Key Takeaways
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has stated that the global energy transition will cost $78 trillion through 2050 or $3 trillion a year, of which the United States should spend $1 trillion per year–more than it spends for national defense.
The main thrust of U.S. spending has been through the Democrat-passed Inflation Reduction Act, which was sold as costing $369 billion, but now is estimated to cost more than $1 trillion.
Vice President Harris would support even more spending, as she is an original cosponsor of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal bill.
The approach of all of these huge outlays of taxpayer money is to distribute the cash around to generate support from local governments.
American consumers are accustomed to receiving the best products at the lowest price through their choice, rather than the top-down control of the Biden-Harris administration.
According to Biden-Harris Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin, the energy transition will cost the world $78 trillion through 2050 ($3 trillion a year) with the United States paying almost $25 trillion of that bill, which is about $1 trillion per year–more than the United States spends on the nation’s defense. That money is to fight the effects of climate change by forcing an energy transition from hydrocarbons to renewable energy, regardless of how expensive that transition may be. The money would go towards meeting President Biden’s commitment to the U.N. Paris Accord, a measure never ratified by the U.S. Senate. To make the public subservient, scare tactics have been used. The most memorable was when Al Gore preached the devastation from global warming by scaring the public and most notably school children, spouting a sea-level rise of 20 feet.
Under President Biden, the climate change spending movement began with the Democrat-passed Inflation Reduction Act that was supposed to cost taxpayers $369 billion in climate spending. But the congressional budget estimators misjudged the number of firms and consumers wanting to reduce their taxes by capturing tax credits and other incentives of the bill with estimates now showing the bill will cost over a trillion dollars—three times the original estimate. This has been exacerbated by the Biden-Harris Administration’s interpretations of the law, which have taken the most liberal reading, ending up costing taxpayers more–all under Janet Yellen’s treasury Department.
But that may be just a drop in the bucket compared to the $10 trillion Kamala Harris announced for climate change when she ran for the Presidency. She also wanted to ensure 100 percent carbon-neutral electricity within six years, which is much quicker than President Biden’s plan for carbon neutrality of the electric sector slated for 2035. Kamala Harris is an avid supporter of the Green New Deal championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and she believes that it is not just a climate crisis but a climate disaster, which means she may very well take the drastic measures advocated by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez to ensure she institutes her climate policies.
Janet Yellin Sets the Scene in Her Speech in Brazil
Speaking in Brazil, Janet Yellen, after meeting with G20 finance ministers to discuss economic development, emphasized the need for stronger climate finance policies through 2050 to address the “existential threat” to communities and economic strain posed by climate change. This is a term used widely by the Biden-Harris Administration.
According to Janet Yellen, in order to achieve the goal of net-zero global carbon emissions, there would need to be $3 trillion globally in annual financing for the cause. In order to contribute to this, Yellen vowed to finance green initiatives in developing countries through multilateral development banks and develop “clean energy technologies.” “The transition will require no less than $3 trillion in new capital from many sources each year between now and 2050,” Yellen said. “This can be leveraged to support pathways to sustainable and inclusive growth, including for countries that have historically received less investment.” “Neglecting to address climate change and the loss of nature and biodiversity is not just bad environmental policy,” Yellen said. “It is bad economic policy.”
In 2022, global economies provided a record $116 billion to finance climate initiatives in developing countries, which Yellen called “the single-greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century” during the speech. Note that the $116 billion spent in 2022 is less than 4 percent of Yellen’s $3 trillion a year funding requirement.
Biden-Harris Initiative: “Community-Driven Solutions to Cut Climate Pollution Across America.”
The Biden-Harris Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is providing a combined $4.3 billion to help fund 25 applicants to build “community-driven” climate projects across 30 states. The projects include electric vehicle (EV) charging station construction, funds to help local governments expedite green energy siting and programs to enhance heat pump adoption. The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program was established by the Inflation Reduction Act. The 25 winning applications were selected from a pool of approximately 300 applications. Specific projects funded include an initiative to ramp up heap pump use in New England and Alaska, industrial decarbonization in Pennsylvania and a multi-state coalition that will look to enhance EV charging infrastructure along the I-95 corridor. The contracts are expected to be signed and funds allocated by this fall so that they cannot be reversed by a new administration, should one be victorious in November.
This new initiative is one small piece of the Biden Inflation Reduction Act, with its trillion dollars of subsidies for uneconomic projects. This initiative serves as an example that the new investments and technologies to transform the U.S. energy economy in the Biden-Harris administration are going to come from federal selection and subsidizing of various projects originating out of state and local governments (i.e. “communities”), regardless of the cost. Traditionally, the way to an efficient and reliable energy system in America was through profit-driven businesses competing with each other to find the most cost-effective solutions. The Biden-Harris idea is that local governments or “communities,” will run the economy, directed and supported by funding from the federal government. The unifying aspect of all of these projects is that they are uneconomic and would never be adopted by Americans, who could choose how to spend their money.
Conclusion
The climate agenda of the Biden-Harris administration is being funded by the Democrat-passed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that is costing American taxpayers three times the original estimated cost. But a Harris administration would be even worse than a Biden-Harris administration, costing American taxpayers 10 times as much, with climate likely to be labeled as an emergency, which would give a “President Kamala” powers akin to Covid lockdowns experienced by Americans just a few short years ago. And, rather than letting the market determine what is economic and desirable by the public, there will be more funding projects that enable their goals, just as electric vehicles and charging stations are being forced on the American public and auto manufacturers by the Biden-Harris administration.
