Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
A recent article at Al Jazeera, titled “Wildfire risks as climate change fuels extreme heatwave in Southern Europe,” claims that recent heatwaves in parts of southern Europe are due to climate change, which the publication says is making them more intense, and will inevitably cause more deaths. This is false. Recent heatwaves are not outside of historic norms, and though Al Jazeera correctly identifies the urban heat island effect as a major contributor, they downplay its role in recent trends and the evidence concerning temperature related deaths.
A recent article at Al Jazeera, titled “Wildfire risks as climate change fuels extreme heatwave in Southern Europe,” claims that recent heatwaves in parts of southern Europe are due to climate change, which the publication says is making them more intense, and will inevitably cause more deaths. This is false. Recent heatwaves are not outside of historic norms, and though Al Jazeera correctly identifies the urban heat island effect as a major contributor, they downplay its role in recent trends and the evidence concerning temperature related deaths.
Al Jazeera reports that authorities across several southern European countries have issued heat warnings and fire warnings, “as Southern Europe experiences the summer’s first severe heatwave and as experts link the rising frequency and intensity of soaring temperatures to climate change.”
Countries impacted are: Spain; Portugal, where Al Jazeera says Lisbon is “expected” to see temperatures around 107°F; the Italian island of Sicily, which saw some wildfires over the weekend; and Greece.
Much of the article presents a reasonable discussion of the danger’s heatwaves can pose, like increases in the likelihood of wildfire outbreaks and heat stroke. Unfortunately, the author of the post proceeds to make unfounded claims regarding the cause of the summer heat, like that “extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common across Europe’s southern region due to global warming.”
This is false; extreme weather is not becoming more severe or frequent. For example, Lisbon’s predicted high is not unprecedented, in part because the city is prone to being impacted by what is called the “Saharan air layer.” This is the same phenomenon that carries dust all the way across the Atlantic, as well as hot dry air with boosts temperatures. In 2018, Lisbon recorded a high of 111°F, and the all time high for Portugal was 117°F in 2003.
Even these temperature records do need to be taken with a grain of salt, however, because it is not clear where they were recorded, and as Al Jazeera admits, the urban heat island effect can bump temperatures upwards, both daytime and nighttime highs but especially nighttime lows. Satellite data can avoid some of the issues with ground sensors, and record much more modest warming trends than the ground sensors do.
Al Jazeera references a Lancet study they say “predicted that heat-related deaths could more than quadruple by mid-century under current climate policies,” even while admitting that more people die from cold than heat, and that the “the study stressed that rising temperatures will offset the benefits of milder winters, leading to a significant net increase in heat-related mortality.”
These claims together do not make sense. The Lancet study, referenced by Climate Realism in posts here, here, and here, showed that deaths due to cold outnumber heat related deaths by ten to one. The study also found that heat related deaths have increased 0.21 percent since the year 2000, but that the deaths due to cold have declined by more than double that, 0.51 percent. Why Al Jazeera would assume cold deaths would not continue to decline at a higher rate is unsupported by the trends and data. The only thing we know for certain is that the number of temperature related deaths have declined by tens of thousands of victims over the course of the study period. (See figure below)
Al Jazeera added a bunch of unnecessary climate change fearmongering to a post that otherwise reasonably reported on the impact of a recent heatwave in southern Europe. There was no reason for it, other than to try to scare readers into accepting the alarmist narrative that climate change is causing worsening summer weather and a rise in deaths. Even the article’s redeeming points, the truth that the urban heat island effect has a significant impact on temperature records and health and that cold related deaths are declining, were minimized or glossed over to promote unsupported alarming claims about a dramatic regional rise in heatwaves and sharp increases in heat related deaths.
Propaganda like that peddled by Al Jazeera in this article may serve as good click-bait, but misinforms anyone who reads the piece.
Picture this: You walk into your own living room, ready to relax, and your spouse is dressed in full hazmat gear. Not because it’s Halloween, or the in-laws are visiting, but because the government says you need to “save the planet.” Welcome to the world of “green” heat pumps—a glorious technological leap forward in the same way New Coke was a glorious leap forward in soda. The only thing missing is a government-mandated sticker: “Now With Bonus Legionella!”
Picture this: You walk into your own living room, ready to relax, and your spouse is dressed in full hazmat gear. Not because it’s Halloween, or the in-laws are visiting, but because the government says you need to “save the planet.” Welcome to the world of “green” heat pumps—a glorious technological leap forward in the same way New Coke was a glorious leap forward in soda. The only thing missing is a government-mandated sticker: “Now With Bonus Legionella!”
No, really. If you’re wondering why climate commissars keep demanding you tear out your trusty boiler and install the latest in eco-absurdity, it’s because nothing says “progress” like swapping one non-existent crisis for a very real, pneumonia-inducing germ. As feature image cartoon so accurately sums up, we’ve apparently reached the “just put on your spacesuit, honey” stage of climate policy.
Let’s check the scoreboard: Your heating bill is just as soul-crushingly high as ever, your water now doubles as a bacterial spa, but—good news!—the climate priests say you’re doing your part. All it cost you was your health, comfort, savings, and the right to heat your home without consulting an infectious disease specialist. Just remember to thank the experts.
“As the push for low-carbon heating accelerates, so too do the unintended health consequences. Heat pumps, especially those used for domestic hot water, often operate at lower temperatures than traditional boilers. This creates the perfect breeding ground for Legionella bacteria.”
Translation: That shiny, taxpayer-subsidized heat pump is less “Tesla of heating” and more “Chernobyl of water heaters.” Instead of harmless, invisible CO₂, you get a very visible, very deadly germ factory right under your roof. All courtesy of people who couldn’t change a tire, let alone run an energy policy.
But wait, there’s more. The “efficiency” magic of heat pumps comes from not heating your water to a temperature that actually kills bacteria. You know, like the way mankind has safely done for a century. Dr. Alan Watson, a microbiologist with the rare skill of noticing the obvious, spells it out:
“With traditional gas boilers, hot water is regularly heated to 60°C or above, killing off any bacteria. Heat pumps, to maintain efficiency, frequently store water at much lower temperatures. Unless properly managed, this is a textbook scenario for Legionella proliferation.”
Translation: The “experts” replaced your old boiler with a device that keeps water at exactly the right temperature for germs to thrive. But don’t worry, you can save the planet—just don’t breathe near your shower.
Of course, when it all blows up, the policy geniuses have a plan: run your heat pump hot enough to kill bacteria, but only once in a while, so you can still claim it’s “efficient.” As the article says:
“Manufacturers recommend a weekly or even daily heating cycle to 60°C to minimize Legionella risk. Yet this approach undermines the energy savings that supposedly justify the switch to heat pumps in the first place.”
You couldn’t make this up if you tried. It’s like selling a car that only works if you push it everywhere and then handing you a bumper sticker that says, “I’m saving the planet.”
Meanwhile, your heating bill hasn’t budged. As the cartoon’s doomed husband observes, “Bill’s as high as before.”
