Rep. Brett Guthrie, who to this point has proven as exciting as a bowl of day-old oatmeal, has apparently decided to stir things up a bit, joining the MAGA crowd to declare that President Biden is being downright “anti-American.”
The issue drawing the consternation of the Bowling Green Republican is energy, maintaining the administration’s policies have “crippled American energy independence and increased the cost of energy for American families.”
Guthrie is particularly concerned with what he characterized as “EPA’s Green slush fund,” a $400 billion administration initiative aimed at funding alternative energy ventures that address global climate change and other environmental concerns.
“I am committed to ensuring Kentuckians have access to affordable, reliable, American-made energy and keeping taxpayer dollars out of the hands of the communist party of China,” he said in a floor speech.
How nice. The ChiComs were brought up, par usual, as a right-wing scare tactic in the event some of the green money ends up in their hands – a possibility given the global marketplace.
The House this month passed legislation, with Guthrie’s support, to kill a $27 billion provision for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, intended to support clean air initiatives. It also repealed a proposed increase in the natural gas tax expected to raise about $6 billion in revenues.
Regardless, to be fair to Guthrie, some administration proposals would likely increase home energy costs as it wrestles with ways to address dangers associated with climate change, which most of those in the MAGA crowd denounce as a hoax.
And energy costs have been on the rise. As recently as 2019, residential natural gas prices were $10.51 per thousand cubic feet. As of 2022, the most recent available figures, that cost was $14.75.
But blaming Biden’s Green New Deal policies as the most significant contributing factor is off base. It’s no secret natural gas use is on the rise. In 2007, the U.S. produced 19.27 trillion cubic feet, while consumption totaled 23.10 trillion cubic feet. By 2022, the nation was producing 36.35 trillion cubic feet while consuming 32.26.
The U.S. is now exporting about 3.88 trillion cubic feet. If the industry can get more money selling the commodity overseas, it has an impact on the domestic price. Other factors, like availability and capacity of transmission pipelines and volatility in consumer demand also play a role.
Claiming that Biden’s energy policies “have crippled American energy independence’’ is baseless and dumb. America is, for instance, producing more natural gas than at any other time in history. Guthrie fails to account for the fact that that there’s an ongoing energy boom in this country that has reached historic levels, making America the power capital of the world.
It’s obviously true with natural gas. And on March 3 it was reported that crude oil production in the U.S. averaged 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023, topping the all-time annual record of 12.3 million barrels in 2019.
That’s right. Domestic oil production under Biden is greater than it was at any time during the administration of former President Donald “Drill, Baby, Drill” Trump. And there’s no reason to believe it will ebb any time soon.
The pump price is up, from $3.197 in January to $3.542 in March. What you may not realize is that this price hike happens nearly every year. It’s pretty normal. Since 2000, according to Forbes, the only time gasoline prices failed to climb between January and May was in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic collapsed oil prices. That’s primarily because of EPA regulations on evaporation rates – rules instituted before Biden became president.
Even so, pump prices are lower than they were in March 2023.
The takeaway should be, as Catherine Rampell of The Washington Post noted back in January, “…the United States is producing more oil than any other country in history.”
Other energy sources are also on the rise. In 2020, solar power accounted for 3 percent of the nation’s electricity. By 2022 it was up to 4.7 percent, an increase of more than 20 percent over the previous year. The U.S. Energy Information Agency predicts solar generated power will constitute 20 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2050.
Wind generated power has proved even more successful. In 2020 turbines accounted for 337.94 kilowatt hours, good for 8.43 percent of total production. Two years later those numbers were 434.81 kilowatt hours and 10.25 percent of total production.
These renewable energy sources are also relatively cheap. The International Renewable Energy Agency reports that solar energy is “almost one-third less than the cheapest fossil fuel globally” and costs continue to drop.
Meanwhile, nuclear generation has shown a decline as the number of reactors have been retired. Six have been shuttered since 2018 and only two are slated to come on line.
Surprisingly, and you might think this would please Guthrie, coal production experienced a modest gain in 2022 under Biden, the most recent year with available data, after decades of steady decline. Some of the gain might be attributed to the nuclear retirements. It’s also clear coal benefitted from the upward surge in natural gas prices as utilities sought a cheaper alternative. Production increased 2.9 percent over the previous year to 594.2 million short tons.
Kentucky finished fifth nationally, Production was up 8 percent over the previous year to 28,527,000 short tons. Several of those coal producing counties, including Muhlenberg and Hopkins, are in Guthrie’s 2nd Congressional District.
Data for 2023 has not yet been made available, although forecasts predict a slight decline.
So, it should be noted that energy production is going great guns at this point despite what Guthrie considers the Armageddon of Biden’s policies. It should also be noted that Biden, or any other president, has little impact on the availability or price of power since it is a commodity generally governed by the marketplace and various market impacts.
Still, Guthrie apparently sees some political advantage in laying any problems dealing with availability or cost at the doorstep of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Judging whether the U.S. is energy independent is difficult to define, but in this instance, where the nation is breaking production records almost across the board and is exporting more commodities like oil and natural gas than it imports, it’s difficult to conclude otherwise.
This is all occurring at the same time Biden is endeavoring to clean up our environmental mess, a reality Guthrie refuses to take seriously – the League of Conservation Voters in its National Environmental Scorecard finds he has supported environmental issues 6 percent of the time during his 15 years in Congress, with a score of zero thus far this year. Some of those needed endeavors have to be paid for. And some of that funding is coming through a tax on natural gas.
What’s offensive about Guthrie is his rhetoric. In voicing support for the legislation to cut the funding for alternative energy sources by characterizing it as a “resolution condemning Biden’s anti-American energy policies.”
What, exactly, is “anti-American” about presiding as president over an historic surge in energy production while simultaneously attending to the nation’s crucial environmental needs? There exists here a simple difference in policy. Such differences date back to the founding of the republic. But because Guthrie differs with Biden on the nation’s priorities, he somehow is being anti-American.
This is strictly out of the MAGA playbook attack and employ heated rhetoric, facts be damned. It’s a sad state of affairs, an unfortunate sign of the times, and folks like Brett Guthrie don’t even have the good sense or decency to be embarrassed.
