By Brian Morgenstern Sam Lyman
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The October 7 terrorist attack in Israel. Sky-high inflation. The crushing price of groceries and other consumer goods. Pain at the pump.
One throughline connects some of the greatest failures of the Biden presidency: bad energy policy.
To right the wrongs of his predecessor, President Donald Trump took the unprecedented step of declaring a national energy emergency on his first day in office. In his inauguration speech, Trump vowed to “bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again right to the top, and export American energy all over the world.” In contrast to the national malaise of the Biden years, Trump’s ambitious energy agenda promises a new morning in America. His commitment to “energy dominance” will subdue our enemies, tame the tiger of inflation, and usher in a new era of tech supremacy.
To understand why Trump declared a national energy emergency, it is first critical to understand where Biden failed on this issue. Consider the human toll of Biden’s energy policy in three arenas: Ukraine, Israel, and Mainstreet America.
Putin’s war on Ukraine was boosted by Biden’s own war on U.S. oil producers.
In the first year of his presidency, Biden kneecapped domestic LNG production by blocking new oil and gas leases on federal lands, canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, and imposing impossible standards on domestic fossil fuel producers. As a result, U.S. crude oil production remained woefully behind pre-pandemic levels for the first year of Biden’s presidency—to the tune of approximately one million fewer barrels of oil per day.
Cheering on Biden’s restrictions just as much as the environmental lobby was Russian President Vladimir Putin. As the U.S. retreated from global oil markets, Russia advanced, increasing its production by nearly nine hundred thousand barrels a day in 2021. Putin’s ability to eat into the U.S. market share in the energy sector put Russia on strong economic footing in the leadup to its invasion of Ukraine.
After the invasion, the high price of oil fueled Russia’s war machine, kept its economy alive, and shored up its currency in the most critical years of the Ukraine conflict. Biden could have undermined Russia’s military campaign and decreased global oil prices simply by removing his restrictions on U.S. producers, allowing them to drill to their full capacity. But he refused and exacerbated the problem in 2024 by pausing new LNG exports to European allies. Thousands of innocent Ukrainians suffered as a result of Biden’s energy policies.
Sadly, Biden’s war on U.S. oil producers not only strengthened Russia—it also empowered Iran and endangered Israel.
Like Russia, Iran was able to capture a significant portion of the global oil market share that would have otherwise gone to the U.S. were it not for Biden’s harmful regulations. And like Russia, Iran was able to leverage this oil revenue to launch its own war. Using Hamas as its proxy, the Iranian regime engineered the October 7 terrorist attack against Israel, sparking one of the bloodiest conflicts in the region’s history.
From Europe to the Middle East, Biden’s disastrous energy policies made the world a more dangerous place. They also made it more expensive.
Mainstreet America was just another casualty in Biden’s war on oil. Everyday citizens foot the bill for this war in the form of high inflation, which reached a peak of over 9% in 2022 and caused the dollar to lose over 22% of its purchasing power in only four years. Exacerbating the highest inflation our country has seen in a generation were rising energy prices that resulted from the Biden administration’s attempts to curb fossil fuel production in favor of renewable energy.
Seeing the damage wrought by his predecessor’s energy policies—both here at home and abroad—Trump had no choice but to declare a national energy emergency. Thankfully, the new president understands what the former never did: Energy is the base layer of all matter, life, and human activity. Or, as Einstein put it, E = mc2.
As the fundamental currency of the universe, countries rise and fall on their ability to maximize energy production. And any attempt to manipulate the supply-and-demand dynamics that govern its use leads to distortions—not only in global markets but in monetary systems and international politics as well.
Trump intuits this. Which is why “Drill, baby, drill!”—beyond being a catchy slogan—is a promising, first-principles approach to getting our country back on track.
The logic is simple: Biden’s policies hurt energy providers here at home while enriching our enemies abroad. These policies drove up the price of energy and inflation in our country, making all Americans poorer. And they made electricity harder to acquire than ever before just when critical emerging industries in tech and transportation needed it most.
