Green New Deal Archives - The Virginia Star

Mike Johnson Signals He Will Try to Save Some Subsidies from Biden’s Massive Climate Bill

September 18, 2024 Daily Caller News Foundation

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson indicated Tuesday that he will try to save some of the green energy subsidies unleashed by President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill if he gets the chance to do so.

Elected Republicans are divided on whether to pursue a full repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and particularly its green energy subsidies, if the party is able to secure enough leverage in the 2024 elections. Johnson told CNBC on Tuesday that he would prefer to approach any potential repeal efforts “with a scalpel and not a sledgehammer.”

Supreme Court’s Move to Gut Administrative State Tees Up Trouble for Biden’s Green Power Plant Rules

September 17, 2024 Daily Caller News Foundation

The Supreme Court is being inundated with emergency appeals targeting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules and regulations in the wake of a landmark decision that curbed the agency’s power.

Commentary: Two Years On, the IRA Is Exactly What Its Critics Said It Would Become

August 20, 2024 Daily Caller News Foundation

In a recent interview, World Energy Council Secretary General Angela Wilkinson told me that one of the main impediments to the energy transition today is a lack of what she calls “systems thinking.”

“Energy transitions are a change in the organization of society,” she pointed out. “They’re not a simple case of swapping out one technology for another and everything else stays the same. Yet, we have this very simplistic narrative that we can take the oil system, we can put renewables in, it’s going to happen immediately, and nothing else will change. It’s like saying we’re going to take your thighbone out, but we’d like you to run a marathon.”

Biden Admin Cuts Multi-Billion Dollar Check to Push ‘Community-Driven’ Green Projects All Over America

July 23, 2024 Virginia Star Staff

The Biden administration announced Monday that it is sending billions of dollars across the country to advance climate change-related projects.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Monday that it is sending a combined $4.3 billion to help fund 25 applicants build “community-driven” climate projects across 30 states. The projects include electric vehicle (EV) charging station construction, funds to help local governments expedite green energy siting and programs to enhance heat pump adoption.

Before Running for the Oval Office, Kamala Harris Co-Sponsored a Green New Deal

July 23, 2024 Virginia Star Staff

by Nick Pope Vice President Kamala Harris, seemingly first in line to run as the Democratic nominee for president now that President Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 race, may be even more aligned with the environmental left than Biden, her record and past comments indicate. Harris,…

Trump, in First Rally Since Butler, Says He ‘Took a Bullet for Democracy’

July 21, 2024 The Center Square

In his first campaign trail stop since surviving an assassination attempt and accepting the party nomination at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump on Saturday appealed to auto workers in Michigan.

Lawmakers to Grill Biden’s Energy Secretary Over Energy Costs, Regulations

May 20, 2024 The Center Square

Lawmakers will grill President Joe Biden’s Energy Secretary at a newly announced oversight hearing scheduled for Thursday.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is expected to face lawmakers for questions amid elevated gas prices, a depleted strategic petroleum reserve, and ongoing criticism of Biden’s energy policies.

Commentary: If Republicans Want Better Legislative Outcomes, Trump Needs to Win Greater Majorities by Playing for the Popular Vote

May 9, 2024 Virginia Star Staff

Since 1960, Democrats have won the popular vote in 10 out of the last 16 presidential elections, and thanks to a combination of historical realignment (beginning during the 1930s), presidential coattails and the incumbency advantage, have also won U.S. House majorities in 11 out of those 16 contests, oftentimes with super majorities.

The modern story over U.S. House control, and therefore legislatively shaping the society of laws we live in presently, begins in 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt and Democrats utterly crushed Herbert Hoover’s reelection bid, winning 57.4 percent of the popular vote and 42 states to Hoover’s meager 39.6 percent and 6 states.

Commentary: The Gloves Will Come Off in a Second Biden Term

April 29, 2024 Virginia Star Staff

If you believe, correctly, that the entirety of Joe Biden’s presidency has been one unmitigated disaster after another — not only for the American citizenry, but for the United States’ standing on the world stage and for our allies around the globe who have embraced the cause of freedom and religious liberty — fasten your seatbelts, because you haven’t seen anything yet.

Investment Standards Debate Moves into State Legislatures

May 30, 2023 The Center Square

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment standards are a hot topic among Republican lawmakers across the U.S. who see it as a political move to force a progressive agenda.

Democrats, on the other hand, see it as a smart investing strategy.