“Many homeowners report negligible reductions in their energy bills after switching to heat pumps, especially in older, less insulated properties. Meanwhile, the risks from inadequate water temperatures remain.”
In other words, you pay for the privilege of being a guinea pig in a government experiment—an experiment run by people who consider actual science optional whenever it conflicts with the latest Net Zero edict. All so the climate church can say you’re “doing your bit.”
The real comedy here isn’t in the cartoon—it’s in the fact that the same central planners who claim to be saving us from certain doom are so colossally incompetent they’re introducing killer germs into our homes. On purpose. When microbiologists point out the glaring problem, the response is classic: ignore the scientists, double down on the policy, and blame the public for not “trusting the science.”
If you want to sum up the Green Revolution, here it is:
Destroy the reliable.
Mandate the untested.
Ignore the consequences.
Accuse anyone who points out the obvious of heresy.
So go ahead, install that heat pump. Don your hazmat suit. Send a thank-you note to your local climate czar. After all, nothing says progress like paying more to shower in weaponized bathwater. The planet may or may not notice, but your immune system sure will.
Economic incompetence and geopolitical naïvety never go out of fashion, it seems. In a Foreign Policy article this week, Jason Bordoff — Director of Columbia University’s Centre on Global Energy Policy and a former Obama administration official — resurrects a tired old argument long favoured by the ‘progressive’ energy policy elite: that the best way to ensure America’s energy security is to reduce its demand for oil.
Economic incompetence and geopolitical naïvety never go out of fashion, it seems. In a Foreign Policyarticle this week, Jason Bordoff — Director of Columbia University’s Centre on Global Energy Policy and a former Obama administration official — resurrects a tired old argument long favoured by the ‘progressive’ energy policy elite: that the best way to ensure America’s energy security is to reduce its demand for oil.
Using the backdrop of escalating tensions between Israel and Iran and a short-lived spike in crude oil prices, Bordoff insists that since oil prices are set globally, domestic production offers little “independence” against global oil price shocks. His conclusion: we must “use less oil”, chiefly by subsidising electric vehicles, building charging infrastructure and pressing forward with efficiency and emission mandates.
Bordoff’s arguments sound awfully similar to the ‘MEOW‘ (moral equivalent of war) speech by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 which called for policies to reduce dependence on oil imports. This was when the US was a net importer of oil and dependent on Middle East oil exports during a time of oil price shocks. President Carter’s approach — which some would call ‘pussy-footed’, pun intended – to the ‘energy crisis’ is a well-worn one advanced for decades.
However, such a thesis is deeply flawed, both economically and philosophically. What Bordoff and his cohort overlook is that human flourishing arises not from technocratic control over consumption, but from the freedom to produce, innovate and engage in voluntary exchange. As Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek understood, markets — not mandarins in policy institutes — are best suited to determine the optimal allocation and consumption of resources. Bordoff’s call for reduced demand is not only economically questionable; it is politically naïve and strategically self-defeating.
The Misunderstood Value of Production
As Bordoff notes, oil prices are determined by global markets. This is a truism: oil is a fungible global commodity and any disruption in its supply anywhere effects all consumers everywhere. But from this he draws the erroneous conclusion that domestic production is of limited strategic value. This logic fails to grasp that even in a globally priced commodity market, domestic production plays a vital role in national resilience, economic growth and geopolitical strength. President Trump’s ‘energy dominance agenda’ and “drill, baby, drill” is not PR spin: it actually means something positive for the US economically and geopolitically.
As any Econ 101 student knows, in the simple identity of the components of GDP, exports add and imports subtract from the nation’s annual economic pie. When oil prices shoot up, a net oil exporter like the US benefits even if a segment of the economy (e.g. motorists) pays more at the pump. By the same token, when prices fall, motorists benefit while oil producing companies and their workers suffer adverse effects. When a nation produces and exports a commodity in global demand, it does more than hedge itself from price volatility — it creates income, jobs and technological advancement. Production is not a sideshow in the oil market; it is the main engine of prosperity.
Consider the case of the United States, which today stands as the world’s largest oil producer. This achievement is not the result of government planning or demand reduction. It is the consequence of private entrepreneurship, innovation in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, and an ecosystem that respected property rights and competitive markets.
The shift from perceived oil scarcity to a brave new world of oil abundance was brought about in an astonishingly short period of time by the advent of the ‘fracking’ revolution in the US. This involved horizontally drilling and hydraulically fracturing shale rock with high-pressure liquids to extract ‘unconventional’ oil and gas. After US crude oil production more than doubled in a decade, US production was rated at over 12 million barrels per day by mid-2019, surpassing Russian and Saudi Arabian output as the world’s largest.
The shale revolution, born in Texas and North Dakota, not only upended global energy geopolitics but restored the US as a credible energy superpower. That success story is grounded in production, not abstinence. The wealth generated by US oil and gas exports flows into the broader economy, stimulates investment in infrastructure and manufacturing and reinforces the country’s trade balance. The Trump administration’s ‘energy abundance’ agenda adds unmistakable strength to an economy which even its fiercest detractors will find hard to dispute.
Furthermore, Bordoff’s claim ignores the inherent flexibility and dynamism of US energy producers. Shale oil can respond to price signals far more rapidly than traditional conventional projects. This flexibility has transformed oil markets from rigid, cartel-dominated systems into more responsive and competitive arenas. Domestic production creates optionality in foreign policy and ensures that no single regime — whether in Riyadh, Tehran or Moscow — can weaponise energy without consequences. To dismiss the value of production because of price globalisation is akin to arguing that the US shouldn’t manufacture semiconductors simply because their price is set in global markets.
Bureaucratic Control vs Market Coordination
At the heart of Bordoff’s argument lies a deep-seated belief that consumption choices must be managed from above. He calls for demand-side management, taxpayer-funded EV subsidies and public spending on charging infrastructure as pathways to “energy security”. This is nothing less than a modern variant of central planning — a belief that bureaucrats can calculate the correct level of energy use and steer society accordingly. But as Hayek warned, no centralised authority possesses the knowledge necessary to outperform decentralised market processes. The idea that a handful of policymakers can determine the ‘right’ level of oil use is not just presumptuous and hubristic — it is dangerous.
This technocratic vision also fails to grapple with the geopolitical and strategic contradictions of the proposed EV transition. While Bordoff advocates electrification as a route to energy independence, he overlooks the fact that electric vehicles and their batteries are deeply embedded in supply chains dominated by China. From lithium and cobalt to rare earths and anode materials, the majority of EV components flow through Chinese-controlled processing and manufacturing nodes.
Thus, the vision of “reduced dependence on oil” effectively amounts to a transfer of dependence — from Middle Eastern oil producers to Chinese oligopolistic suppliers of EV supply chains, even if the US were a net energy importer. Even in this hypothetical scenario – where the US is not the world’s leading oil producer – depending on a range of oil producers in the Middle East made up mainly of Gulf Arab states that have long been key American allies is surely preferable to dependence on a single geopolitical competitor under Communist Party rule. In the name of reducing energy insecurity and national vulnerability, Bordoff would have policymakers incentivise Americans to drive EVs manufactured cheaply by China in industries powered largely by coal! This certainly is prime material for the ‘can’t make it up’ files.
