After President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address, former Republican Governor Chris Christie was asked to give his opinion about what Biden had said. Christie stated that the president had cut energy production in the U.S., causing more inflation in the midst of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising petroleum prices.
Is this true, or is it just another example of Republican talking points against a Democratic president with no basis in fact? The answer is that Christie was either horribly misinformed, or he was lying.
Christie was referring to a court case before Louisiana federal district court judge James Cain. During the case, “GOP-led states argued that the Biden administration’s attempt to raise the real cost of climate change would hike energy costs and hurt state revenues from energy production.” (Emma Newburger, CNBC Feb. 24, 2022)
Christie should have known that the Biden administration lost the case on Feb. 11, almost two weeks before the State of the Union address. Judge Cain “argued that the administration’s attempt to raise the real cost of climate change would hike energy costs.” (Real cost is an economic term where pollution is factored into the price.)
In actuality, six companies competed in an auction for energy leasing rights to 488,000 acres of federal property. The three-day auction ended Feb. 25. It brought in a record $4.37 billion dollars, the highest gross amount in U.S. history. But the leases weren’t for natural gas or oil. Those 488,000 acres were three miles east of New Jersey and New York City, in the Atlantic Ocean. Those companies were bidding for wind power generation sites. Construction will create thousands of jobs and make the U.S. more energy secure and help abate climate change. Those companies competed because, once those wind turbines are completed, the wind would be free, giving them enormous profits.
So, rather than reducing energy production, the U.S. has actually increased it. Based on the Feb. 24 article by Emma Newburger cited above, the Biden administration paused leases for natural gas and oil “so that agencies can assess whether and how they can proceed.”
Beau of the Fifth Column in his March 1, 2022 YouTube broadcast noted that President Biden only controls 13 percent of natural gas leases, which are on federal lands. That means most natural gas comes from non-federal property. In addition, more natural gas was produced in 2021 in the U.S. than in 2020, and even more will be produced in 2022 and 2023. U.S. petroleum production was flat in 2020 and 2021 but will rise in 2022 and 2023.
Beau added that the Department of Defense has argued for years that there will be wars over energy resources. It is in the nation’s best interest to go green to avoid them. Climate change is upon us, and we must act now to become more energy independent. Combating climate change is a national security issue.
In addition, since Congress is controlled by big business through their lobbyists and campaign donations, those companies that will be producing wind power will take their profits and hire their own lobbyists to make laws that will benefit them. These companies won’t be doing so because they care about climate change. They will be doing so because capitalism rules the nation. Sometimes greed is good if it’s for the right reasons.
Did Chris Christie tell us the truth the evening after the SOTU? The definitive answer is “no”. Was he intentionally lying? Hopefully not. It’s very likely he bought into the Fox News narrative without doing his homework. He was merely using their talking points like most, if not all, of Republican editorialists, who are victims of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, where the more ignorant a person is, the more they overestimate their knowledge on any given topic.
The more educated and informed someone is, the humbler they are. Craving certainty is very human, but it is not realistic. Remember that when you read future editorials in this or any other media.