Nuclear Energy Renaissance Emerges as Counterbalance to Democrats’ ‘Green New Deal’

May 29, 2023 Just the News

by Addison Smith Alternative clean energy plans to the Democrats’ Green New Deal are getting a boost from a new generation of nuclear energy technology, which can produce zero-carbon emission electricity with a much smaller footprint than earlier reactors. The innovations and advances of the nuclear power industry are…

Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: The Impending Thermidor Reaction in Jacobin America

May 9, 2023 Admin

The decade-long French Revolution that broke out in 1789 soon devolved into far more than removing the monarchy, as it became antithetical to the earlier American precedent. American notions of liberty and freedom were seen as far too narrow, given the state, if only all-powerful and all-wise, could mandate “equality” and force “fraternity” among its subjects.

Each cycle of French revolutionary fervor soon became more radicalized and cannibalistic — until it reached its logical ends of violent absurdity.

Democrats Re-Introduce Green New Deal

April 22, 2023 The Center Square

A group of liberal Democrats reintroduced the Green New Deal Thursday, the controversial environmental legislation that experts say would spike energy costs in the U.S. and cost taxpayers tens of trillions of dollars.

Advocates, though, argue the changes are needed to prevent worsening climate change and get ahead of an inevitable renewable energy transition.

Commentary: In Biden’s America, There Are No More Gas Stoves

April 11, 2023 RealClearWire

On February 1, 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) proposed an “energy efficiency standard” for gas cooking products. For those who are unaware, this is a blatant backdoor attempt to ban gas appliances—at least half of gas stove models sold in the United States today would not comply with this regulation according to DOE. The American people deserve answers to stop this draconian measure that would be detrimental for families, small businesses, and rural communities across our nation.

Commentary: America’s ‘French Revolution’ Has Three Potential Outcomes and Two Are Bad

April 7, 2023 Virginia Star Staff

Crowd of people in the streets, protesting and Black Lives Matter movement

We are in a Jacobin Revolution of the sort that in 1793-94 nearly destroyed France. And things are getting scary.

The Democratic Party vanished sometime in 2020.

REVIEW: The Book Climate Industrial Complex Doesn’t Want You to Read

November 14, 2022November 13, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

When it comes to environmental policy, the only “solutions” coming from liberal politicians activists involve radically restructuring society and centralizing more power in the government — while, of course, handing out billions in tax dollars to politically-favored special interests.

Whether it’s the Paris climate accords, Green New Deal or the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act, these political schemes to remake the economy often end up enriching the climate industrial complex and empowering unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies.

Arizona Representatives React to House Passing the Inflation Reduction Act

August 14, 2022 Neil W. McCabe

Arizona Representatives, including Debbie Lesko (R-AZ-08), Paul Gosar (R-AZ-04), and Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05), all recently released statements slamming the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as it passed the U.S. House Friday and will move on to President Joe Biden.

“President Biden and congressional Democrats are so out of touch with everyday Americans that they just pushed through a massive tax and spending bill that will increase taxes, gasoline prices, and utility rates all while making the lives of Americans worse,” Lesko said. “I won’t do that to the American people and that is why I voted no.”

U.S. Senate Passes Massive Tax and Spend Bill Targeting Carbon Emissions, Prescription Drug Costs, More

August 8, 2022August 8, 2022 The Center Square

The U.S. Senate on Sunday passed a $740 billion new taxing and spending bill that seeks to combat climate change and allow the government to control the price of prescription medications, among other things.

No Republicans voted for the bill, named the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, in the divided 50-50 Senate, forcing Vice President Kamala Harris to break the tie. The measure must return to the House for a concurrence vote after senators passed several amendments Sunday. The House is expected to take the bill up again on Friday. If the House concurs, President Joe Biden has indicated he will sign it.

Carrie Sheffield Commentary: Biden’s Dizzying Energy Policy Is Even Making Climate Warriors Scratch Their Heads

July 11, 2022July 11, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

You’d think after achieving $5 a gallon nationwide gas prices and gutting domestic oil and gas producers, America’s environmental extremists would be elated and emboldened. But President Joe Biden’s energy policy is so incoherent, even Green New Deal socialists are frustrated, according to reporting by Politico’s Zack Colman.

“The climate advocates who cheered President Joe Biden’s arrival at the White House last year are preparing to give up on Washington,” Colman writes. “Instead, environmentalists and many of their Democratic allies are starting to shift their focus to state capitals as the places to press for action on climate change — going back to a strategy that they employed with some success during the Trump era.”