Moreover, subsidising demand reductions sends perverse signals to producers. Artificially constrained demand discourages investment, undermines supply stability and ultimately drives up volatility. If fossil fuel use is relentlessly stigmatised and regulated, as it was under the previous Biden administration, capital will flee, supply chains will degrade and prices will grow more erratic. Indeed, the Biden administration did a fine job of precisely this process of self-destruction, all in the name of the “first climate Presidency”.
Energy Freedom as a Path to Prosperity
Beyond economics and geopolitics, Bordoff’s worldview clashes with the moral and philosophical foundation of a free society. The choice to drive a gasoline car, heat one’s home with natural gas or invest in oil drilling should not be pre-empted by technocratic fiat. Human flourishing arises when individuals are free to produce, consume, innovate and pursue their own goals. The market, not the state, is the best arbiter of such choices.
This is not to say that alternatives such as EVs or renewable energy have no place. Quite the opposite. Innovation should be encouraged. But it must be guided by competition and market feedback, not by centralised subsidies that entrench inefficiencies and favour politically connected industries. If EVs offer superior value, consumers will adopt them. If renewable energy proves cost-effective and reliable, the market will embrace it. Let the best technologies win through price, performance and consumer preference, not through bureaucratic decree.
Crucially, the push to reduce consumption often disguises a regressive and elitist undertone. While energy elites advocate green degrowth from the comfort of coastal boardrooms, it is rural and working-class Americans who bear the brunt of restricted energy access. Affordable, abundant energy is the bedrock of upward mobility — powering farms, trucks, small businesses and homes. When policymakers artificially constrain supply or mandate expensive ‘energy transitions’, they impose disproportionate costs on those least able to bear them. A vision of prosperity that rests on enforced scarcity is not only misguided, it is morally bankrupt.
Making America Great Again
The inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States dramatically changed the trajectory of US energy policies as pursued by the Biden administration and the previous two-term Obama presidency. No longer is climate alarmism a factor in energy policy, and mandates to force energy choices on the ordinary American consumer have become a thing of the past. Fossil fuels are no longer vilified, and coal mineworkers are no longer held out as ‘deplorables’. The recently passed ‘Big Beautiful Bill‘ will no longer provide subsidies for EVs even as it nullifies draconian emission standards and phases out production tax credits and other subsidies for wind and solar projects.
Today, America exudes confidence in its ability to lead across the energy industry. President Trump’s key executive orders affecting the industry, together with the appointment of economically literate conservatives and businessmen – instead of climate zealots – in leadership roles in the energy (Chris Wright), environment (Lee Zeldin) and interior (Douglas Burgum) portfolios have put the country on a path of energy bounty, enhancing not only energy and national security at home but also America’s strategic standing abroad.
Climate cultists and central planners continue to have a grapple hold on university departments. But with the Trumpian counter-revolution in energy policy, Americans can look forward to an energy future where human flourishing is enabled by freedom, not rationing, by production, not prohibition, and by opportunity, not scarcity.
I keep reading how big batteries are all it takes to make wind and solar reliable as the sole grid electricity source. The reality is that making wind and solar work at all requires a fantastic amount of battery backup, far more than is possible.
I keep reading how big batteries are all it takes to make wind and solar reliable as the sole grid electricity source. The reality is that making wind and solar work at all requires a fantastic amount of battery backup, far more than is possible.
Below is an example using the PJM grid. PJM is America’s biggest grid operator, with a territory covering the Mid-Atlantic and points west. Their territory includes the Washington, DC metro area, where all the federal bigwigs live, making it a good place to start. I also live there.
We are quantifying a fantasy, so let’s keep it very simple. In fact, the basic question is why hasn’t PJM done this simple analysis? They do a lot of sophisticated grid modeling. Or maybe they have done this crucial assessment, but it is a secret, which is even worse.
Consider a single day in a typical peak demand summer heatwave. The heatwave is due to a stagnant high-pressure system called a Bermuda high, so there is not enough wind to generate usable wind power, no matter how much generating capacity is available.
It is sunny during the day, so let’s assume that for 8 hours we get enough solar to meet demand (or, as I prefer to call it, to meet need). For the other 16 hours, we meet demand using batteries. We import nothing because our neighbors are in the same needy boat.
Finally, for simplicity, I assume the demand is at the peak level for the entire 24 hour day. This overestimates things a bit, but we will find that does not matter. A fancier analysis would use a typical demand curve. PJM can handle that.
My example year is 2030, as that is a standard near-term transition target year for which we have reasonable estimates of peak demand. Here then are the very simple numbers.
PJM’s estimate peak demand for 2030 is about 180,000 MW.
Meeting that for 16 hours with batteries requires 2,880,000 MWh of usable storage.
Usable storage is between 20% and 80% of nameplate battery capacity, hence 60%.
Thus we need 4,800,000 MWh of nameplate battery capacity.
Storage facility capital costs vary, but $500,000 per MWh is a reasonable estimate.
This gives a total cost of $2.4 trillion, or $2,400,000,000,000, for the batteries to make wind and solar reliable in this case. This fantastic cost is clearly not feasible.
There are things that could make this number go down a bit, such as reduced cost per MWh. But given last year saw just 130,000 MWh installed worldwide, the production capacity does not exist, so we are talking about new mines and factories. It actually cannot be done by 2030, not even close.
But the realistic numbers would be much higher if this fantasy played out because low wind, near-peak heatwaves often last for several days, even a week. Ten trillion dollars is easily possible. We are, after all, talking about hundreds of thousands of tractor-trailer sized batteries, basically containers full of expensive chemicals. Moreover, this is just for PJM.
Batteries simply cannot make a transition to wind and solar power feasible. The amount, and hence the cost, of storage is far too great.
Given the simplicity of this analysis, using readily available data, the big question is why are these impossible numbers not already widely known? PJM and their big utilities all do detailed modeling and supposed reliability assessments. So does NERC, whose sole mission is reliability. Many utilities file annual Integrated Resource Plans with their state regulators, typically looking out 20 years or more.
That battery backup cannot make wind and solar powered grids possible is obvious given these incredible numbers. The electric power industry must know this, but their silence is deafening.
I recently described the Energy Innovation Policy and Technology analysis: Assessing Impacts Of “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” On U.S. Energy Costs, Jobs, Health, Emissions. The analysis included astoundingly biased claims of the effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. I really did not think that I would see something that was as bad if not worse in less than a week but never underestimate the New York climate crazies.
Several days ago Earth Justice, Environmental Defense Fund, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and Evergreen Action wrote a letter to Governor Hochul and the top managers of the Public Service Commission, the Department of Environmental Conservation, and the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority claiming that the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) messaging in their summary Power Trends 2025 was misleading when they claimed that additional fossil fuel electricity generation is needed for reliability. The arguments are as bad as the Energy Innovation Policy and Technology analysis. The worst part is it got publicized by numerous media outlets, for example here, here and here.