That’s why, as part of his national energy emergency, President Trump must revoke Biden-era energy regulations. Every last one.
The economy of the future—including Bitcoin and AI data centers, electric vehicles, commercial space exploration, and quantum computing—will require far more energy than we are producing today. According to research from S&P Global, electricity demand from U.S. data centers alone is expected to more than double over the next decade, increasing from 185 TWh to 440 TWh. Failing to meet this demand would give China the edge in the race for artificial intelligence, putting both our economy and our national security at risk.
Given the challenges facing our nation, securing energy dominance is the only option.
If the U.S. is to succeed in weakening its enemies, wrangling inflation, spurring GDP growth, and onshoring manufacturing, then it needs to use its God-given energy assets. This includes nuclear, hydro, solar, and yes, fossil fuels.
Almost no clean energy project would succeed without the manufacturing and infrastructure that fossil fuels make possible. Case in point: Texas.
Policymakers in the Lonestar State recognized long ago that oil and natural gas were critical companions in scaling up renewable energy. So in contrast to California, Texas lawmakers opted to encourage fossil fuel production, rather than restrict it. This decision has resulted in more—not less—renewable energy generation overall and the cleanest energy mix in the country. Our country’s leaders should embrace this all-of-the-above approach to energy production.
For the last four years under Biden, the federal government’s foot has been on the brake pad of energy generation. Trump must move it to the accelerator—because cheap and abundant power is the key to a safer world, lower inflation, better tech, and a stronger economy.
Brian Morgenstern is head of public policy for Riot Platforms and served as White House deputy communications director and deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury during the first Trump administration.
Sam Lyman is director of public policy for Riot Platforms and served as chief speechwriter to United States Senator Orrin Hatch.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
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Oil production in Bidens era peaked higher than Trumps time. Nothing to do with either , it was market forces.
To cherry pick his first year is nonsense, as that was the COVID era dip
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/fossil-fuels/chart-the-us-hits-new-highs-for-oil-and-gas-production
But oil production would have been even higher without Biden’s policies. I suggest Biden tolerated high production because he knew if he didn’t he wouldn’t have a chance of reelection. With the decrease in Russian and Iranian and Venezuelan oil production- without high production of American oil, the price at the pump would have skyrocket and Biden didn’t want that for purely political reasons- going against his supporters who want to stop all ff.
That’s a very generous comment, suggesting that Biden was capable of such thinking.
And Trump is the genius?..Covfefe and blue light ?
Seriously? Cov fe’fe is an Arabic phrase meaning “I will stand”. Trump was in the Middle East and probably had someone give him that translation, maybe getting the punctuation wrong. UV light is frequently used for disinfecting. I assume that’s what you were talking about, since I don’t remember Trump saying anything about blue light. My optometrist always warns about too much exposure to blue light, though
Oil production under Biden was higher as a result of the policies of the first Trump administration. It takes time to get the ball rolling and is not something that can be turned on and start flowing. Name an energy policy that Biden introduced that contributed to high oil production in his term? There wasn’t any. In fact, Biden policies made producing oil, gas and coal more challenging. When you go on the campaign trail and talk about ridding the USA of fossil fuels that is all you need to know about Biden and his policies and agenda. Just another windbag whose political career is filled with idiotic statements and proclamations for the sole purpose of listening to himself speak. A feel good moment for a narcissist.
And those numbers during Trumps first term was because of Obama’s policies.
Give me a break.
Oil and gas responds to market forces not the pontifications in the White house.
You dont seem to know Trump renewed the ban on offshore oil/gas drilling in the Atlantic coast… from South Carolina to Florida incl Mar a Lago
In 2020, Trump did allow a ban on drilling off the Florida, Georgia, and Carolina coasts in answer to property owners who opposed it because it would spoil their views and decrease the value of their property.
