Alex Epstein : The Case for Fossil Fuels

Testimony for the Congressional Off-Site Hearing: “Addressing Bidenflation and Biden’s Energy Crisis”

Alex Epstein

In 2016, I testified in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee about how the anti-fossil-fuel policies of the Obama-Biden administration would lead to higher energy prices, which would drive higher prices in every area of the global economy.¹

I explained that because fossil fuels provide low-cost, reliable, scalable energy that cannot be rapidly replaced by unreliable solar and wind, “…the President's anti-fossil fuel policies would harm billions of lives economically….” I explained that because “The energy industry is the industry that powers every other industry” therefore “the cost of your food, the cost of your clothing, the cost of your shelter, the success of your business, your ability to take a vacation, the cost of all the different modern miracles, the cost of your healthcare...they are all tied to energy.”

As an energy expert and a philosopher—an expert on thinking methods—I explained to the Senators that the basic mistake of the Obama administration was the failure to “integrate the big picture data.” The Obama Administration was ignoring the unique benefits of fossil fuels to the global economy and to global human flourishing.

Unfortunately, many of the Senators were unwilling to recognize this error in themselves and in the Administration.

When I tried to get my Senator from California, Barbara Boxer, to see that she was ignoring the unique benefits of fossil fuels to the global economy, she dismissed me with the comment: “I am not asking you anything. I am telling you that all you have to know is you are a philosopher...and I don't appreciate getting lectured by a philosopher.”²

But had Senator Boxer and the Obama-Biden administration listened to me and others who warned that anti-fossil fuel policies would lead to higher energy costs, which would lead to price inflation throughout the global economy, we wouldn’t be experiencing a national and global energy crisis today.

Let me be clear: today’s energy crisis is very simple and it was completely preventable.

The price of energy, like all prices, is set by supply and demand.

For the last 15 years, the global anti-fossil-fuel movement, with major leadership by Barack Obama and Joe Biden, has acted aggressively to restrict the supply of fossil fuel energy, which has prevented it from keeping up with growing demand for fossil fuel energy.³

When fossil fuel supply goes down and fossil fuel demand goes up, fossil fuel energy prices go up. And when energy prices go up, the price of everything goes up.

It’s really that simple.

Consider oil and gasoline prices.

There is no physical reason the oil industry can't meet rising demand. The world has hundreds of years' worth of oil deposits. There is no technical reason the oil industry can't meet rising demand. It is more capable than ever thanks to amazing technologies like fracking.

If there is no physical or technical reason the oil industry can't meet rising demand, what is inhibiting it?

Decades of rising restrictions on oil production and transport from anti-oil politicians—including Biden's massive threats to punish oil production going forward.

Perhaps the greatest limiter of the supply of oil has been anti-oil politicians' constant threats to severely restrict or even ban oil production going forward. E.g., when Joe Biden promises "I guarantee you, we’re going to end fossil fuel" and then becomes President, many oil investors run for the hills.

Is it any wonder that, threatened with punishment, investment in oil and gas has declined dramatically? Between 2011 and 2021, oil and gas exploration investments declined by 50%. Less investment = less supply = higher prices.

Anti-oil politicians' restrictions on infrastructure, especially pipelines, have reduced the supply of oil by making it difficult or impossible to transport US oil to international markets. If not for these restrictions we'd be producing more oil, with lower prices for everyone.

If not for Joe Biden and other anti-oil politicians around the world radically restricting the production/transport of oil, as well as threatening oil companies and investors, the global oil industry would have rapidly adjusted to rising demand—and prices would be far lower.

The basic solution to oil/gasoline prices is simple: we need a *long-term Congressional commitment* to liberate domestic oil production. Until Congress makes clear that the government will stop threatening and destroying oil production, companies will rightly underinvest in production.

More broadly, the basic global solution to the energy crisis is for the global community to reject the anti-fossil-fuel movement and reverse all global anti-fossil-fuel policies. This includes canceling the Paris Agreement—the policy that is driving the world to rapidly restrict the supply of desperately-needed fossil fuels.

Do not be afraid that liberating fossil fuels will doom the world to climate catastrophe. As I document in chapters 7-9 of my book Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal...—Not Less, fossil fuels' CO2 emissions have contributed to the warming of the last 170 years, but that warming has been mild and easily masterable—1 degree Celsius, mostly in the colder parts of the world. And life on Earth thrived when CO2 levels were more than 5 times today's.

Fossil fuels have actually made us far safer from climate by providing low-cost energy for the amazing machines that protect us against storms, protect us against extreme temperatures, and alleviate drought. That’s why the rate of climate disaster deaths — deaths from extreme temperatures, droughts, wildfires, storms, and floods — has decreased by 98% over the last century.

What we’ve been told about fossil fuels is exactly backward. We are told that we should be afraid of continuing fossil fuel use because it will make the world unlivable. In fact, fossil fuel use has made the world a better and better place to live, including safer from climate, for the last two centuries—and can continue to do so going forwardWhat will make the world unlivable for more and more people, as we are seeing now, is the attempt to eliminate fossil fuels—which necessarily leads to energy crises and economic crises. The only way out of this crisis is for America—and the world—to embrace a Fossil Future.

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Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on June 23, 2022 at 12:05pm

MUST SEE VIDEO: Tucker Carlson Destroys Dirtbag Repubican Lawmakers for Pushing Joe Biden’s Radical Agenda
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/06/level-disconnection-voters...

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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