Key Takeaways
President Biden is partially banning the use of fossil fuels in new and substantially renovated federal buildings beginning in 2025 with a full ban in 2030.
To electrify all of the federal government’s half billion square feet of office space would be a huge and expensive undertaking as electricity is more expensive than natural gas.
Biden’s attempt to electrify much of the economy ignores the fact that oil, coal and gas provide the large majority of the nation’s energy, largely because they are cheaper and primarily domestically produced.
Making the United States dependent on renewable energy makes it dependent on China, the source of many “green energy” products, produced mainly by its vast fleet of coal generators.
Biden is banning fossil fuel use in new or substantially renovated federal buildings starting in 2030 and has mandated a major reduction in its use beginning in 2025. Since the federal government owns over 500 million square feet of office space, this is a major undertaking. This rule adds the federal government to Biden’s movement to electrify buildings as part of his climate agenda, phasing out natural gas use. New federal buildings constructed between 2025 and 2029 must achieve a 90 percent decrease in fossil fuel consumption, relative to 2003 levels. Those built or substantially renovated from 2030 onward must have no on-site fossil fuel use. The rule will push the cost of energy up in these buildings, raising the cost to taxpayers as it is cheaper to heat buildings with natural gas than with electricity, particularly with intermittent wind and solar power that must have expensive battery back-up or fossil fuel back-up, defeating the purpose of the rule. The government will be billing taxpayers to pay for more expensive energy to house its workforce.
The mandate was authorized by a 2007 energy law signed by President George W. Bush. President Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) on December 19, 2007. Inside the 311-page energy policy law is section 433, stating that new federal buildings and those undergoing major renovations would have to phase out “fossil fuel-generated energy consumption” by 2030, i.e. all new and remodeled federal buildings be 100-percent free of fossil fuels by 2030. The provision never went into effect because the Department of Energy did not finalize the regulations needed to implement it and it was halted in part by opposition from natural gas utilities. Opposition by groups such as the American Gas Association, which rightly state that natural gas is more affordable than electricity, helped block the Obama administration’s attempts to establish the rule.
Electricity has increased in price by 27 percent since President Biden took office and will continue to increase as he moves to electrify everything, putting the United States into a one-fuel end-use economy, where brown outs and black outs could become a natural occurrence, as in third world countries. Electric rates may take the place of gasoline prices in political campaigns as Biden is increasing weather-driven wind and solar power on the grid and forced electrification of the transportation, heating and cooking industries through standards and regulations. EPA regulations are forcing existing coal and natural gas generators to retire and be replaced by heavily taxpayer-subsidized wind and solar units that require very expensive battery back-up. Biden also wants expensive offshore wind along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts that will also escalate electric prices as offshore wind is over 3 times as expensive as onshore wind and more than double the cost of natural gas combined cycle technology.
Fossil fuel reductions in federal buildings required by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
Section 433 of the law, signed by President George W. Bush on Dec. 19, 2007, sets a schedule for reducing fossil fuels in new and remodeled federal buildings based on 2003 levels. Regulations were never finalized to implement the law, and compliance is not tracked.
Power Outages Increase as More renewables Enter the Grid
Power outages have surged 93 percent over the last 5 years, as states have added 60 percent more wind and solar energy because of state renewable portfolio mandates and the Biden Administration’s “energy transition policies.” Texas and California lead the nation in power outages and in wind and solar generation. Since 2019, there have been 263 power outages across Texas–more than any other state–each lasting an average of 160 minutes and impacting an estimated average of 172,000 Texans. From 2019 to 2023, California had 221 power outages, ranking second, and Washington ranked third with 118 outages. Texas has the most wind capacity in the nation and is the nation’s top wind producer and California has the most solar capacity in the nation and is the nation’s top producer of solar power. The data suggest a correlation between increased amounts of intermittent renewable energy and electricity outages that can be detrimental for consumers and businesses, especially for specialized equipment.
Grid Capacity Cannot Keep Up with Demand
President Obama’s regulation started a wave of coal plant closures that Biden’s power plant rule is continuing. For coal plants to keep operating, they must now add carbon capture technology that has not been adequately demonstrated as required by Section 111 of the Clean Air Act that is said to give the EPA authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. As of last year, only one commercial-scale coal plant in the world used carbon capture, and no gas-fired plants did.
According to the EPA, the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits and the funding in the 2021 infrastructure bill will “incentivize and facilitate the deployment” of carbon capture. But subsidies would have to be two to three times larger to make the technology cost-effective at a coal plant. Because carbon capture reduces a plant’s efficiency, costs for the utilities and consumers would also rise. Since carbon capture uses 20 percent to 25 percent of the electricity generated by a power plant, more generators will be needed to provide the same amount of power. Also, no new gas-fired plants will be built because the technology would make them uneconomic.
Another problem is that carbon dioxide must be stored underground in certain geologic formations. Permitting new wells for carbon dioxide injections can take six years and permits for pipelines to transport carbon dioxide can take even longer. Environmentalists oppose pipelines for carbon dioxide as well as for oil and natural gas projects and have caused major delays in their construction through court action. President Biden has advanced rules for permitting reform for his pet projects, including transmission needed for his “green” transition, but not for all technology and fuel sources.
Despite massive subsidies and incentives, renewable energy has not been able to replace existing coal and natural gas generation, which currently supply almost 60 percent of U.S. electricity generation. As coal plants that currently generate about 16 percent of the country’s power are forced to retire, China is building more and more amounts of coal capacity, now having more coal capacity than the entire electric generating fleet in the United States. China added about 200 gigawatts of coal power over the last five years—about as much as the entire U.S. coal fleet. The country is ensuring no power shortages and is continuing its economic growth through supplying Western countries with “green” technology, by burning 9 times as much coal as the United States.
U.S. demand for electricity is surging due to new manufacturing needs as Biden pushes electric vehicles and other green technology, and due to increased demand from data centers and artificial intelligence. As the government pushes electric heat pumps and electric stoves to replace natural gas and other top-down edicts, electricity demand is skyrocketing. For example, Texas’s grid operator raised its forecast for demand growth for 2030 by 40,000 megawatts compared to last year’s forecast, which is about seven times the power that New York City uses at any given time. Texas power demand will nearly double over the next six years owing to data centers, manufacturing plants, crypto mining and the electrification of oil and gas equipment at the urging of environmental groups and tougher regulations by the Biden Administration. When temperatures in Texas recently climbed into the 80s, the grid operator told power plants not to shut down for maintenance.
The EPA plans to unveil another rule to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing gas-fired plants, and many of them may also have to shut down if the rule gets promulgated and survives legal challenges. But as during the challenges to the Obama administration regulations, the tremendous uncertainty will delay investment in fossil fuel technologies and will raise electricity rates despite EPA’s methodology projecting otherwise. Electric rates are already rising amid the government’s green transition, especially in states like California, New York and New Jersey that have done the most to remove fossil fuels for the politically preferred renewable technologies.
Conclusion
Biden is banning fossil fuels from new and substantially renovated government buildings beginning in 2030 and requiring a massive reduction beginning in 2025. The ban runs counter to an all-of-the-above energy policy, works toward making the country depend on only one end-use fuel, and raises energy prices for Americans and taxes to fund Government rising expenditures. Biden’s outrageous rules and regulations continue as their economic costs have reached over $1 trillion in just over three years in office and the price tag on private households and businesses is triple the cost under the Obama administration and 30 times higher than the new regulations under President Trump, according to the American Action Forum.