Prior to that, in 2017, Trump issued an executive order aiming to open new areas of the Outer Continental Shelf to oil and gas exploration, reversing Obama-era protections. This order was later challenged and halted by a federal court in 2019, which ruled that the action exceeded presidential authority.
In 2018, the administration announced plans to allow drilling in nearly all U.S. waters, proposing the largest expansion of offshore oil and gas leasing ever. This plan included regions that had long been off-limits to development, such as areas in the Arctic and along the Eastern Seaboard.
Total BS Trump cheerleader right wing biased hack Trump worshipping writer who ignores all inconvenient data.
Three fake emergencies declared in 10 days by Dictator Trump seeking unprecedented political power.
Unprecedented, unconstitutional attempt to impound several trillion of Congressional approved spending by Dictator Trump. Let Congress pass a budget and go home for a year Dictator Trump will decide what HE will spend the money on.
The Energy Emergency is total BS too:
The US oil and gas industry has been booming
under Biden
2023 Actuals
Record oil production
Record oil exports
Record natural gas production
Record natura; gas exports
Record coal exports
US CO2 emissions down 6% from 2019
2024 Estimates
Record oil production
Record oil exports
Near record natural gas production
Record natura; gas exports
Record coal exports
That is NOT an energy emergency, it is a Biden energy miracle. Dictator Trump may not match that record two years in a row like Biden did.
But Dictator Trump is a better liar so he will probably CLAIM he was the best energy president in US history no matter what happens.
The author is also stupid on the cause of inflation. Rising energy prices do not cause inflation, they are caused by inflation of the money supply by the Fed.
Saying rising energy causes inflation is the same as saying rising prices cause rising prices, which implies runaway inflation, and economic ignorance.
The Biden IRA law may be a waste of money but it did not cause inflation:
June 2022
CPI inflation up 9.1% year over year
August 2022
Biden IRA law passed
December 2024
CPI inflation up 2.9% year over year
The inflation rate fell by 68%
“The Biden IRA law may be a waste of money but it did not cause inflation”
all wasted money contributes to inflation
Does that mea that government spending in 2009 had no wasted money? Must be, based o your theory, because the US CPI declined by -0.4%. Another theory bites the dust.
There was a lot more deficit spending under Biden.
Deficit spending was higher under Trump 1.0 He signed 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 budgets
.
The total federal deficit from 2018 through 2021 is approximately $7.7 trillion; with $779 billion in 2018, $984 billion in 2019, $3.1 trillion in 2020, and $2.8 trillion in 2021.
Biden signed budgets
2022 1.4 trillion
2023 1,7
2024 1.6
2025e 1.0
Total 6.6 trillion
$7.7 trillion for Trump
would be 17% higher
than $6.6 trillion for Biden
I have the data
You have the claptrap
Trump was in office for 20 days in 2021. He spent 2.8 t in 20 days??
Sorry, but your terminology is incorrect. Congress hasn’t passed an actual fiscal year budget in about 2 decades. Instead, they pass continuing resolutions to keep the government funded, usually at the 11th hour, giving the President little input or leverage. That being said, my biggest criticism of Trump’s first term was that he seemed to sign every spending bill put in front of him
Money supply effects act with a lag. The financial crash resulted in a sharp monetary and economic contraction. The inflation from QE initially went into driving the oil price almost to $150/bbl in 2008. When that bubble burst of course prices fell back a bit, as the economy contracted some more.
Inflation can go up and down but the real culprit is the loss of buying power. That is the dollar is worth less. Take salaries: a graduate engineer from MIT was paid $5000 per annum in 1958. T his is my personal experience. Houses cost $15,000. Compare that to today. You can all look up the numbers I am to lazy to.
