Remember the feds’ warning to Americans in the fall that heating bills could jump greatly this winter — by as much as 54%? Well, as the country has seen cold temperatures and serious snowfall over the last couple of weeks, liberal lawmakers are taking notice and demanding that something be done.
The Wall Street Journal on Monday highlighted a letter in which 41 Democrat members of Congress — all of whom have repeatedly supported and advocated for onerous climate change policies that have a proven history of hiking energy prices — begged federal regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to use their “power to influence retail rates for natural gas and electricity.”
As the Journal noted, these Democrats certainly have “chutzpah.”
These same left-wingers’ party and political allies have repeatedly forced energy prices higher and have even said they want to make using fossil fuels more expensive — you know, to cut down on emissions. It was their standard-bearer, President Barack Obama, who admitted that his policies would force electricity prices to “necessarily skyrocket.”
In fact, as Bjørn Lomborg recently pointed out for the Journal, the left’s “net zero” emissions dream is largely ineffectual when it comes to the climate but will cost “many trillions,” as the soaring prices we see today are “only the beginning.”
Energy prices are soaring, and it’s likely a sign of things to come. The rise can be blamed on a variety of things, including the demand rebound after the lockdowns ended, a drop in renewable electricity output from a lack of wind in Europe during most of 2021, and increasingly costly climate policies. But while the pandemic will end and the wind will blow again, climate policies to achieve “net zero” emissions will keep hiking prices.
Barack Obama acknowledged in 2008 that electricity prices “would necessarily skyrocket” under his proposed climate policies. He was more candid than many of today’s politicians and advocates. Limiting the use of fossil fuels requires making them more expensive and pushing people toward green alternatives that remain pricier and less efficient.
And Lomborg predicts things will continue to escalate:
Costs will continue to rise if politicians remain bent on achieving net-zero emissions globally. Bank of America finds that achieving net zero globally by 2050 will cost $150 trillion over 30 years—almost twice the combined annual gross domestic product of every country on earth. The annual cost ($5 trillion) is more than all the world’s governments and households spend every year on education. Academic studies find the policy is even costlier. The largest database on climate scenarios shows that keeping temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius—a less stringent policy than net zero by midcentury—would likely cost $8.3 trillion, or 3.3% of world GDP, every year by 2050, and the costs keep escalating so that by the end of the century taxpayers will have paid about $1 quadrillion—a thousand trillion—in total.
These estimates are based on the heroic assumption that climate policy costs will be spread efficiently, with big emitters China and India cutting the most. New Delhi says it will only keep moving toward net zero if the rest of the world pays it $1 trillion by 2030, which won’t happen.
The predictions only get worse. Read the whole article here.
Naturally, President Biden and his fellow climate fearmongers deny their policies have anything to do with rising energy prices. They, of course, claim energy companies are somehow manipulating the market.
The Democrat letter-writers claimed, “There are many overlapping factors leading to this rise in energy prices, including profiteering from oil and gas companies and high oil and gas exports.”
As the Journal pointed out, the lawmakers should read the document from the U.S. Energy Information Administration that their letter cited.
The high prices follow changes to energy supply and demand patterns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect that households across the United States will spend more on energy this winter compared with the past several winters because of these higher energy prices and because we assume a slightly colder winter than last year in much of the United States.
Even when we vary weather expectations, we expect the increase in energy prices as the United States returns to economic growth to mean higher residential energy bills this winter:
● We expect that the nearly half of U.S. households that heat primarily with natural gas will spend 30% more than they spent last winter on average—50% more if the winter is 10% colder-than-average and 22% more if the winter is 10% warmer-than-average.
● We expect the 41% of U.S. households that heat primarily with electricity will spend 6% more—15% more in a colder winter and 4% more in a warmer winter.
● The 5% of U.S. households that heat primarily with propane will spend 54% more—94% more in a colder winter and 29% more in a warmer winter.
● The 4% of U.S. households that heat primarily with heating oil will spend 43% more—59% more in a colder winter and 30% more in a warmer winter. […]Nearly half of all U.S. households heat primarily with natural gas. We expect households that use natural gas as their primary space heating fuel will spend $746 this winter, 30% more than they spent last winter. This increase in natural gas expenditures comes from both higher expected prices and higher expected consumption.
Americans’ bills will be higher because of higher prices and increased demand, which has outpaced the increase in production. It’s the president and his fellow climate change warriors who have pushed polices aimed at phasing out the domestic production of fossil fuels and driving up prices.
Source: TheBlaze