A month ago, when the NYISO published Power Trends I wrote it up here because these are the folks that are responsible for keeping the lights on. They have a group whose sole responsibility is electric resource planning, and they use the most sophisticated tools available. The results expressed deep concerns about the future of the electric system on its current path to zero-emissions. My article did note that I was disappointed that the report did not explicitly call out the immense challenges of transiting the New York electric system to one primarily reliant on wind, solar, and energy storage by 2040. I should have mentioned that in the absence of clear, definitive explanations that the usual suspects would misinterpret their findings. Guess what happened?
The introductory paragraph of the letter states:
On June 2, 2025, New York Independent System Operator (“NYISO”) issued its annual summary Power Trends report. The undersigned organizations write to correct misleading implications in the report and press release. The report’s messaging—that additional fossil fuel electricity generation is needed for reliability—is not supported by NYISO’s own analysis, and the report should not be used to derail New York’s progress toward a clean energy future. In fact, NYISO’s policies favoring fossil fuel generation and its delays in interconnecting clean energy resources to the grid are the real threats to reliability, and New York should prioritize the buildout of renewable energy and storage, and transmission, to comply with state law and protect New Yorkers’ wallets and health.
Their claims are based on failing to acknowledge the purpose of the report, willful disregard of development schedule constraints, poor understanding of the electric system, and ignorance of weather-related impacts on wind and solar production.
The letter complains that it is “not based on new information or analysis but is rather a summary of prior NYISO reports and analysis”. The Power Trends report is supposed to be a summary overview of the results of other technical analyses. I have my doubts that the authors have delved into those analyses in enough detail to understand the implications of the results.
The letter claims that “NYISO’s technical analyses on reliability that are the basis of this report do not support the implication in Power Trends that immediate investment in additional gas resources is necessary to maintain reliability.” The authors ignore the NYISO concerns about the age of the existing fossil fuel resources and expectations that they may not work when needed most. For the record, during the recent heat wave just about every fossil unit that could run was running. It also was an unusual weather event because the source of the hot air was more of a push of heat and humidity from the south instead of a massive high-pressure system settling in place. As a result, wind resources were higher than as is normal for peak summer loads.
The letter claims that “It seems that NYISO is irresponsibly seeking to create a false narrative that New York needs new gas generation, even though there is no evidence to support that claim.” The authors ignored an explicit explanation why repowering old gas generation is beneficial. In addition to addressing the reliability concerns of old equipment, new combined cycle gas turbines are cleaner than existing sources, more efficient, and could be eventually converted to burn green hydrogen. Repowering extends the lifespans of existing facilities with all the supporting infrastructure and are a more cost-effective alternative than building a new plant.
The letter went on to claim:
Many gas plants have retired in the state over recent years because they are not being utilized and are uneconomic. In addition, Winter Storm Elliott in 2022 exposed serious risks tied to overreliance on fossil fueled generators, particularly gas generators, where freezing and fuel issues resulted in generators failing to deliver power during extreme cold. In response, NYISO is no longer assuming certain gas generators will be available during winter demand peaks. According to the report, the only shortfall in electricity supply that NYISO anticipates would be due to gas supplies freezing during the winter.
These arguments are misleading. Many of the retirements are because the electricity system is rigged to use solar and wind power whenever it is available but does not penalize the sources for not providing the ancillary support services necessary to keep the electric system operating well. Winter Storm Elliott exposed serious reliability risks if fossil fueled generators are not adequately winterized. No plants failed in New York due to the cold weather. Gas supply was an issue, but New York addresses that problem by specifying a minimum number of dual-fueled units that can switch to oil during these conditions. They switched to oil and kept the lights on.
The letter claims that “NYISO has not specifically identified any new reliability need.” That is flat out wrong because Power Trends acknowledges that a new resource for long duration periods of low wind and solar resource availability is needed. The authors do not understand the intensity and extent of these periods. The dispatchable, emissions-free resources (DEFR) needed to solve this problem are not commercially available. The people responsible for electric system reliability recognize that deployment of these resources is years away, but the authors don’t acknowledge this challenge and its implications.
In my opinion, the biggest flaw in the letter is that it does not acknowledge the extraordinary challenge that NYISO system planners must plan for the worst-case scenario. Climate activist preferred alternatives work most of the time, but when needed the most they will not work. Their myopic outlook ignores long-term historical observations and the schedule necessary to meet the aspirational targets of New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act. The NYISO planners must address those issues, and the results are summarized in the Power Trends report. If anything, the report did not describe the severity of the challenges well enough. It is sad that media outlets picked up the description of the letter without considering the motives of the source.
I could go on with more examples, but time is too short. Apparently, NYISO did not provide enough explicit evidence to support their results that contradict the environmentalist narrative. I wonder if the authors could ever be convinced. At the end of the day, I make it a habit to listen primarily to voices who face consequences when their projections are wrong. The organizations who authored this letter do not meet that requirement.
Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York. This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.
In the CBS Boston (CBS-B) article titled “Is extreme heat the new normal in Boston? What hitting 102 degrees tells us about climate change,” Jacob Wycoff claims that Boston’s recent heat wave is a symptom of climate change and the “new normal.” This is misleading. In fact, long-term temperature records do not support the notion that heat waves are becoming more intense or more frequent in Boston or across the United States.
In the CBS Boston (CBS-B) article titled “Is extreme heat the new normal in Boston? What hitting 102 degrees tells us about climate change,” Jacob Wycoff claims that Boston’s recent heat wave is a symptom of climate change and the “new normal.” This is misleading. In fact, long-term temperature records do not support the notion that heat waves are becoming more intense or more frequent in Boston or across the United States. Historical weather data shows that extreme heat events in Boston are neither unprecedented nor evidence of a climate emergency. The notion that a few hot days in June are proof of a systemic climate shift is simply not supported by the broader climate record.
“What used to be ‘unusual’ is fast becoming our new normal,” Wycoff writes. “And if we don’t act to slow warming, this kind of heat won’t be the exception, it’ll be the expectation.
“If greenhouse gas emissions remain unchecked, Boston’s average summer highs could rise by 9 degrees by 2100,” says Wycoff.
Wycoff’s story, as is usually the case in mainstream media stories about climate change, promotes speculative model projections, while ignoring real world data and trends to the contrary.
It’s a familiar tactic: choose the most aggressive, worst-case emissions scenario and present it as destiny. Climate Central, the source for much of the CBS-B story, uses computer model projections based on RCP 8.5, for example. Yet as noted on Climate Realism, even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stepped back from emphasizing RCP 8.5 as a likely pathway, recognizing that is implausible if not impossible.
This climate alarmist framing glosses over essential context: heat waves like the one Boston just experienced have happened before, well before recent increase in carbon dioxide emissions, and are often the result of local urbanization effects—not global climate trends.