I bought my current house for £32,000 in 1983. It is currently worth about £250,000, an increase of 680%. Have incomes gone up by 680% since 1983? Unlikely. So how come people are able to afford to pay that much to buy a house. Simple. Two people at work. The question is, have the prices of goods and services, in general, gone up to the same extent as the price of houses? Clearly not. Clearly, incomes have risen faster than prices, with the result that real incomes have risen. In the 1980s, very few households had more than one car. Nowadays two-car households are very common. Or look what has happened to air travel. The UK government is now considering an extra runway at Heathrow Airport. In the words of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, “You’ve never had it so good.”
According to data from the US Census Bureau, the average salary for an engineer in 1960 would have been around $5,600 per year, which was roughly the median family income at that time.
The average salary for an MIT engineer in 2024 is over $100,000
The average price of a 2024 three bedroom ranch style home, common in 1958, is about $300,000 with real estate prices at a multi-decade bull market peak
1958
$5,000 income
$15,000 home
2024
$100,000+
$300,000 home
I economics this is called Even Steven
I believe it was 1969 when I purchased my first house. It has a variety of nice features not common in lower prices houses built since such as all oak floors (except kitchen), large windows providing good lighting in every room, built in bookcases around the fireplace, a large roofed over deck in back and a yard large enough for a good garden plus fruit trees and a few grape vines, and a semi finished basement. It was only two bedrooms but the purchase price was $20,000, no where near $300,000.
This was in the San Francisco Bay area (east bay).
Some areas of the US have appreciated a lot more than others. My brother old his [;ain three bedroom ranch in Fremont CA with one added family room for about $1 million many years ago. Go figure.
You forgot to mention, or more likely omitted deliberately, record removal of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
2021 SPR
638 million barrels
2024 SPR
355 million barrels
Decline of
283 million barrels
US oil use per day
19 million barrels
283 million / 19 million
= 15 days, spread over four years, which is 1,461 days
Give me a break, nitpicker.
Why a decline in the SPR at all if there was record oil production in the country? The withdrawls from the SPR were for price control, something we were promised the SPR would NOT be used for. And you don’t care.
You do need a break, TDS sufferer.
I see we have a supporter of Milton Friedman’s economics in the house. Working out what causes inflation can be tricky as there is such a thing as cause and effect. Critics of Milton Friedman’s economic theory would say that if there is excess demand in the economy the existing money supply will just circulate more quickly. In economics speak, the velocity of circulation rises. Similarly, if there is an increase in the money supply, the velocity of circulation may fall. It all depends on what happens to the supply of goods and services. So it is perfectly possible to have rising prices at a time when the money supply is fairly stable. But again, which comes first? Does the money supply rise in response to rising prices or do the rising prices follow from an increase in the money supply?
As to the IRA not causing inflation, it might be worth asking what has happened to the money supply as a result of the IRA. The IRA injected a large amount of extra spending into the economy. Where did the money come from? Increased government borrowing leads to an increase in the supply of money. We have a similar situation in the UK where the Labour government has increased spending and financed a large part of it by extra government borrowing. 30-year gilt yields have risen to their highest levels since 1998.
“…Working out what causes inflation can be tricky…”
Inflation by definition is the expansion of the money supply at a rate greater than the GDP. I.e., inflating the money supply.
Increased prices/loss of purchasing power is an effect.
Money supply is defined roughly as total deposits in banks times the velocity of money.
The supply of money is controlled by the Fed, not controlled by the US government. I wrote a for profit economics newsletter for 43 years with hundreds of paid subscribers. The M2 money supply leads CPI inflation by 6 to 12 moths. The theory is sound and the data support the theory
The M2 CPI relationship is not a coincidence/
Yes, it takes a while for the extra money to dilute the money that was already in circulation.
Consumer prices in the US rose 22% over the 2020-2024 time period as detailed in the Pew Research article found at https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/07/prices-are-up-in-all-us-metro-areas-but-some-much-more-than-others/. When a President ends his four years with goods and services costing 22% more than the beginning of his term, it’s no surprise that it’s time to start looking for donors for a presidential library.
