Guest essay by Eric Worrall
New Mexico supported Biden 54.3% to 43.5% for Trump, despite Biden’s promise to shut down the fossil fuel industry, yet all they seem to do nowadays is complain about their new leader’s efforts to deliver on his promise.
Biden drilling ban forces Democratic-led New Mexico to reckon with oil dependence
By Nichola Groom, Valerie Volcovici, Jennifer Hiller
FEBRUARY 9, 202110:14 PM(Reuters) – When Stan Rounds heard about U.S. President Joe Biden’s plans to suspend new drilling on federal lands to fight climate change, he worried about the education budget.
Rounds heads a state association of school administrators. He knows that New Mexico – home to the country’s richest oil fields on federal lands – depends heavily on drilling revenues to finance its struggling public schools. And budgets have already taken a hit from falling crude prices as the coronavirus pandemic sapped global fuel demand.
“While you appreciate the green policies for environmental issues, you can’t strangulate the revenue streams in New Mexico,” said Rounds, executive director of the New Mexico Coalition of Educational Leaders. “So we’re very concerned.”
…
Democratic politicians in a slew of oil-dependent states are being forced to reckon with a clash of progressive ideals: Their support for Biden’s plan to fight global warming could damage the fossil-fuel economy that has been a huge source of revenue for government programs.
…
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-drilling-newmexico-insight-idUSKBN2A91JD
Meanwhile, back in Washington, Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki has challenged reporters to provide evidence that oil workers are not transitioning to better paid green jobs.
Psaki Dodges Question About Laid-Off Pipeline Workers, Green Jobs
BY ISABEL VAN BRUGEN
February 9, 2021 Updated: February 9, 2021…
On Monday, Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Psaki at a White House press conference, “When is it that the Biden administration is going to let the thousands of fossil fuel industry workers, whether it’s pipeline workers or construction workers who are either out of work or will soon be out of work because of a Biden [executive order], when it is and where it is that they can go for their green job?”
“I would certainly welcome you to present your data of all the thousands and thousands of people who won’t be getting a green job,” Psaki responded. “Maybe next time you’re here, you can present that.”
“But you said that they would be getting green jobs. So I’m just asking when that happens,” Doocy shot back, before citing AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka who had criticized Biden’s revocation of the Keystone XL permit.
“The Laborers’ International Union of North America said the Keystone decision will ‘cost 1,000 existing union jobs and 10,000 projected construction’ jobs,” the reporter continued, referring to a report published on Jan. 20.
“There are people living paycheck to paycheck. There are now people out of jobs once the Keystone pipeline stopped construction… it’s been 19 days since that [executive order]. So what are these people who need money now—when do they get their green job?”
Psaki responded by saying that Biden will share more details of a plan to create “green” jobs “in the weeks ahead.”
…
Read more: https://www.theepochtimes.com/psaki-dodges-question-about-laid-off-pipeline-workers-green-jobs_3690385.html
Psaki will circle back to the question of exactly when the green jobs will be available, when she is good and ready to do so.
What should New Mexico fossil fuel workers do while they are waiting for their new green jobs? If they are looking for something to do, I guess they could try Biden’s suggestion they retrain as software developers.
I wonder what all the unemployed in New Mexico are going to do?? Hmm? Wasn’t Breaking Bad based in New Mexico? Just a thought, maybe a new series, Breaking Biden?
I don’t see what they are so upset and worried about. For jobs, (and Biden is playing it a bit close to the chest and being coy, but) he plans to roll out a trillion-dollar program, called the Civilian Climate Corps, or CCC. Pay will start at $15/hour, and will involve “green” things like picking up roadside litter, trash collection, shoveling stuff (“shovel-ready”), insulating attics, and so on. Many of the jobs of course will be administrative. They will get paid, regardless of how much (or how little) work they do. It will be wonderful.
What a bizarre statement. Since Psaki, Biden and crew are stating that green jobs are plentiful, it is up to them to present the evidence to prove their case. It’s is not up to someone else to prove/disprove a negative.
Reversing the Null Hypothesis is always the first goal of those who know they can’t prove what they claim.
“Well, Mz Psaki, maybe when the fences are down and the national guard has gone home, you could invite them here to discuss it with them personally.”
Here in NM, our dem senators, reps, and governor are all in favor of the drilling ban. even though it will accomplish nothing in terms of climate change. They assume – perhaps correctly – that Biden will give them all the replacement money they need.
It is easier to keep poor people under the boot, than educated people that can earn a living in a free prosperous society.
The question is how many people will trade freedom for security and figure out that they are receiving neither?
When more voters figure that out, new people must be imported to dilute their vote.
Meanwhile, MA Undersecretary for Climate Change (heh, what a name) was called out for publicly stating what they all think (but aren’t supposed to say), “We need to break your will”. He has since resigned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muxVGmgykA4
David Ismay … D Ismay (his parents saw it comming a long time ago)
“Ismay? Any relation to Bruce Ismay, Chairman of the White Star Line, who took a seat on the Titanic’s lifeboat to save his life? If so, that explains it.”
Leave him in power for a while longer and he may live up to his ancestors’ scumbaggy example of selfishness.
Let them eat code!!!!!