Let’s start with the basic fact that the recent heat in Boston, while certainly hot, is far from unprecedented. According to the National Weather Service data, Boston hit a record high of 102 degrees for June on June 24, 2025. But historical data shows that Boston has experienced significantly high temperatures long before modern climate anxieties took hold. Boston’s previous record June temperature of 100℉ was June 6. 1925, 100 years of global warming ago. The highest all time ever recorded temperature in Boston was 104°F in July 1911, followed by 103°F in July 1926. The city also saw 102°F temperatures in 1911, 1975, and 1977. You can see these highs in the graph below with the most recent one on the far right in the figure below.
Figure: Hottest annual temperatures recorded in Boston, Massachusetts for each year between 1893 and 2025.
So, if recently increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is responsible for this “new normal” as Wycoff claims, how did these even hotter events happen in the past when carbon dioxide levels were lower? His narrative falls apart in this context.
So, no—extreme heat is not the new normal in Boston. It’s part of a long-standing, intermittent pattern of hot weather events. In fact, the heat experienced in June 2025 didn’t even break Boston’s all-time record. It was simply the hottest June day since 1872, not the hottest day ever.
Nor are extended heatwaves new to Boston. In June 1872, Boston experienced eight days of temperatures above 90°F. Boston also had a multi-day stretch of 100-degree temperatures in July 1911, a heat wave that was deadlier and more extreme than what the city experienced in June 2025. That 1911 event resulted in numerous fatalities across the Northeast, a fact documented well before climate change became the default explanation for every summer hot spell.
The CBS-B article cites Climate Central’s claim that Boston’s overnight summer temperatures have increased by 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 50 years. But this trend is almost certainly influenced by the well-known Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, which causes cities to retain more heat, especially overnight, due to heat-absorbing infrastructure like asphalt, concrete, and buildings. This is not a climate crisis; this is local urbanization.
The UHI effect is well-documented and accounts for much of the localized warming in urban centers. In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) acknowledges that “cities tend to be warmer than rural areas, particularly at night, because buildings, roads, and other infrastructure absorb heat during the day and release it slowly after the sun goes down.”
Boston, like most major metropolitan areas, has undergone significant growth over the last century. The city’s population has grown substantially over the past 70 years. With more people bringing with them the development of more houses, buildings, streets, bridges, concrete, blacktop, machinery, and denser development, all of which contribute to warmer temperatures. The temperature increase isn’t a global phenomenon playing out on a Boston street corner—it’s a localized, urbanized one.
Furthermore, the idea that climate change is singularly responsible for making hot days “six times more common” in Boston is based on computer model forecasting, not measured trends. CBS-B leans heavily on Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index, which is a modeled estimate—not direct measurement—of climate influence. These types of attributions rely on climate models that, as Climate Realism has repeatedly shown, consistently overstate future warming compared to observed reality. Research by Roy Spencer Ph.D., has demonstrated that most climate models overestimate warming by up to 50 percent compared to satellite data.
What CBS-B also fails to mention is that heat-related deaths in the U.S. have been declining, not increasing. Thanks to modern air conditioning, improved healthcare, and public awareness, society is far more resilient to heat than it was a century ago. According to a 2022 study published in The Lancet, cold weather still kills significantly more people than heat does.
The CBS-B story is a prime example of lazy climate reporting. It cherry-picks recent temperatures, ignores over a century of weather history, and repeats activist talking points without challenge. CBS-B’s failure to carry out basic fact checking resulted in a story that was alarmingly misleading. The story is an example of the type of “journalism” that is eroding the public’s trust in journalists and mainstream media outlets they report for.
In 2024 LONGi, then the USA’s top solar-panel supplier, was sanctioned by U.S Customs and Border Protection for alleged use of Chinese forced labor. They aren’t the only Chinese company to be sanctioned.
5:25 Everybody knows the one thing you can do to cut your power bills is to install Solar
6:53 Countries are lining up to learn from the Australian experience
7:57 In May this year, China installed 116Gw of renewable energy. … Australia installed just over 7Gw last year.
9:30 China foresaw the trillion dollar transfer of wealth underway from the fossil fuel sector to the renewable sector decades ago.
12:00 The world can’t leave it to China alone, Australia must also diversify
12:36 But not everyone is leaning into the transition. Just think about this, imagine the transition as a marathon race. The best runners run a marathon in a little over two hours. And so if the multi transition, the multi-trillion dollar transition of the world were a marathon race, then countries like Australia, Japan, the US would be like the runners at the start line, limbering up, getting their numbers. But the only problem was, that race began an hour ago. That is how far ahead China is in this race. Now for a brief moment, it looked like the US would put themselves in contention for a podium finish, the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, unlocking a trillion dollars in investment. Then on Friday the 4th of July, President Trump signed his big beautiful bill.
Now I’ll leave it to Elon Musk to critique, I want to travel to the US one day. “It gives handouts to the industries of the past, while severely damaging industries of the future”.
Here here Elon Musk. It is an effective US surrender, out of the energy transformation race. And actually that’s really bad news, bad for the entire world. Clean energy is not just a climate policy, it’s an industrial strategy, a productivity strategy.
18:40 But friends, not all of our political leaders share the same vision. I’ve been the chief executive of the smart energy council for 17 years. And it’s been a shocking thing to watch. Being anti-renewables is a defining test of allegiance for the coalition. Strangely Trumpian, in a world before Trump the politician. Going all in on an economic and engineering lie. A lie which sits at the heart of the not so secret coalition agreement between the liberals and the national party. That renewables can’t compete, that they’re too weak, too unreliable. That adherence, that belief, gets you in, and keeps you in. Break ranks and you’re done for.
23:30 [Talking about former opposition leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan] The leading energy analysts at climate energy finance, the full costings, capturing it all, the put the cost [full life cost of 7 nuclear reactors], the entire cost, at between 4.8 and 5.2 trillion dollars.
29:45 Gas is a gamble
30:14 Building a circular economy is also central to reform
32:31 COP31 will deliver billions of dollars to the Australian economy, through trade deals and tourism, and expose Australian businesses to the world. But we haven’t secured the bid yet. … Friends we are in the diplomatic and economic race for our lives, to real zero.
33:37 [Question] You’ve received a little bit of applause here, in making for a 2035 target in the high 70s range. Yet In view of Trump’s United States, the general perception is the race is if anything slowing down. Why would Australia be acting proportionately with the rest of the world if it went for such a high figure, in the high 70s?
The global transfer of wealth, the $10 trillion which is spent a year on coal, oil, gas, petrol, diesel around the world, that is transitioning. The world is in the process of electrifying everything that can be electrified, transportation, gas industries, renewable energy and more. That is really significant. And why are they doing that? They are not doing that because there is a UN mandate or a charter, they are doing it because that saves them money. It is actually the cheapest thing to do. There is a race underway, countries which lean into this and secure the advantage, win disproportionately economically. And that is Australia’s challenge. And if you set the signal, if we unite behind this as a nation, it’s possible. I’ll tell you one other thing I see in China, one thing you can say about the Chinese system, is that China plays as a team. And Australia spends all of our time trying to tear each other apart. That is no way to compete for team Australia, to think about our collective national wealth, our natural resources, and our intellectual capacity. And that’s why it is so important that Australia does lean in, because this is the trade and business and investment opportunity of a lifetime.
