
Here’s what scares me most. Our administration and others promise to rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use to reach net-zero by 2050.
But so far they've only managed to slow fossil fuels' growth—and just that’s caused an energy crisis. What happens if we really start going net-zero?
Just think about agriculture. Our ability to feed 8 billion people is dependent on natural gas for fertilizer and diesel for farm equipment—neither of which has a near-term scalable substitute. Government-dictated green energy, unopposed, would starve much of the world.
There is an alternative to government-dictated green energy: energy freedom. Energy freedom means the freedom to produce and use all sources of energy, so long as they are subject to reasonable protections against pollution and other forms of endangerment.
With energy freedom we can have maximum energy abundance now—which will keep us prosperous and resilient—and maximum energy innovation so that we are able to develop cheaper, more plentiful alternatives to fossil fuels (my expectation is nuclear, but may the best source win).
Moving away from government-dictated green energy and toward energy freedom will require leaders of both parties to have the courage to reject all forms of energy shackling and energy favoritism.
Whatever party you're from, I want to help you fight for energy freedom.