Who is working overtime to force their way into the biggest political corner of this election cycle? Democrats clearly don’t realize it yet, but they have fallen into an inevitable trap by taking extreme positions on energy and the environment — irresponsible positions that have divided their party and could easily lead to dire consequences for Democrats in the November election.
The fringe environmental movement has emerged as a powerful faction in the Democratic Party, thanks in enormous part to the prodigious political spending of billionaire former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer. Their newfound dominance has translated into a long list of green energy policy initiatives. Wind and solar companies are now lavished with federal subsidies, government-backed loan guarantees (remember the Solyndra disaster?), grants, tax preferences, incentives, and favorable mandates.
The raw deal that American taxpayers are getting is nothing brief of outrageous. “Green energy remains a negligible source of energy in America, despite more than $80 billion in direct federal taxpayer subsidies under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama,” write authors Stephen Moore and Kathleen Hartnett White in their up-to-date book Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy“Wind and solar combined produce less than 3 percent of our energy and only about 5 percent of our electricity.”
It’s getting worse. Democratic policymakers are deliberately attacking fossil fuels, making them less available and more exorbitant to produce. The Obama administration and its allies have killed the Keystone XL pipeline; slowed down the issuance of permits for drilling for oil and gas; closed public lands to drilling; introduced eye-wateringly exorbitant up-to-date regulations; and proposed billions of dollars in up-to-date taxes on oil and gas producers.
Meanwhile, Democratic activists fail to realize that by pandering to fringe environmental activists, they are pushing away time-honored, devoted Democratic voting blocs.
Representatives from eight construction unions recently sent a letter to the AFL-CIO expressing outrage over the decision to form a super PAC with Steyer, who led the fight against the Keystone pipeline – along with many well-paid union jobs. The letter raised the issue of “an environmental protection program that has “at best produced mixed results and at worst disastrous results for our members and their job prospects in many cases across the country”.”
Hillary Clinton may also be in trouble with unions for declaring her opposition to Keystone. In addition, natural gas drilling and energy production employ thousands of union workers who may be concerned about her declaration:When we get through all my conditions, I don’t think there are many places in America where fracking will still be happening..”Interestingly, as US Secretary of State, Clinton was the main driving force behind the introduction of hydraulic fracturing in other countries.
Environmental groups, disregarding the need to protect union jobs and resolve the bipartisan dispute, have declared a hunting season on energy sector employers, prosecuting climate change skeptics is part of the Democratic Platform.
In my home state of Ohio, which is a key swing state, The political arm of the United Mine Workers of America union endorses Republican Senator Rob Portman for re-election over Democratic challenger Ted Strickland — whom they have supported every time he has run for governor. Strickland’s work with anti-coal groups has angered the union, which depends on the industry for thousands of jobs in Ohio.
Poor minority families and seniors on fixed incomes are two other groups of voters that Democrats may have trouble keeping in their fold. Electricity bills already account for one-fifth of the income of struggling Americans, which is proportionally three times more than high-income households must allocate. By mandating a switch from affordable energy to green energy, environmental extremists are essentially imposing a devastating, regressive energy tax on the needy. Rising electricity bills are putting more and more Americans at risk of green energy poverty, which occurs when 10 percent or more of a household’s income is spent on home energy costs.
In North Carolina, environmental extremists are running false and misleading ads attacking the Republican governor and making false claims about threats to drinking water quality, even as the state legislature works to find a responsible and affordable solution to the state’s coal ash management problems.
Democrats who expect their time-honored voters to show up in November to say thank you may be disappointed.