48:30 [Question – Michael de Percy, Spectator] An hour north of here in the Upper Lachlan, there are wind turbines in every direction as far as the eye can see. Power bills have gone up, over the last four years, 40%. The question is, why should residents of the Upper Lachlan trust what you say today, and also will it actually get cheaper? We’re hearing “free”, but its costing a lot of money
You know, it takes me back. Do you remember, was it Joe Hockey, passed the wind turbines on the way to, you know, the blight on the landscape. It was the period when we had, these were creating acoustic brain cancer in people, right? It was a phase that we went through in this county. Um that’s not to say, that there are people in regional rural Australia that don’t have genuine concerns, and they’re right to hold them. But I would say this: we need to get better in engaging in these nation building projects. One thing that I’m advocating for amongst our membership is to bring forward projects that do more community benefit sharing. That actually means if we’re producing the cheapest power, and the community is hosting it, why can’t we have a mechanism, that actually gives in that community 5c off their retail for their energy for example right? There’s that we could do, to spread the load, covered by one community, but its covered by the entire nation.
1:01:55 [Solar powered data centers] – Why don’t we … make the green data centers here? We could actually build enormously power hungry AI chatGPT big servers which are going to, if we don’t get this right, not only push up energy prices but be a carbon bomb which destroys the world, why wouldn’t we build those data centers where energy is the cheapest to produce, where we actually tap into Australian sunshine and wind, energy storage, to actually attract that investment in our country…
I love John Grimes’ version of rolling back the 40% energy price rise over the last 4 years, by giving a small groups adjacent to objectionable renewable facilities a 5c discount, and “spreading the load” on everyone else. Doesn’t sound much like a price cut which would benefit all Australians.
Solar powered data centers – what a joke. When you have a multi acre installation with equipment which costs up to $10,000 / square yard, when idle time loses you millions of dollars per hour, and the installation requires hundreds of megawatts of rock steady reliable energy, playing balancing games with unreliables is a headache you don’t need. How much energy storage would be required to guarantee that system running 24×7? There is a reason Microsoft is restarting Three Mile Island nuclear plant to feed their insatiable energy needs; this is not a level of energy use which can be reliably supplied by battery firmed solar. And that nuclear plant isn’t costing Microsoft the best part of a trillion dollars, which is what John Grimes thinks it costs to build a nuclear plant.
China is also facing credible accusations of using slave labour in their renewable industry – the article below details sanctions imposed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection after they discovered evidence of forced labor in China’s solar supply chains.
John Grimes’ also in my opinion praised China and displayed disdain for Australia’s political process, which he described as “tearing each other apart”. There is a name for “tearing each other apart” verbally, that name is democratic debate. As the author Terry Pratchett once said, Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions. And if that freedom to pull in whatever direction you want sometimes looks like “tearing each other apart”, the alternative, pulling together Chinese style, at the point of a gun, with overseers, chains and whips at the ready if anyone dissents, lets just say that isn’t the kind of pulling together I would choose.
Chinese style pulling together frequently also leads to terrible outcomes and massive resource misallocation. Part of the reason China is in serious economic trouble right now is they squandered billions of dollars on excess housing, high speed rail, and a bunch of other boondoggles far in excess of rational need. Under the Chinese system no underling has the freedom to call out the incompetence and corruption of their bosses.
The green agenda John Grimes praised is particularly untouchable in China, because that agenda was set by President Xi Jinping. Xi’s administration has repeatedly demonstrated incompetence at managing China’s energy needs. But Chinese people who challenge Xi’s authority seem to have unusually bad luck when it comes to being arrested, or other unfortunate life events, so I doubt many people in China have the courage to tell Xi to his face he is making a mistake. But there are other signs of trouble in communist paradise – The effort China is putting into building coal plants contradicts claims that Xi’s renewable push is an overwhelming success.
Claims that renewables offer an economic advantage are clearly nonsense. Profitable opportunities don’t need government subsidies. European states and US states like California have sky high energy costs, despite having embraced the renewable transition for decades. After years of effort and billions of dollars of public expenditure, you would have expected to see some benefits by now, if there were any benefits to be had.
But you know what? It’s a free world, unless perhaps you are one of those unfortunate Chinese renewable manufacturing team members who is permanently chained to their workstation for the crime of being a member of an ethnic minority group.
President Trump has not stopped California or other green states from pursuing their renewable dreams. All Trump did was pull the federal funding, force them to go green on their own dime, instead of making everyone else pay for their fantasies.
It’s so unfair, the wind is free, but who could have known we’d need metals, boats, cables, and magnets?
Governments waved their magic wands to declare the renewable transition would “bling” into existence, but they didn’t bother doing the sums on whether we could mine the vast resources in time, and what would happen to the prices of everything, if every other stupid fashion-obsessed western nation tried to do the same thing at the same time.
At the academic safe space known as “The Conversion” Thomas York explains to baffled renewables fans why wind farm developers are mysteriously pulling out at the last minute. He doesn’t spell out the baby-nature of the economic reality, but we can read between the lines. The ship called The Infrastructure-Bill has arrived and it’s killing them: the price of steel, copper and aluminium has doubled and tripled; we can’t make the right boats fast enough to build the towers out at sea; everyone wants high-voltage cabling at the same time, and they all need the rare metals for the magnets, which are well, rare. Then, the delays in arranging all this mean the developers fall over their contract agreements timelines, so they start to lose subsidies.
Ultimately developers have raised their prices to cover the true costs, but then the customers aren’t happy. As the University of Leicester researcher says so poignantly when faced with the brutal reality of the market: “it [wind power] is simply not profitable enough”. He even admits “renewable energy still cannot compete with oil and gas.” Sacre bleu!
The UK government magic wand says it can generate 95% of energy from renewable sources by 2030. York, master of understatement, says the “target is now in jeopardy.”
Projects just kept getting bigger until it all broke:
The UK government’s strategy for tackling climate change received a major blow in May when Danish developer Ørsted announced that adverse economic developments had halted its 2.4-gigawatt (GW) Hornsea 4 wind farm in the North Sea.
Supply, meet demand: When everyone wants the same thing at the same time, prices rise
Building a wind turbine requires significant amounts of steel, copper and aluminium, all of which doubled or tripled in price between 2020 and 2023. Turbine manufacturers have raised prices in an effort to recover recent losses…
Impending national and international net zero targets also mean that developers globally are having to make earlier investments in transmission infrastructure. An exponential increase in demand for scarce high-voltage cabling has already led to high-profile cancellations of offshore wind farms in the US.
… Rising demand for rare earth metals used to make magnets in turbine generators has also been snared by geopolitical issues.
There are just not enough boats:
Ørsted ceased work on its 2.2GW Ocean Wind development zone off the coast of New Jersey in 2023, citing a vessel delay in its decision to cancel the project.
According to the advocacy group WindEurope, demand for vessels capable of installing foundations and turbines and laying cables will outstrip availability within the next five years. The gap between the two is forecast to skyrocket between 2028 and 2030….