It’s obvious to most that increases in energy cost will lead to increased cost in a wide range of goods, given the pervasive need for energy to turn raw materials into finished products and get food from the farm to the grocery store shelves.
The big problem with IRA is opportunity cost. If governments are itching to spend all that money, there are much better uses for it than wind, solar, green hydrogen, carbon capture and sequestration, etc.
Consider Trump lucky
The high inflation in 2021 and 2022 was caused by the Fed financing the HUGE 2020 and 2021 fiscal year budgets signed by Trump and approved by Republicans ii the Senate, Biden gets the blame because he was president at the time but had nothing to do with the high inflation rates in 2021 and 2022.
Then why did inflation go to 9.1% (I think it was more than that) the first year of Biden’s administration. The cost of energy was a major contributor. And so what if the inflation was 2.9% in 2024? Did that mean prices went down? No, it means they went up at a 2.9% rate on top of the 9.1% rate.
No, the prices that got jacked up during the inflationary period don’t come down overnight, even if the inflation rate comes down, the prices still stay up for a certain amount of time.
Prices will come down when the cost of gasoline and electricity comes down for everyone. When this happens, businesses can lower their costs because their costs for gasoline and electricity are lower. Why would they lower their costs and not bank more profits from the lower gasoline and electricity prices? Because their competitors will try to undersell them and so businesses have to compete with other businesses and that means having the lowest price possible to attract customers. So they will lower their prices as much as they can.
Baloney Theory
Business prices are set by supply and demand, and the competition. Not the cost of goods or services sold. Up to half of listed corporations do not even make a GAAP profit so obviously can NOT pass on all their costs tp their customers.. You must be a socialist.
Both decreases happened before Trump was in power so he could not have had any direct influence but it is interesting that, locally, gasoline went down $0.40 just around the time, but maybe shortly before, Trump was declared the election winner. Then near to the time of the inauguration, gasoline at the service station pump went down another $0.90.
Add in those mandatory increases in minimum wage. Those cause inflation and loss of spending power.
Yes that’s the real irony of “minimum wages,” and bone-headed stupid ideas like a “universal basic income.”
All they do is drive inflation, and in the end the buying power of the people receiving the “extra” income ends up worse than it was before.
Insultasaurus is back.
I wonder who writes his material?
BNice is here??
I don’t think you know what the word dictator means.
I want to thank WUWT readers for 50 downvotes, a new personal record that I will add to my resume.
Sky-high inflation.
For someone who lived in the 1970s and 1980s I couldn’t help smiling at that. For the UK at least, we had rates of inflation in the mid-20s. So if the recent rates were sky-high, I wonder what the rates were in the 1970s and 1980s. We also lived during a time when rates of interest were in double figures. Somehow we survived.
Back in the Jimmy Carter presidency we had double digit inflation, and double digit unemployment rates, and double digit interest rates.
That’s why Reagan got elected.
We’ve been here before. We will get out of this predicament just like we did before, now that Trump and Common Sense are in office.
They refuse to see the fly in the ointment with fickle energy firming-
Factory fire sends smoke across Melbourne, intensifies dispute about ageing firefighting fleet
Definitely looks like the coal fired lithium batteries from China are the culprit-
Phoenix Technology – Distributing Satellite TV, VAST,antennas, dishes ,Solar Panels,LED, Cables
Another hurried meeting of the minds among the insurance underwriters to firm things up a bit more no doubt.
Just received my house and contents renewal for next month and it’s climbed 31% bearing in mind we’re in a lowest risk stand alone home in metro Adelaide with no flood or bushfire risk. Been here over 35 years and I can’t recall a house fire anywhere within cooee of us. The metro house fires you do hear of are almost universally low income outer suburbs and often renters with cheap heaters in winter or electrical faults that don’t ever seem to occur in middle to upper income suburbs. I’ll not be pushing my luck with battery EVs or even home solar batteries anytime soon.
PS: China having second thoughts with lithium e-bikes-
Melbourne warehouse fire “FUELLED by lithium ion batteries” | MGUY Australia
EV school buses are another stupid idea.
