DISPATCHES FROM THE PARENTHESES STATES: Watching The End Game Of New York’s Climate Madness Begin To Play Out.
As I have written many times, with New York’s fantasy “net zero” energy plans, it is not a question of whether they will fail, but only when and how. The Democrats, who dominate state politics, and their environmentalist allies, are firmly committed to the impossible. Thus, they are caught in a trap of their own making, and from which there is no good escape. The fact that they are caught in this trap is obvious to anyone with basic arithmetic skills, but almost all of our politicians and environmentalists lack those. However, a small handful of them are starting to sense the impending crash. This makes for amusing interplay.
The state’s Climate Act of 2019 directs hostility to fossil fuels on all fronts. In the realm of electricity, the Act mandates 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030, and 100% from “zero emissions” sources by 2040. The official plan for achieving those mandates basically boils down to building lots of wind turbines and solar panels, and then lots more of same — principally off-shore wind turbines — until a flood of infinitely “free” wind and sun washes over us and brings us to energy nirvana. Meanwhile, also on the path to “net zero,” development of natural gas infrastructure is to be halted and reversed. More than half way to the 2030 deadline, the progress toward the 70% renewable electricity goal has actually been negative (due to the premature closure of two large nuclear power plants). On the natural gas front, two big pipeline projects have been blocked by the state environmental regulator (DEC) on phony grounds of “water quality.” And meanwhile there are plans for big new electricity consumers (chip plants and data centers) in the upstate area.
Time to crank up the wind turbines! And then President Trump swept back into office, and as one of his first acts pulled the plug on the off-shore wind projects.
So as of this past Spring, here’s where we were: lots of new electricity demand coming along, all new natural gas infrastructure (including two big new pipelines) blocked, and the planned future of wind turbines (which wouldn’t work in any event) also blocked. Does anyone see a potential problem here?
Meanwhile, in the formerly Golden State: California Lawmakers Squeezed Refineries Out, Now Scramble To Pay One Well-Known Company To Keep Theirs Running.
After years of enforcing stringent regulations that helped force major refineries to close, California Democrats are now reportedly considering paying Valero millions to keep a San Francisco-area fuel plant afloat.
With two major refineries already scheduled to shut down and strict regulations in place, concerns about California’s already high gas prices have become a top issue for lawmakers. According to a Bloomberg report Tuesday, sources familiar with the private deliberations said lawmakers have discussed whether to pay Valero between $80 million and $200 million in state funds to keep its Benicia refinery operating.
The Benicia plant is slated to close by April 2026. The proposed payment would be earmarked for routine maintenance, one of the largest costs for refineries, Bloomberg reported.
When asked about the report and how the state has handled the refinery closures, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office told the Daily Caller News Foundation it had no information to share.
Concerns over higher gas prices have mounted due to the scheduled refinery closures, with Republican State Sen. Tony Strickland telling the DCNF that the potential $8-plus per gallon is the “direct result” of Newsom’s agenda.
Isn’t that what Democrats want? Of course: Steven Chu, Obama’s incoming energy secretary, told the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” A few months earlier, the L.A. Times published a column extolling “The joy of $8 gas,” which of course would lead to what the paper would describe the following year as “funemployment.”
But for Gavin Newsom, a 2028 presidential bid is far more important than saving Gaia. (I’ll believe global cooling/warming/climate change/climate chaos is a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis start to act that way themselves, to coin a Insta-phrase.)