Delays caused by these issues can result in a problem known as “contract erosion”. In their contracts, developers have a commissioning window within which turbines have to start generating. If they are not operational within this time, they lose their subsidies on a day-by-day basis.
Ultimately, the market hath spoken:
Rising costs mean that even one of the world’s biggest wind farms, Dogger Bank in the North Sea, will not be profitable for its developer, Equinor. As a prospect for generating financial returns, renewable energy still cannot compete with oil and gas.
This is the key argument of economic geographer Brett Christophers in his recent book The Price is Wrong. Christophers argues that, if national governments continue to rely so heavily on private sector investment to build renewable energy, decarbonisation is unlikely to proceed as fast as it needs to. It is simply not profitable enough.
If the government had got out of the way and let the market speak twenty years ago without hiding the truth under a bonanza-fog of subsidies, we wouldn’t have wasted twenty years and trillions of dollars to find out it was not going to work.
From 2021 through 2024, BOEM only held three GOA lease sales. Lease Sale 257, held in November 2021, was nullified by a corrupt Obama judge. Biden, or whoever was operating the Autopen, cancelled sales 259 and 261, scheduled for 2022 and 2023 respectively. Then Biden’s Interior Department unlawfully refused to issue a new leasing plan. If not for one good provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, there would have been no GOA lease sales.
From 2021 through 2024, BOEM only held three GOA lease sales. Lease Sale 257, held in November 2021, was nullified by a corrupt Obama judge. Biden, or whoever was operating the Autopen, cancelled sales 259 and 261, scheduled for 2022 and 2023 respectively. Then Biden’s Interior Department unlawfully refused to issue a new leasing plan. If not for one good provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, there would have been no GOA lease sales.
The Inflation Reduction Act (the Act), which passed the U.S. Senate on Aug. 7, 2022, requires that previously announced offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska be held during the next two years.
The Act requires the U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior) to award leases to the highest bidders in Lease Sale 257, which was held in November 2021. In January 2022, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia vacated Lease Sale 257 after finding that Interior’s environmental review failed to adequately consider certain greenhouse gas emissions related to holding the offshore oil and gas lease sale. See Friends of the Earth v. Haaland, 2022 WL 254526 (D.D.C. Jan. 27, 2022).
The Act directs Interior to rely on its Record of Decision for Outer Continental Oil and Gas Leasing Program Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement issued on Jan. 17, 2017 (82 Fed. Reg. 6643). The Act also requires Interior to move forward with Lease Sale 258 in Alaska Region’s Cook Inlet by Dec. 31, 2022, and two additional Gulf of Mexico Lease sales, Lease Sales 259 and 261, by March 2023 and September 2023, respectively. The Act provides that the restored and new lease sales be held despite the fact that the Five-Year Leasing Plan mandated by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act expired in June 2022.
Despite the worst efforts of Biden’s Autopen, Gulf of America operators managed to maintain a production level of about 1.8 million barrels per day, second only to the Permian Basin, among US oil producing regions.
We forecast crude oil production in the Federal Offshore Gulf of America (GOA) will average 1.80 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2025 and 1.81 million b/d in 2026, compared with 1.77 million b/d in 2024, in our most recent Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). We expect GOA natural gas production to average 1.72 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2025 and 1.64 Bcf/d in 2026, compared with 1.79 Bcf/d in 2024. At these volumes, the GOA is forecast to contribute about 13% of U.S. crude oil production and 1% of U.S. marketed natural gas production in 2025 and 2026.
We expect operators to start crude oil and natural gas production at 13 fields in the GOA during 2025 and 2026, without which GOA production would decline. Eight fields will be developed using subsea tiebacks or underwater extensions to existing Floating Production Units (FPUs) at the surface. Five fields will produce from four new FPUs, with one of the new FPUs (Salamanca FPU) targeting production from two fields.
We expect the additional crude oil production from all new fields will contribute 85,000 b/d in 2025 and 308,000 b/d in 2026. We expect associated natural gas production from the new fields will average 0.09 Bcf/d in 2025 and 0.27 Bcf/d in 2026.
Three fields began producing earlier this year:
Whale Whale, one of the largest fields expected to come online in 2025 and 2026, started producing in January 2025 from a new FPU of the same name. The Whale FPU, located in more than 8,600 feet of water, is expected to produce around 85,000 b/d of crude oil at its peak.
Dover The Dover field also started production in April as a subsea tieback to the existing Appomattox facility with expected peak production of around 15,000 b/d.
Production coming online in the second half of 2025:
Shenandoah The Shenandoah field, which will produce from an FPU of the same name, is scheduled to start production in June 2025 with an initial capacity of 120,000 b/d, which will be expanded to 140,000 b/d in early 2026. The Shenandoah Phase 1 development will use new technologies to produce from a deepwater high-pressure field.
Leon and Castile Another new FPU we expect to come online in the second half of 2025, Salamanca, will process oil and natural gas from the Leon and Castile discoveries. The Salamanca project involved refurbishing a previously decommissioned production facility and has a capacity of 60,000 b/d of oil and 40 million cubic feet per day of natural gas.
Three new subsea tiebacks are expected to begin production in 2026: Silvertip Phase 3, Longclaw, and Monument, a subsea tieback to the Shenandoah FPU.
Hurricanes in the Gulf of America could disrupt the production and development timeline of these new fields. Colorado State University anticipates that the 2025 Atlantic Basin hurricane season will have above-normal activity with 17 named storms.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the Gulf of America
While the One Big Beauiful Bill Act is far from perfect, it codified a legal requirement for BOEM to hold two area-wide Gulf of America lease sales every year through 2041, streamlines commingling permits and reduces the royalty rate back down to 12.5% (1/8th).
Offshore Oil & Gas Provisions The final bill includes strong offshore energy measures, many long supported by NOIA:
Mandates Two Gulf of America Lease Sales Annually for the next 15 years, each offering at least 80 million acres.
Requires Six Offshore Lease Sales in Cook Inlet, Alaska over the next decade.
Streamlines Offshore Operations: Requires BSEE to approve production commingling requests unless safety or production is negatively impacted.
Restores Previous Royalty Rate: Reinstates the minimum 12.5% royalty rate for new offshore leases.
Boosts Revenue Sharing: Increases the GOMESA revenue cap to $650 million annually, up from $500 million.
After the Senate vote, NOIA President Erik Milito praised the offshore leasing provisions, calling them a necessary course correction after “years of policy whiplash”:
Mandated Gulf of America lease sales are absolutely essential. They give companies, whether family-run service shops or global manufacturers, the predictability needed to invest, hire, and build. When lease schedules vanish, so do jobs, capital, and energy security, with consequences felt far beyond the Gulf Coast.
The mandated lease sale requirement is critical. In May 2020, NOIA published a report showing the potential economic impacts from a cessation of GOA lease sales.
These impacts would lead to a sharp drop in oil & gas production. I added the actual production data for 2017-2024 to the graph. Actual production has been 100-200 mbbl/d less than the NOIA baseline since 2020 due to the effects of the Shamdemic and 2020 coup d’état.
