(See also, “Trump’s ‘big’ and ‘beautiful’ tax bill retains hundreds of billions (maybe trillions?) in ‘Green New Deal’ spending” by Olivia Murray.)

In an earlier article for American Thinker, I wrote about the Conservative Climate Caucus in Congress, providing proof that bad ideas can flourish on both sides of the political divide. I concluded the article by warning readers that it was important to eliminate all vestiges of the Green New Deal and stop subsidy-seeking companies from manipulating the political environment to enrich themselves at the expense of the public.

To my dismay, the forces arrayed against this happening have prevailed. With Trump’s electoral victory and the Republican’s success in winning the Senate and House, I would have thought that there was a chance of rolling back the Green New Deal. I was wrong. Alex Epstein writes about it in his substack of May 19th, describing how Republicans got roped into a deal that keeps the IRA (a.k.a. Green New Deal) intact. The details that he describes are rather involved but the upshot is that the Republicans folded like a house of cards when they came under pressure from the wind and solar lobbies.

I have written at length about the value proposition of renewables; what I mean by value proposition is the negative value that renewables add to the energy sector. They increase cost and decrease reliability, but continue to be pushed by green crusaders and subsidy-seeking companies (read Baptists and Bootleggers) who have powerful influence in government. Speaking out against them are myself and others like Alex Epstein, but it does not seem like a fair fight. The amount of money invested by parties in the status quo is so immense that they will not go quietly into the night. They are squeezing congressmen by telling them that their districts will lose federal funds, their constituents will lose jobs, and the planet will perish. It takes a strong principled man to stand up to that type of pressure.

I recall two times in recent memory when politicians buckled under such pressure. One was during the mortgage crisis of 2008 when Wall Street bankers and their friends at the Fed and Treasury painted a picture of an economic meltdown to Bush Jr. if he did not go along with the bailout. The other was in the early days of COVID when Fauci and company painted a picture of widespread death if Trump did not go along with the lockdowns. Saving the Green New Deal constitutes a third instance that is just as bad as the others.

Image generated by AI.