I wonder if Einstein could have been a political speech writer.
“Bill’s affair doesn’t matter. He had to do something with all that energy.”
Bitcoin is coal in the real world and so are EVs.
So are windmills, solar panels, and batteries.
“Our country’s leaders should embrace this all-of-the-above approach to energy production.”
No. The impact on system costs matters.
For electricity, it’s time to finally recognize the parasitic effect, on reliable sources, of allowing the intermittent sources to inject power into the system when it’s breezy and bright outside, with no responsibility to deliver anything at all when it is calm or dark. Batteries are little help. And if the cost of storage (or alternate supply) was properly assigned to the wind and solar developers, those projects would never have been built in the first place.
Oh, and before I forget – let’s stop conceding the core claim that emissions of CO2 from reliable coal- and gas-fired power generation have anything to do with the reported warming. No one knows that!
should be proportional all-of-the-above approach to energy production.
Each should be evaluated independently on a cost-risk-benefit basis.
Even solar and wind have valid niche applications, just not grid scale.
Just not grid connected.
You want to install panels at your off-the-grid cabin? Have at it.
You want to use some solar panels with a good old fashioned lead-acid battery backup to run some remote equipment instead of using grid power? Have at it.
NONE OF THAT CRAP should be connected to the grid. All it does is DECREASE GRID RELIABILITY and INCREASE GRID COSTS.
Thank you Mr Dibbell for getting to the real point of the matter.
“All of the above” is just as wrong and damaging as “Net Zero” because pursuing an “absolute goal” fails to account for cost vs benefit considerations at the margins.
Not one more dime should be spent by government (or by any sentient investor) on utility-scale wind, solar, hydrogen, battery storage, carbon sequestration, nuclear fusion, crop-based ethanol production, or the countless other subsidy-harvesting schemes. All of these efforts fail to generate reliable supply sufficient to even reproduce themselves over their useful lifespans (with honest accounting), let alone build the growing supply base needed for the future.
Coal, oil, tar sands, and natural gas are abundant, reliable, affordable, and absolutely irreplaceable for transportation, heating, and industrial processes and feedstocks. Nuclear fission based on thorium-fueled breeder reactors (and other breeder technologies) will be the indispensable source for electricity in the future. Modular reactors, easily scalable to the task and simple to expand to accommodate growth, are inherently safe and can be installed in the midst of the energy demand centers, thereby reducing transmission infrastructure and costs.
AI promises to be many things (some good, some questionable/bad), but will certainly be an energy hog. AI developers and industries need to pay for their own electricity so that their rapidly growing demands do not compromise the energy systems that serve the general population. AI firms have the resources to build their own breeder reactors or their own fossil-fueled generators.
There is a real use of ethanol as a gasoline additive in place of lead compounds but that reached peak rational at or before 10%. Beyond that concentration it merely increases cost by decreasing mileage/gallon.
+ infinity
From the article: “Policymakers in the Lonestar State recognized long ago that oil and natural gas were critical companions in scaling up renewable energy. So in contrast to California, Texas lawmakers opted to encourage fossil fuel production, rather than restrict it. This decision has resulted in more—not less—renewable energy generation overall and the cleanest energy mix in the country. Our country’s leaders should embrace this all-of-the-above approach to energy production.”
Any electricity generation plan should not be dependent on subsidizing any particular generating source. All generators should be able to stand on their own without taxpayer subsidies. This eliminates windmills and solar from the picture.
The “all-of-the-above” is not the correct approach. Windmills and solar are a detriment to the electrical grid and they are not “clean” energy, nor is coal, natural gas and nuclear “dirty” energy.
Quit promoting the failed technology of windmills and solar. They only work when they receive taxpayer subsidies (and the wind blows, and the sun shines) and there are better alternatives that do not depend on taxpayer subsidies or the weather
Put “all-of-the-above” where the sun don’t shine.
