What's in the plan?

View this email in your browser

MORNING ENERGY NEWS | 04/20/2021

Subscribe Now

It's easier to understand what ISN'T in Biden's plan.

Bloomberg (4/19/21) reports: "President Joe Biden unveils an ambitious target this week to cut the nation’s climate-warming emissions, his administration is also taking steps to refute critics who say it’ll put large numbers of American jobs at risk. Administration officials such as White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm scheduled events on Monday to make the case that the president’s fight against climate change will be a net gain for employment, creating more jobs than it will eliminate. Labor leaders at some of the events underscored the wariness of workers...Biden and the rest of his team have been pitching efforts to fight climate change as an economic opportunity, an argument that will be central to winning public support. Not everyone’s convinced. 'From our analysis, the cumulative impacts of the Biden climate agenda will be to kill good-paying jobs, many of which are union jobs, to reduce American competitiveness, and to make us more dependent on China for our energy,' said Tom Pyle, an adviser to former President Donald Trump and president of the American Energy Alliance, a free-market advocacy group."

"Texas desperately needs more reliable electricity generation; the state’s economy, population, and energy needs show no sign of slowing down. "

– Brent Bennett, Life: Powered

This is not how to push America into the future.

Wall Street Journal (4/18/21) column: "President Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan has many economists excited for a return of old-school Keynesian splurging. 'Fiscal policy is back,' Nobel laureate Joe Stiglitz cheered. 'That will create more demand and that should give people more confidence to invest.' But economic growth—which even Mr. Stiglitz would likely agree is the best way to fight poverty—comes down to supply, not demand. And the Biden plan could stifle the innovation that drives it. Whether public or private, spending doesn’t cause growth. Mr. Stiglitz and his allies have it backward: Consumption is downstream from production. Growth is about increasing the supply of goods over time; you can’t spend if the goods haven’t been produced. Production grows as technology and production processes improve. Such improvement requires saving and investing rather than consuming."

Just what Middle America needs to come out of the COVID-19 slump, more EV subsidies...

Real Clear Energy (4/19/21) column: "No one’s surprised to find President Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure package brimming with special interest pork, but his green dreams may be the biggest government boondoggle yet. Included in the infrastructure bill are $174 billion toward vehicle electrification, provisions for 500,000 new electric car charging stations, and plans to electrify the entire federal vehicle fleet. While electric vehicles (EVs) are a strong symbol of climate activism — a clear statement declaring concern about the fate of the planet — as things stand today, they make little difference in terms of curbing global greenhouse gas emissions. The United States’ energy grid is still largely reliant on fossil fuels. Adding millions of federal electric cars to the road and spending billions on charging stations without solving the problem of establishing reliable, zero-emission energy puts the cart before the horse. And though renewable energy like wind and solar are in vogue with the Democratic administration, the impracticality of scaling these technologies is an inconvenient truth that can’t be ignored."

ICYMI: Pete's biggest walk back...of the month.

Reason (4/6/21) reports: "In pitching his $2.25 trillion infrastructure spending proposal, President Joe Biden said last week that if the plan was passed, 'the economy will create 19 million jobs—good jobs, blue collar jobs, jobs that pay well' over the next 10 years. That's a technically accurate description of an analysis of the American Jobs Plan published by Moody's Analytics, an economic forecasting firm. But it leaves out a major caveat: Without the passage of the American Jobs Act, Moody's projects that the economy will create 16.3 million jobs in the next decade. In other words, the passage of Biden's infrastructure plan would boost job creation by about 2.7 million jobs—not 19 million. Other administration officials have been more aggressive and less nuanced about selling the 19 million figure. CNN notes that Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, told Fox News on Sunday that the infrastructure plan would 'create 19 million jobs,' full stop. In making the rounds to Sunday morning news programs on ABC and NBC, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg repeated that claim. On Monday, Buttigieg walked back the White House's claims during an interview on CNN. 'I should be precise about this,' Buttigieg said, before acknowledging that the 2.7 million figure is the accurate reading of the Moody's report. 'The point is, this will contribute to a scenario where we create [19 million] jobs, and millions of them are specifically attributable to this plan.'"

Energy Markets

WTI Crude Oil: ↑ $63.50
Natural Gas: ↓ $2.73
Gasoline: ~ $2.87

Diesel: ↓ $3.07
Heating Oil: ↓ $189.05
Brent Crude Oil: ↑ $67.37
US Rig Count: ↓ 513

Donate

Subscribe to AEA's Unregulated Podcast

Subscribe to IER's Plugged In Podcast

Friend on Facebook

Follow on Twitter

Forward to a Friend

Our mailing address is:
1155 15th Street NW
Suite 900
Washington, DC xxxxxx

Want to change how you receive these emails?
update your preferences
unsubscribe from this list