Green Activists Are Using Business, Bypassing Congress to End Fossil Fuels

July 4, 2022July 3, 2022 Admin

Without sufficient support in Congress and state legislatures to pass sweeping green energy measures, environmentalists are now targeting the oil and gas industry through a financial movement that pressures companies to support liberal policies, according to critics.

“ESG promotes and implements policies through private businesses that could be adopted through a legislative process,” said Utah Treasurer Marlo Oaks. “The Green New Deal didn’t make it through Congress, so its proponents shifted the battlefield to the capital markets.”

Commentary: A Win over Green Tyranny

July 2, 2022July 2, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

The left-wing assault on American energy was just dealt a swift defeat by the United States Supreme Court. And President Donald Trump’s confirmations to the bench paved the way for it to happen.

Never in my life would I think that gas prices would rise so steeply in such a short period of time that stations would run out of space on the pump screen to display the price. But the Biden Administration’s assault on American energy is simply unprecedented. They will try to pass the blame, but the American people know what’s happening. Green New Deal advocates are pushing for a great energy reset in America, and they don’t care how much it hurts you.

Commentary: Democrats’ Radical Green Policies Don’t Help, They Hurt

June 18, 2022June 17, 2022 RealClearWire

Last week, Michigan Democrat Sen. Debbie Stabenow bragged that on her way to Washington, D.C. she drove past “every single gas station” in her brand-new electric vehicle “and it didn’t matter how high [gas] was.” Apparently, Stabenow’s message to Americans struggling to afford their commute to work and school is to buy an expensive electric vehicle. For Americans – and especially Michiganders like me – Stabenow’s comment is as unhelpful as it is condescending. But Stabenow isn’t the only Democrat embracing a “let them eat cake” attitude. Climate activists are hurting Americans with their green agenda.

The Biden administration has made EVs a pillar of its anti-U.S. energy agenda. Last year, Joe Biden set a goal that by 2030, half of the vehicles sold in the country would be EVs. More recently, Biden pledged to use taxpayer dollars to build EV charging stations across America. And just a few weeks ago, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg suggested that families anxious about rising gas prices should just buy an EV, which have an average price tag of more than $60,000. Meanwhile, in more than a dozen states and the District of Columbia, drivers are paying more than $5 for a gallon of gas. Painfully high fuel prices aren’t an accident. They’re the momentum driving Biden’s energy “transition.”

The Biden Admin Is Using a ‘Backdoor’ to Force Through Green New Deal Reforms

May 12, 2022May 11, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

Democrats are increasingly looking to force their climate agenda through the federal bureaucracy rather than go through Congress, experts said, due to lack of support for their environmental reforms.

The Biden administration has unveiled sweeping regulations affecting home appliances, building standards, fuel economy and government-backed projects including infrastructure during its first 15 months in power. Experts have slammed the myriad federal rules, saying they will lead to higher prices, hurt consumers amid soaring inflation and mainly serve as a backdoor for broad environmental restrictions.

Biden White House Report Says Energy Taxes Are ‘Needed’ for Green Transition

April 19, 2022April 18, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

The White House said Americans should pay higher taxes to ensure a rapid green transition away from fossil fuels in a report on President Joe Biden’s economic record.

The federal government can encourage such a shift through carbon taxes or a cap and trade system forcing an emissions limit on companies, said the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) report released last week. The White House added that consumers would continue purchasing “artificially inexpensive, carbon-intensive goods” without proper government policies in place.

GOP Calls Out Biden’s Attempt to Impose a ‘Green New Deal’ Through Wall Street Regulation

April 13, 2022April 12, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

A group of 40 House Republicans sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Monday, urging the agency to rescind a regulatory proposal forcing companies to disclose “climate-related risks.”

The Republicans, led by House Oversight Subcommittee on Environment Ranking Member Ralph Norman, slammed the financial regulator, saying it exceeded its congressionally-mandated authority in issuing the climate rule, in the letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The lawmakers added that the rule was especially inappropriate given the ongoing energy crisis.

Commentary: Ground Zero of Woke

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Many of our once revered and most hallowed institutions are failing us. To mention only the most significant ones: our top-ranking military echelon, the leadership of our federal investigatory and intelligence agencies, the government medical establishment—and of course the universities.

