President Trump has it dead right. Recently, he signed five executive orders using the Defense Production Act to accelerate domestic fossil fuel development and electrical grid infrastructure. America needs no-holds-barred development of oil, natural gas, coal, critical minerals, metals, a nuclear renaissance, and manufacturing of the technologies that keep our economy humming and our nation secure.
It’s good to see a president who has zero patience for wind, solar, and giant battery schemes because he understands one simple truth: We must have reliable, affordable, dispatchable energy — not power that goes belly up when the wind dies, clouds roll in, or the sun sets.
Naturally, Democrats oppose any such logic ... if for no other reason than Trump supports it. They want to bulldoze any notion of using fossil fuels while hypocritically fighting nuclear power and even reliable hydroelectric dams. Their green zealotry knows no bounds.
While that’s no surprise, what’s far more alarming (and bizarre) is that some Republicans are pushing a similar watered-down “low-carb net-zero” fantasy, just like the Democrats. They don’t call it the “Green New Deal.” That would be too much.
Instead, they brand it as embracing an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy — one that gives a nod and a wink to nuclear and hydro, but undermines fossil fuels and keeps the mandates, subsidies, and tax credits flowing to wind, solar, and batteries.
Why the heck would they do this, especially since “conservatives” typically don’t stay up late at night fretting about climate change and are suspicious of taxpayer dollars flowing to seedy companies and special interests?
These folks worry about losing suburban “green” votes. They don’t want to be called “climate deniers” or enemies of “clean” energy. Some actually believe renewables are net job creators. Others envision easy money from wind and solar to fill coffers in their states.
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You’ll find them among governors like Kim Reynolds of Iowa and Mark Gordon of Wyoming, senators like John Curtis (R-UT) and Lisa Murkowski R-AK), and RINO groups like the American Conservation Coalition, the Conservative Energy Network, and Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions.
They call themselves “free-market conservatives,” grounded in less regulation and sound science. Nice branding. Too bad their preferred “solutions” are loaded with massive, rarely discussed downsides, especially when it comes to the environment.
Look at the land grab. The SunZia Wind Project is a poster child for net-zero madness: 916 enormous turbines sprawling across hundreds of thousands of acres in New Mexico. At 3.5-gigawatt nameplate capacity and an $11 billion cost, paired with a 550-mile transmission line to California, it’s the largest onshore industrial wind subsidy-grabber in the Western Hemisphere.
Solar? California’s Bellefield project will carpet about 8,000 acres with 1.2 million panels in the Mojave, while Indiana’s Mammoth Solar will swallow 20 square miles where winter sun is pathetic.
These projects are industrial-scale devastation on ranchland and wildlife habitat.
These aren’t empty wastelands. They are prime croplands, ranchlands, and fragile desert and mountain ecosystems getting paved over.
Wildlife carnage is brutal. Turbine blade tips whip at speeds up to 200 mph, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of birds and over a million bats every year in the U.S. alone. Estimates give rates of 4-11 birds and 12-19 bats killed per megawatt. Eagles, hawks, migratory birds, and songbirds all pay the price. Scale this up for net-zero dreams, and the body count explodes.
They’re resource hogs. These projects demand insane amounts of steel, copper, concrete, rare earths, and hundreds of miles of transmission lines. Wind and solar require far more raw materials per unit of actual electricity delivered than nuclear, gas, or coal plants. That means more global mining and pollution, at levels people and planet have never seen before. China owns the supply chain. Beijing dominates 80-90 percent of solar manufacturing, major shares of wind components, 80 percent or more of batteries, and 80-95 percent of critical mineral processing like rare earths. Many systems come with remote “maintenance” backdoors that could let adversaries mess with our grid. This isn’t energy independence. It’s a strategic surrender.
Real conservatives, not “all-of-the-above” pretenders, understand the importance of not only slashing the red tape strangling real energy projects, but also cutting back on the ecologically destructive, subsidy-sucking renewable energy industry.
They understand that even if America went full net-zero at trillions in costs, wrecked industries, lost jobs, and lower living standards, it wouldn’t matter for emissions or the climate.
China pumps out over 13 billion tons of CO2 yearly, about one-third of the global total. India adds over 3 billion. The two countries dwarf U.S. emissions (4.6 billion) and Europe's emissions (3.1 billion) combined. Our enormous sacrifices would be pointless symbolism.
Republicans who court an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy must drop their green virtue-signaling and get on board with the Trump administration and Secretary Wright’s train to prosperity and security. Unleash American energy — oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and domestic mining — and kill the mandates and subsidies that distort markets and enrich adversaries.
Craig Rucker is president of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
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