Trump declared two national emergencies. That gives him the power, per the US Constitution, to direct various actions to save America from great harm.
National Borders and the US Energy Sector
The over-taxed, over-regulated, already-impoverished US people are super-screwed, trying to make ends meet in a near-zero, real growth US economy, with near-stagnant real wages and high inflation and high interest rates and rising prices. What is no to love?
The US economy has lots of low-tech/low-pay/low-benefit, bullshit jobs
The US economy has lots of woke, leftist bureaucrats
Screwed-over US people also have to pay for poverty-stricken, aliens of different cultures from all over, who illegally enter the US, with no documents, a federal felony offense.
.
Those illegal aliens:
– are the dregs of Third World countries, sent by their US-hating, leftist, woke governments, in cahoots with Soros-financed NGOs, to the US.
– are getting free housing, free food, a never-empty credit card, free healthcare, free education and whatever other goodies they want. They mainly suck of the government tit
– have no skills, no training, no education, no industrial experience.
– will take low-tech/low-pay/low-benefit jobs away from screwed-over US workers.
– are often good at crime, murder and mayhem.
.
Many millions of illegal aliens have to be shipped back where they came from, before they ruin the US.
.
Down-trodden US people often have to put up with the visual ugliness and noise of hundreds of windmills, that are often idle, because of too little wind year round, and many thousands of acres of solar panels, that are often covered with snow and ice in winter; there is no solar at night.
.
Ban the Expensive, Dysfunctional Offshore Wind Turbine Fiasco
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/ban-the-dysfunctional-…
.
MAGA will lead to higher CO2 ppm to: 1) increase growth of flora and fauna all over the world, and to 2) increase crop yields to feed hungry people. What is not to like?
Net-Zero by 2050 to reduce CO2 is a super-expensive Suicide Pact
.
We Are in a CO2 Famine
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/we-are-in-a-co2-famine
For those who want to label Donald Trump as a dictator, let’s note that the US Supreme Court has held that under the US Constitution, the President is the Executive Branch of the US Government.
In other words, the President and the Executive Branch are one in the same.
The court has held that the US President has plenary power. Which means that the president can do what he or she wants to do, subject to the constraints of the constitution itself, plus those laws the Congress has passed which are constitutionally valid.
When Joe Biden was installed as InstaPOTUS in January, 2021, he and the people who controlled him from behind the scenes quickly undid everything Donald Trump had done in the four years prior to January, 2021, moving faster than any president had ever moved up to that time to undo what his predecessor had done.
Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President in January, 2025. He and the people who work for him are now moving at warp speed to undo everything Joe Biden (et. al.) had done in the four years prior to 2025 — also moving faster than any president had ever moved up to that time to undo what his immediate predecessor had done. (And even what three of his predecessors had done.)
So the question which arises is this. As long as Donald Trump stays within his powers as listed in the US Constitution, and as long as he stays within the boundaries of constitutionally valid law as passed by Congress, can he be properly labeled a ‘dictator’ as we commonly understand that term to mean?
Declarations of emergency means he wants to operate outside of Constitutional authority. There is no other reason for such declarations. The emergencies, and the extra constitutional powers arising from them, NEVER end.
No, he wants the ability to quickly over-ride regulations and restrictions brought in by leftist NGO bureaucrats from places like the EPA.
Probably every declaration of emergency since FDR, if not before, is still in operation. They have contorted the Federal government out of recognition (except for form) of what the founders though they were creating. They are responsible for 100 of billions of expenditures every year.
If Trump were to be operating within Constitutional powers he would have no reason to declare an emergency. Any additional ” ability to quickly over-ride regulations and restrictions” is on its face operating outside the existing constitutional structure, otherwise there is zero necessity for any additional power.
AndyHce: “Declarations of emergency means he wants to operate outside of Constitutional authority.”
Really?
