by By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – U.S. President Joe Biden plans to declare a “national climate emergency” in what critics say is an effort to block American energy development while appeasing his environmentalist donor base, Worthy News learned Wednesday.
Biden’s top advisers have resumed talks on declaring such an emergency “to reduce carbon dioxide emissions” ahead of upcoming presidential elections, according to sources familiar with the meetings.
The declaration would give Biden wartime powers to limit oil and liquefied natural gas exports, suspending offshore drilling and halting the industry’s ability to transport its products via pipelines and trains.
“The average American is certainly not demanding a climate emergency declaration. It’s the losing team of left-wing Democrat activists and the shrinking base of elites who are,” U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart said in published remarks.
“It’s not about climate; it’s about control: Control over the entire U.S. economy, control of production, manufacturing, distribution, and consumption. If you control energy, you control all these things. Which means you have control of the people.”
Stewart compared the use of emergency powers to measures used by federal, state, and local governments to restrict citizens’ freedoms and choices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
INCREASING SUPPORT
For Biden, it would mean shoring up support among billionaires and others funding both the “climate alarmist movement” and Democrat Party campaigns, including his own for re-election, critics say.
“By now, we have gotten used to incredibly damaging and stupid decisions from the Biden administration, but the idea of declaring a ‘climate emergency’ is in a class by itself,” said Tom Pyle, President of the Washington DC think tank Institute for Energy Research.
“As with the freeze on new LNG permits, the only emergency President Biden is seeking to address with this latest threat is his slippage in the polls among young voters,” he added in comments to The Telegraph newspaper.
The White House denies wrongdoing. “President Biden has treated the climate crisis as an emergency since day one and will continue to build a clean energy future that lowers utility bills, creates good-paying union jobs, makes our economy the envy of the world, and prioritizes communities that for too long have been left behind,” said White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the additional climate emergency declaration measures would be rolled out.
But with elections in November, commentators suggest the fossil fuel energy industry should prepare for a rocky road ahead. That’s music to the ears of the far-left activist group The Sunrise Movement. “The pressure is working. Let’s keep it up,” they wrote on social media platform X.