For too long American higher education’s reputation of global academic superiority has rested mostly on the sciences, mathematics, physics, technology, medicine, and engineering—in other words, not because of the humanities and social sciences, but despite them. The humanities have become too often anti-humanistic. And the social sciences are deductively anti-scientific. Both quasi-religious woke disciplines have eroded confidence in colleges and universities, infected even the STEM disciplines and professional schools, and torn apart the civic unity of the United States. Indeed, much of the current Jacobin revolution was birthed and fueled by American universities, despite their manifest hypocrisies and derelictions.

Democrats Laden $3.5 Trillion Budget Bill with ‘Green New Deal’ Handouts

October 18, 2021October 17, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Field of sunflowers with several wind turbines in the distance

Democrats have inserted numerous provisions and subsidy programs into their $3.5 trillion budget that would benefit green energy companies and speed the transition to renewables.

The Build Back Better Act would invest an estimated $295 billion of taxpayer money into a variety of clean energy programs in what would amount to the most sweeping climate effort passed by Congress, according to a House Committee on Energy and Commerce report. That price tag doesn’t factor in the other costly measures approved by the House Ways and Means, Agriculture, Natural Resources, Oversight and Transportation committees last month.

“This bill is crammed with green welfare subsidies, specifically for corporations and the wealthy,” House Ways and Means Ranking Member Kevin Brady told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.

Activists Confront Kyrsten Sinema in Airport, on Plane over Biden Agenda

October 6, 2021October 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Protesters and activists followed Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema through Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. and onto a plane Monday, pressing her on why she refuses to back parts of the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

“I’m just trying to get an explanation for the American people,” Kunoor Ojha, chief of staff of the Green New Deal Network, asked Sinema as she followed the senator through the airport, video of the encounter shows.

Commentary: After Disastrous September and 2022 Midterms Looming, Biden May Have Lost His Mandate to Govern

October 5, 2021October 4, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Following a catastrophic U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the highest inflation since 2008,pushing unpopular COVID vaccine mandates, rationing COVID treatments to red states and finally, watching his domestic legislative agenda falter in Congress, President Joe Biden is already upside down on his job approval ratings, according to the latest average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com.

Reuters/Ipsos on Sept. 29-30 had Biden’s approval at 46 percent and disapproval at 50 percent.

Commentary: The Treacherous Road to Runaway Inflation

September 23, 2021September 23, 2021 Admin

In January, 2001, America had a balanced budget, low debt, and was at peace. Here, briefly, is what lay ahead: war, financial crisis, civil unrest, massive growth of the federal government, and now severe inflation.

Never in the history of America has our government in its ineptitude created such a false economy, risking hundreds of years of hard work on unsound and unworkable economic policies. The Founders wisely relied on dispersion of power. They knew there would be dishonest and incompetent politicians but, in this case, the entire government is infected with deceptive leaders.

Rep. Bob Good and Freedom Caucus Blast Infrastructure Bills and Democrats, Republicans, who Pass the Bills

August 24, 2021August 23, 2021 Eric Burk

Congressman Bob Good (R-Virginia-05) and other members of the House Freedom Caucus blasted infrastructure legislation in a press conference Monday afternoon. The representatives said the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in the Senate has only $100-$200 billion in real infrastructure, warning that other provisions in that bill and a larger $3.5 trillion package are ‘woke’, part of the Green New Deal, and would weaken the U.S.’ position against China.

“No matter how good some parts of the $1.2 trillion might be, a little sliver of it, we don’t have the money. The latest combined $5 trillion in spending will put us on a path to increase our national debt from the current $28 trillion to $45 trillion in ten years, all to fund, as others have said, amnesty for some 10-20 million illegal aliens in our country, to greatly expand and further bankrupt Medicare more quickly, to pass extreme environmental energy climate policies, a Green New Deal, all to transform us into a Marxist, socialist country,” Good said.

Democrats Planning to Recruit ‘Millions’ for New Civilian Climate Corps

July 22, 2021July 22, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

A group of Democrats is pushing for the creation of a Civilian Climate Corps that could employ “millions” of young people at a minimum of $15 per hour as a way to tackle climate change.

“I was proud to stand alongside Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez this year as we reintroduced the Green New Deal and also brought forward our new Civilian Conservation Corps because that legislation is a pathway to new jobs in our country, union jobs for young people,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said during a news conference focused on including the Civilian Climate Corps in the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation bill the Democrats are drafting.