The mandate of “two Gulf of America Lease Sales Annually for the next 15 years, each offering at least 80 million acres” pretty well guarantees an active leasing program through 2041 and will give GOA operators a decent shot at exceeding 2 million bbl/d. Unless, of course, some Obama or Biden judge declares that only Federal judges can pass laws.
U.S. — The country was thrown into chaos this morning as a federal judge from the D.C. District Court overturned the law of gravity nationwide.
“The law of gravity is a bigoted law that quite literally keeps people down. This is typical of the fascist authoritarianism that has become President Trump’s brand,” said Judge Porben Crumbly of his latest ruling. “It is a blatant violation of the Constitution and my sensitive leftist sensibilities. It is therefore my divine will as an all-powerful federal judge that gravity no longer exists.”
Within minutes of Judge Crumbly making his decision, everything in the country began to float into the sky in compliance with the ruling. Sources said the sky was now filled with thousands of people, automobiles, chickens, rocks, televisions, and other objects that were typically known for staying on the ground. “How does a federal judge have this kind of authority?” said one woman, who was attempting to walk her chihuahua at 12,000 feet. “It seems like too much authority, but maybe that’s just me.”
With Congress passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into US law, let’s consider the policy implications going forward. Also note the irony of the previous Biden administration BBBA (Build Back Better Act) which failed:
With Congress passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into US law, let’s consider the policy implications going forward. Also note the irony of the previous Biden administration BBBA (Build Back Better Act) which failed:
Speaker Mike Johnson listed 25 Trump Executive Orders now codified into law by Congress (highlighted are those most related to climate policies):
Securing our Borders
Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border
Protecting the American People Against Invasion
Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders
Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and other National Security and Public Safety Threats
Implementing the President’s DOGE Cost Efficiency Initiative
Protecting America’s Bank Account Against Fraud, Waste and Abuse
Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy
Stopping Waste, Fraud and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos
Iron Dome for America
Unleashing American Drone Dominance
Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance
Unleashing American Energy
Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry
Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production
Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production
Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States
Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation
Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States and Communities
Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education
Establishing the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission
Further Amendment to Duties Addressing the Synthetic Opioid Supply Chain in the People’s Republic of China as Applied to Low-Value Imports
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Global Tax Deal
Enforcing the Hyde Amendment
Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday — Garden of Heroes
Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful
I used perplexity.ai to answer two questions about what impact to expect from this Development. Text in italics with my bolds, two edits and added images.
Several Trump Executive Orders since January 2025 have directly targeted climate change policies at both the federal and state levels.
Rescinding Biden-Era Climate Orders: Trump issued an executive order revoking all previous administration executive orders related to climate change, the clean energy transition, and climate finance. This included: the cancellation of national and sectoral climate targets, such as net zero by 2050, 100% electric vehicle sales by 2035, and the revocation of the National Climate Task Force and the State Department’s Climate Change Support Office.
Declaring a National Energy Emergency: An executive order declared a national emergency on energy, prioritizing fossil fuel development, including in previously protected areas like Alaska. It directed agencies to expedite energy permitting and infrastructure, and to use emergency authorities to facilitate new energy projects, especially for oil, gas, coal, and critical minerals.
Disbanding the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases Group: The “Unleashing American Energy” executive order disbanded the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, excluding its work from government policy and directing agencies to consider eliminating the social cost of carbon from regulatory decisions.
Blocking State Climate Change Policies: In April 2025, Trump signed an executive order instructing the U.S. Attorney General to identify and take action against state and local laws that address climate change, ESG initiatives, environmental justice, and carbon emissions. The order specifically targeted state policies that mandate clean energy, impose carbon fees, or hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate impacts.
Promoting Coal and Grid Reliability: Additional executive orders promoted coal mining and coal-based power, particularly for AI data centers, and emphasized strengthening the reliability and security of the electric grid. These actions are expected to increase emissions from the power sector.
Rolling Back Wind Energy Initiatives: Trump withdrew the Outer Continental Shelf from wind energy leasing, paused project approvals, and directed a review of federal wind leasing and permitting practices.
Halting Federal Climate Funding: The administration paused disbursements of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that support climate initiatives, including electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Challenging State Authority: The executive orders aim to preempt or invalidate state-level climate actions, especially those seen as burdensome to domestic energy production. States like California, New York, and Vermont, with aggressive climate policies, are specifically mentioned as targets of these federal actions.
These orders collectively represent a broad effort to reverse federal and state climate change policies, prioritize fossil fuel development, and roll back regulations and incentives for clean energy and emissions reduction.
With Trump’s executive orders on climate and energy now codified as law by Congress, the following effects are taking place.
Federal Climate Programs Rolled Back: The new laws have solidified the rollback of key federal climate and clean energy initiatives, including the dismantling of the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) climate provisions, elimination of the Justice40 commitment, and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Federal agencies are now required by law to halt or redirect funding away from climate-focused programs and environmental justice initiatives.
Permitting and Environmental Review Weakened Reformed: The codified laws have overhauled the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, prioritizing rapid permitting for energy (especially fossil fuel) projects and rescinding previous NEPA regulations. This accelerates approvals for oil, gas, and infrastructure projects, often at the expense of environmental review and public input from decarbonizing activists.
Electric Vehicle and Clean Energy Incentives Cut: The laws have ended or severely restricted federal incentives for electric vehicles (EVs), including tax credits and mandates. California’s authority to set stricter emissions standards has been revoked, and other states cannot enforce more aggressive climate policies than federal standards.
Wind and Solar Tax Credits Limited: Although a last-minute legislative compromise allowed renewable projects a one-year window to claim tax credits, Trump’s executive order—now backed by law—directs the Treasury to sharply restrict eligibility. Only projects with substantial physical progress will qualify, making it harder for wind and solar developers to access these credits and reducing the financial viability of new clean energy projects.
Social Cost of Carbon Eliminated: The laws have abolished the use of the “social cost of greenhouse gases” in federal decision-making. Agencies are directed to ignore or eliminate this metric from permitting and regulatory processes, undermining the rationale for regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
Endangerment Finding Under Review: The EPA is required to review the 2009 Endangerment Finding (the scientific and legal basis for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act). If overturned or weakened, this could eliminate the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon emissions from vehicles and industry.
Preemption of State Climate Laws: The Attorney General is now legally empowered to challenge and potentially invalidate state and local climate change laws that are viewed as restricting domestic energy production or conflicting with federal policy. This targets states like California and New York, threatening their ability to set independent climate standards.
International Climate Commitments Withdrawn: The United States has formally withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and ceased all international climate finance, isolating the U.S. from global climate efforts and reducing international pressure for domestic climate action.
These changes, now enshrined in law, represent a comprehensive reversal of previous federal and state climate change policies, prioritizing fossil fuel development and deregulation while sharply curtailing support for clean energy and emissions reduction.
The legal codification makes these policy shifts more durable and harder for future administrations to quickly reverse.
You must be logged in to post a comment.