Scott Hofstra: Biden's Long Range Plan?
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Once in awhile I get a thought running around in my head and I need to think it through awhile before I put it out there. A lot of changes are coming from Joe Biden and his executive order pen. I think sometimes, we look at a very narrow, very immediate action instead of looking at a more sinister, longer term picture. A couple of Biden’s orders have me looking at a bigger picture.
This is just me thinking out loud here. I pray I’m wrong.
Since taking office, Biden has shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline. I’ve seen articles and memes from folks who believe that this was designed to enrich the owners of the train lines and truck lines that will now have to carry that oil supply. This idea may very well be true, but when you combine the pipeline shutdown with the orders to stop fracking, stop drilling on federal land and stop drilling in the artic along with (I believe) a soon to come ban on drilling in the gulf, you get a bigger picture of the intentional reduction of oil and natural gas production in the US. Last year, the US was finally energy independent, so why is Biden turning back the clock and making us heavily dependent on foreign oil and natural gas again?
Its no secret that Biden and the left want to drag us into their utopian new Green Deal. They want to do away with oil and gas and move the entire economy to all electric homes, businesses and vehicles via wind and solar power. Their problem is that commercially produced solar energy is approximately 5.5 times more expensive per kilowatt hour than electricity produced by natural gas and that margin is even wider when compared to coal. Commercial wind energy is currently 10 times the cost per kilowatt hour compared to natural gas and coal. Wind and solar power is so expensive that they both have to be subsidized by the government to the tune of billions of dollars to make their electricity affordable.
Right now, the federal government subsidizes commercial wind and solar for 10 years. After ten years, the investors have made their money. The wind generators are then no longer cost competitive and the owners shut them down, lock the gates and walk away. Right now there are more than 1,600 abandoned wind generators in Texas and Oklahoma alone. The steel from their towers can be recycled but the 660 square meters of concrete required for each tower’s base will live in the soil forever and the carbon fiber and fiberglass blades can’t be recycled so they’re being cut into pieces and buried in landfills. The solar side of the equation isn’t any better. The panels break down over time and have to be replaced. The storage batteries require large amounts of hazardous materials to manufacture and they only last about ten years before they need to be replaced. The same materials that were hazmat to produce now become hazmat to dispose of as well. Several large scale commercial solar projects have gone bust here in the US and never contributed nearly the energy the tax payers were told would come from them. All of these things add up to two energy sources that simply aren’t cost competitive with fossil fuels and aren’t reliable enough for everyday use. This was evident in Texas this week when the majority of their wind power generation was frozen in place, resulting in brownouts and blackouts across the state.
Their goals completely ignore the fact that most of the current electrical distribution system in the United States is old and barely able to keep up with the current demands for energy. When one part of the grid stumbles, it overloads other sections of the grid and causes a domino effect as we saw several years ago on the east coast. California got a taste of it when the state shut down entire sections of their grid during fire season to preclude fires caused by the state’s mismanagement of natural resources that led to electrical transmission lines being a potential cause of wild fires. All those Prius, Volt, Leaf and Tesla owners were left with no electricity to charge their cars. Opportunists saw the opportunity and charges them big money to charge their cars from their gasoline and diesel generators. So much for green energy. If the left succeeds in adding millions of new electric vehicles to the grid along with converting homes and businesses to electric heat instead of natural gas, the grid won’t hold. We can plan on frequent brownouts and blackouts. Tesla founder Elan Musk has been sounding this alarm for years, even as he continues to sell the cars that are contributing to the overloading of the national energy grid.
So why is the left killing domestic oil and natural gas production?
I believe their goal is to drive the cost of oil and natural gas so high, that solar and wind energy will actually become cost competitive so they can drive our economy to those sources. They have to make us more and more dependent on wind and solar and they can’t do it without driving the cost of oil and natural gas out of sight. I believe that in the next two to three years, we will see the cost of a barrel of oil over $125/barrel which will equate to $4 to $5/gallon prices at the pump. The cost of imported natural gas and the fact that it has to be transported in limited quantities on ships (which drastically slows down the delivery cycle and drives up costs compared to domestic pipelines) will drive natural gas prices to record highs. Our cost to simply heat our homes could easily double or triple.
Almost 20 years ago, Spain made a wholesale commitment to going green. Over the course of several years, they bankrupted their country and approached 45% unemployment. They lost 2.2 traditional jobs for every job they created. When their economy went bust, the European Union had to bail Spain out. Now the EU owns Spain. Spain’s government is a figurehead. A puppet for their EU masters.
So why are they doing this? Why do they want to inflict even more financial pain on Americans?
I believe its based on a couple of beliefs on the part of the left. I think they believe that we are evil because we have a higher standard and cost of living than most of the rest of the world. They have a serious guilt complex about that and feel that the US needs to be brought down to the same standard of living as the rest of the world. Along with their new Green Deal will come large scale requirements for “Carbon Credits”. A carbon credit is essentially something you will be forced to purchase to offset your polluting life style. The profits from these carbon credits will be redistributed to other countries as reparations for our polluting life styles. Essentially, they won’t be happy until they’ve made us a miserable third world socialist/communist country like most of the rest of the world.
John Kerry, Biden’s Climate Change Czar recently admitted that even if the US went zero emissions today, the resulting change in the earth’s temperature would only amount to approximately .005 degrees by 2300. Think about that. They’re willing to bankrupt this country and send our wealth overseas for no other reason than to make themselves feel righteous. The Trump presidency ran on “Make America Great Again”. The left believes this country never was great and that we’ve been arrogant and selfish. Their goal is NOT to make American Great Again but instead to make America Venezuela or Cuba.
This is what the let has in mind. Their ultimate goal is to enslave the American people by making them dependent on welfare, food, healthcare and energy. In short, to make US dependent on THEM. They also want to disarm the nation so that they can continue with no fear of armed insurrection. Why do you think the left wants so passionately to disarm Americans? Maybe because they know that their future plans could incite that armed insurrection and it’s the only thing they fear. A United Nations spokesperson stated this week that they want law abiding Americans disarmed for the same reasons.
The left has always looked at long term goals, while conservatives tend to look short term. When Conservatives (I’ll use that term loosely) are in power, the conservative citizens go about their lives and back off on their commitment to pushing conservative values. They let their guard down. Then, we the left is back in power, all of a sudden, it becomes a crisis for conservatives and everyone is up in arms. By that point, its typically too late.
Over the next two years, the Biden regime will push progressive socialist ideas as hard as they can. They have both houses of Congress to support those changes. We, as conservatives, have two years to pull our collective heads out of the sand, wake up and work to take both houses back in 2022. If we fail, it may just be too late.
The stateman Thomas Pain once stated:
December 23, 1776
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
Are YOU ready to be a soldier in the cause of Conservatism, or will you shrink from the service to your country?
Scott Hofstra, Spokesperson
United Kentucky Tea Party
(270) 319-8480