New Mission PAC Hosts GOP Gubernatorial Forum

March 5, 2021March 4, 2021 Eric Burk

GOP gubernatorial candidates Delegate Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights), Peter Doran, Sergio de la Peña, and Glenn Youngkin met on Zoom on Thursday evening to answer policy questions about school reform, fixing Virginia’s tax code, improving broadband access, and making Virginia more veteran friendly. The New Mission PAC hosted the forum. PAC founder Daniel Gade and former Delegate Chris Saxman asked the questions in a format designed to allow candidates to demonstrate policy positions without engaging in direct debate.

Commentary: Koch Proxies Threaten to Destroy Conservative Populism

February 16, 2021February 15, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

A recent guest column in the Dallas Morning News offers new evidence that Conservatism, Inc. is bent on destroying conservative populism. The piece also underscores the primary streams of money in American politics: Trillions of dollars flow to progressives, billions flow to libertarians, and millions—on a good day—flow into the conservative populist movement.

The column is headlined “By supporting Trumpism, the GOP is in danger of losing libertarian support,” with the subtitle adding that “Many libertarians split from the party to vote for Biden.” The authors are Daniel Smith, an associate professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University and director of the Political Economy Research Institute, and Alexander Salter, an associate professor of economics at Texas Tech University and a research fellow at Texas Tech’s Free Market Institute. But these two professors are not some random intellectuals. They are part of a billion-dollar machine, built to produce paid-for ideas.

Delegate Rasoul Tries Again with Virginia Green New Deal

January 12, 2021January 12, 2021 Eric Burk

Delegate Sam Rasoul has pre-filed his “Green New Deal Act” [GND] in the Virginia House which includes a moratorium on new fossil fuel infrastructure beginning January 1, 2022.

“The 2021 GND Act tackles the dual crisis of climate change and inequity with an intersectional approach,” Rasoul said in an announcement on Twitter. “The science is clear. We must act swiftly to address the climate crisis.”

Virginia Delegate Rasoul Tries Again with Green New Deal

January 12, 2021 Eric Burk

Delegate Sam Rasoul has pre-filed his “Green New Deal Act” [GND] in the Virginia House which includes a moratorium on new fossil fuel infrastructure beginning January 1, 2022.

New House Rules Carve-Out for ‘Climate Change’ Bills Exempted from Requiring Projected Price Tag

January 5, 2021January 4, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

House Democrats blocked a Republican attempt on Monday to require any proposed climate change legislation to also include its projected cost.

Under the Pay As You Go (PAYGO) rule, any additional government spending proposed must be accompanied by tax increases or separate cuts. After a push from several lawmakers in the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, however, the rules package for the 117th Congress states PAYGO will not apply to legislation relating to the necessary economic recovery or U.S. efforts to combat climate change.

Truckers Plan ‘Stop the Wheels’ Shutdown in Protest of Joe Biden’s Plans for Fracking Ban, Green New Deal

November 11, 2020 Jason M. Reynolds

If you notice store shelves that are empty of toilet paper and canned food again, it may be because of a truckers’ shutdown and not the Chinese coronavirus.

Truckers have been taking to social media to try to organize a “Stop The Wheels 2020” shutdown in protest of Joe Biden’s plans for the Green New Deal and a fracking ban in the event he assumes the presidency.

Commentary: Are the State-Led Pandemic Shutdowns a Trial Run for the Green New Deal?

July 18, 2020July 17, 2020 Virginia Star Staff

At the height of the state-led COVID-19 pandemic economic shutdowns in April, 25.3 million Americans had lost their jobs as businesses shuttered up and families stayed behind closed doors, waiting for the worst of the virus to pass.

While working from home or being furloughed, millions of Americans stayed off the roads, driving much less and monthly fuel consumption down 47.1 percent in April, according to the Energy Information Agency.

Commentary: The Delusional Premises of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

May 24, 2020May 23, 2020 Admin

Welcome to yet another example of the nexus between climate change alarmism and a socialist redistribution agenda fueled by racial resentment. That may be old news to those of us paying attention, but thanks to birdbrained stooges like U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14) the blatant race-baiting rhetoric is being turned up a notch.

And why not? If you’re a socialist, or a globalist, there is only upside to tagging nations of European heritage with guilt for the problems facing their “communities of color,” or the problems in the rest of the non-European world. It would be far too painful to consider the alternative explanation, which is that socialism, in all of its antecedents and derivatives, is the primary cause of the societal afflictions that plague “people of color” both in America and abroad.