The US Supreme Court has stated that the President is the Executive Branch and has plenary power to manage the Executive Branch in the way he or she sees fit, as long as he or she stays within the bounds of his constitutional powers and also within the bounds of laws passed by the Congress which are constitutionally valid.
What actions has President Trump taken which are plainly outside his constitutional authority?
Tell us specifically why it is that the specific proclamations and the EO’s President Trump labels as ’emergency declarations’ are actions which fall outside his constitutional authorities as President, or outside the boundaries he must work under as set by the Congress in constitutionally valid legislation.
Trump is acting within the Law.
If Trump violated the U.S. Constitution, then he would lose the support of Republicans.
Radical Leftists claim Republicans would welcome a Trump Dictatorship. Just the opposite is the truth.
Sure, declaring an emergency is within presidential powers. Doing things outside the constitutional authority is legitimate under a declaration of emergency although some acts may be challenged by the legislature as going too far or tied up in lawfare. That does not make declaring an emergency now either necessary or wise. If he does not declare the emergency ended before he goes out of power, it will haunt the US forever more. You are just not educated on all the previous emergency declarations still in effect nor all the regulations and legislation that have come out of them and markedly constrict individual liberty.
If the actions, orders, regulations, etc are not outside of established constitutional powers, what exactly is the use of an emergency declaration?
This is not a topic generally written about by the media but it is very real.
So Trump wants to remove restrictions on energy production. A declaration of an emergency condition is for the exercising of non-Constitutional powers.
Nothing in this essay even hints at any justification for an “energy emergency”.
Suppose Trump uses those unconstitutional powers for some good, a poor and unlikely supposition. If he does not declare the “emergency” over before he leaves office, no one else ever will and it will be another instrument that takes power from “we the people” and from the states, further degrading the constitutional republic that was intended for the U.S.A.
So you are saying it is unconstitutional for Trump to declare an emergency?
Biden was going to declare a Climate Emergency. Would that have been unconstitutional?
No, you are not reading correctly. Declaring an emergency is withing presidential authority. Its purpose is always for extra-constitutional powers to create new laws and regulation not withing Constitutional authority. Read the Constitution. It clearly delineates the powers of the Federal Government. Whether or not you like all the extra powers that have been created under previous declarations or not (e.g. you are required to buy (your money) medical insurance), they far exceed the enumerated powers.
I don’t know what Trump may do with his “emergency” but there is no emergency. A course correction is necessary but tell me why the current laws cannot accomplish that. Regardless, it is dangerous because it will never go away on its own. Future administrations may use it to turn everything energy wise on its head or for many more sneaky acts.
I think you have a legitimate worry about emergency declarations.
I don’t think Trump will abuse his power.
Trump might not but the next Democrat administration may use that same declaration to overturn every thing Trump is trying to do and/or impose much more awful restrictions upon American life.Sometime it will eventually come back to bite very hard if it is left in place when the current administration ends and there will be another ever growing debt to impoverish us all.
When we finish the pissing matches here we need to talk about how energy production during Biden’s term didn’t match his rhetoric. We all know he turned the screws on energy production so how is it possible to achieve the energy production we achieved! I don’t understand. The only thing I can think of is that his actions would mostly affect future production not current production but I don’t know how.
“The only thing I can think of is that his actions would mostly affect future production not current production”
That’s the answer.
Biden’s restrictions on oil and gas mainly affected the small oil and gas producers who can’t afford to wade through all the rules and regulations put in their way. The Big Oil companies have lots of lawyers for that, and can operate in this environment and their production of oil and gas is not affected. But the Little Guy is not producing oil he could be producing, if the rules allowed it. Trump is going to allow it.
Thanks Tom I have heard the argument from Biden supporters many times that we are experiencing record production so his policies can’t be hurting oil production. But when you look at all the things he has done it is hard to see how it didn’t effect current production. It is a mystery to me. What you said makes sense but is that all of it?
A great summary of the energy situation in the U.S. I may not agree with all of the conclusions, but thanks for posting this