This is part of what is wrong with our country today, uneducated voters. What did they think Biden would do? Didn’t they look at ANYTHING he has said in the last 10 years? I have no sympathy for them.
Here’s the plan: block permits and drilling, then send stimulus to NM state govt, then watch energy price inflation soar, and send another stimulus payment to the NM poor before the next elections.
Elections have consequences. They should have thought about that before they voted the way they did. I hope they get precisely what they voted for.
That is a BOHIC smile if I every saw one!
I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for people who lost their jobs but supported Biden. They got exactly what they asked for. Those of us who were paying attention knew this would happen.
In 2009 when we did layoffs, we went to the parking lot and picked the cars with Obama/Biden stickers. Problem this time, their weren’t any REAL, EMPLOYED Biden voters.
Green jobs:
http://appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/BuildBackBetter_files/image020.jpg
Be careful leaving NM. The roads are really bad there.
Are they better or worse than the roads entering NM?
Pretty soon, the lanes going outbound are going to be getting a lot more wear.
Vote stupid, live with the consequences.
Report: Cancelling Keystone Will Boost Carbon Emissions Equal to Nearly 500K More Cars on Road | CNSNews
According to the linked article, cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline will result in the emission of 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year, from diesel locomotives used to pull trains carrying the 400,000 BPD of oil which would otherwise be carried by the pipeline, and then pull the empty cars back to Canada to be re-loaded.
If we assume that the pipeline would be 1,000 miles long, and 3 ft in diameter, the frictional pressure drop for 400,000 BPD (about 26 ft3/s) would be about 0.058 psi/100 ft, or about 3,080 psi over 1,000 miles (there would probably be booster pumps along the length of the pipeline). This would require a brake horsepower for the pumps of about 21,000 HP, or about 15.6 MW. Assuming the pumps are 60% efficient, and their motors 80% efficient, this would require about 32.6 MW of electric power.
If the electric power was generated by a simple-cycle natural gas plant at 35% thermal efficiency, it would consume about 93.1 MW of natural-gas heating value. The heat of combustion of methane is about 50 MJ/kg, requiring the burning of 1.86 kg/s of methane to produce the power needed to drive the Keystone XL pipeline pumps, or about 58,720 metric tonnes per year. .
Since burning 16 kg of methane produces 44 kg of CO2, this would result in the emission of about 161,480 metric tonnes per year of CO2 (about 178,000 short tons per year).
Building the Keystone XL pipeline, as compared to the current rail transport of the same amount of oil, would actually REDUCE CO2 emissions by a net 1,500,000 – 178,000 = 1,322,000 tons per year.
Did anyone bother to tell Joe Biden that by cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline, he was actually increasing CO2 emissions and contributing to “global warming”? Or did anyone bother to do the calculation? Math is hard, which is why the.Biden team needed Chinese help to win the election.
To New Mexico (and other) Democrats: you reap what you sow. Elections have consequences, as your beloved leader Barack Obama once said. My schadenfreude at your misery could not be greater. And I hope New Mexico voters make you feel even greater misery in 2022.
It was during the “Spotted Owl” crisis in the mid-90’s. My wife and I were volunteer Camp Ground Hosts for the US Forest Service at Diamond Lake, Oregon. I talked to one young family. He admitted that he was in the mountains to poach a deer – put some meat on the family table.
Roseburg (OR) had seven sawmills – six were shut down because of the owl. Out of work mill hands were offered a training course in ‘coding’. This young chap hadn’t completed high school. “No way.”
I did mentioned this conversation to our supervisor — a couple of weeks later.
This isn’t a “conservative” issue. It’s a commonsense issue. Energy is key to prosperity. Every nation in the world knows this whether they admit it or not. Germany promotes “green” because they are fossil fuel poor. China is oil poor, as well, but they accidentally release a virus that upends the world economy without retribution. Really? How is nobody blaming China for letting this virus escape the lab? Why does anybody even care about an existential threat of global warming when we live in the here and now?
Why is the USA being held hostage to masking when Covid is being vaccinated away? What is wrong with being energy independent and no longer having to care about another nation providing it for us? A nation that provides all their own energy no longer has to fight for it in the Middle East.
I’m perplexed that people spend time bashing Trump and worrying about being woke when we need to solve issues that matter.
the minority who actually DID vote for *OTUS Zhou Bai-Din deserve to get what they voted for, and they deserve to get it good and hard.
unfortunately, the majority of America who voted for the true POTUS, Donald J Trump, are being taken along on their little ride to #Failville.
sucks to be us.
I guess we’re going to need to form a union of residential consumer CO2 emitters since unions is all they understand in that Party.
We will also need a group to operate a climate religion doomsday clock with a few minutes left before advocacy success defeats science.
You’ve gotta go to Santa Fe, to see how the effete elites live there. Only then, I suspect, can you understand how NM could have voted this way.
Biden’s actions were well telegraphed. Thus NM voters are getting what they ostensibly wanted and voted for. Just wish Biden voters could get charged a voter surcharge at the gas station.
It’s time to start looking into affiliate membership in a NM tribal nation. They have the casinos and they can’t be pushed around by the Santa Fe over reach squad.
No worries, our gov has committed us to 100% solar & wind in a few years;-/