Countries around the world, especially America’s top adversary—the People’s Republic of China—are eager to replicate the success of Pittsburgh’s powerhouse energy industry. The Biden administration’s green agenda is helping them do just that, and at Pittsburgh’s expense.
In the name of fighting climate change and decarbonization, the Biden administration is promulgating a series of rules requiring electric cars and trucks, electric stoves, and the use of renewables such as wind turbines and solar panels.
Policies helping China
In March, for example, the EPA released a final tailpipe rule that would require 70% of new cars sold to be hybrid or battery-powered electric by 2032. In addition, 25% of heavy-duty trucks would have to be electric. In April, the EPA finalized a power-plant rule that would require most power plants to sequester, or bury, 90% of their carbon emissions, or go out of business by 2040.
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Biden administration officials claim that these policies are building “America’s clean energy future,” but the truth is that they put China’s Panzhihua—not America’s Pittsburgh—in pole position to be the champions of global energy in the 21st century.
It isn’t complicated. Pennsylvania is fortunate to have vast reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas. China, meanwhile, produces almost 80% of the world’s batteries and 80% of the world’s wind turbines and solar panels.
As the Biden administration’s rules move us further and further away from traditional sources of energy and toward a so-called clean energy future, they undermine jobs in places like Pittsburgh and make our economy more and more reliant on China.
Pennsylvania Democrats know this. In February, Senators John Fetterman and Bob Casey expressed their shared concern that the Biden administration’s pause on approvals of liquified natural gas export could put Pennsylvania’s 123,000 natural-gas jobs at risk. On May 7, however, 75 of their fellow Democrats in Washington—influenced by progressive environmental groups—heaped praise on the president’s policy.
Never mind that even if America abandoned all fossil fuels, global temperatures would only decline by two tenths of one degree Celsius by the year 2100.
China’s different approach
Beijing is taking a different approach. China has repeatedly stated that it has no intention of going along with the Western push to NetZero.
In October 2022, President Xi Jinping said in an address to the Communist Party Congress that “Based on China’s energy and resource endowments, we will advance initiatives to reach peak carbon emissions in a well-planned and phased way, in line with the principle of getting the new before discarding the old.”
Last summer, when then-climate envoy John Kerry was visiting Beijing, President Xi Jinping reiterated that China would set its own path on emissions reduction and not be influenced by outside factors.
But the Biden administration is determined to pursue unilateral energy disarmament, imposing billions of dollars of costs on Americans. All pain for America, all gain for China.
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If nothing changes, Americans will not only have to buy more Chinese batteries and components, they will also have to pay higher electricity bills and transportation costs. This will, in turn, exacerbate inflation, drive manufacturing offshore, and increase unemployment—lowering GDP growth and disproportionately hurting the poor, farmers, and small business.
Unhandcuffing the future
Biden’s rush to a green energy future will handcuff America to China, placing vital energy supply chains at the mercy of Beijing. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Members of the House of Representatives have laid out an alternative vision for America’s energy future with an act called “the lower energy costs act.” The plan would lower energy costs, reduce emissions, and increase domestic energy production in places like Western Pennsylvania.
As House majority leader Steve Scalise put it, the bill would bring “back critical minerals to America so that we don't have to be reliant on countries like China.”
This piece originally appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
