A prominent libertarian think tank is warning Congress that a real humanitarian crisis, in the U.S. and abroad, would follow if lawmakers move forward with proposals like the progressive-backed “Green New Deal” that would restrict access to fossil fuels and thus raise the cost of living.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute on Tuesday released its wish list of recommendations for the new 116th Congress, calling on the leadership in the House and Senate to apply a “do no harm” principle before moving forward with climate legislation.
“Policy makers heeding the time-honored healer’s maxim, ‘First, do no harm,’ should reject policies to tax and regulate away mankind’s access to affordable energy,” the group said in its message to Capitol Hill.
The group challenges the renewable energy mandate of the Green New Deal, which is being pushed in the House by left-leaning freshmen such as Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
“It is fair to say that everything CEI recommends on energy and climate policies is the opposite of what is being proposed for the ‘Green New Deal,'” Myron Ebell, director of the group’s Center for Energy and Environment and Trump’s former EPA transition chief, told the Washington Examiner.
CEI receives funding from individuals, companies, and foundations. It had been subpoenaed as part of an investigation launched by Democratic attorneys general in recent years into whether ExxonMobil had suppressed climate data from its own scientists. The attorneys general wanted documentation on how the think tank advised energy firms like Exxon on climate change. CEI fought the subpoena requests in court, arguing that it infringed on the organization’s constitutional speech protections.
The Green New Deal calls for, among other things, a phase-out of fossil fuels, transitioning to renewable energy in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.
Such a plan would drive up prices for low-income households, while raising “serious humanitarian concerns,” says the group.
The group says that increased access to fossil fuels has reduced the cost of energy, but limiting it would have the opposite effect of driving up costs. The result would be that low-income households would have to cut back on spending on food, medicine, education, and more.
The recommendations also say that moving ahead with the goals of the Paris climate change accord — limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius — cannot be achieved without painful cuts in developing countries’ use of fossil fuels like gasoline, coal, and oil.
Likewise, the cuts in fossil energy use would make developing nations more dependent on expensive renewable energy, affecting the health and well-being of people across the globe, according to CEI.
The group also calls for lawmakers to continue to push back against the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which the Trump EPA is still in the middle of repealing.
It wants lawmakers to pass bills that hobble EPA’s authority by making changes to the Clean Air Act, which gives the agency its ability to regulate emissions from power plants. This would make it harder for the agency to revisit climate regulations in the future, said CEI.
The group also wants Congress to pass legislation that freezes and then sunsets the nation’s ethanol mandate and biofuel program, known as the Renewable Fuel Standard, in 2022.
