THE HUESSY REPORT

Memo for Our Montgomery County and Maryland Citizens, Prepared by Peter Huessy, President of Geo-Strategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland

There are three big issues here. First, Berkeley wakes up and decides that the homeless are a serious problem. Second, the head of the Heritage Foundation lays out why the energy/climate crisis is going to cause widespread energy poverty and serious economic hardship if continued. And third, the House Budget Committee has passed and sent to the House a number of balanced budget plans as well as getting approved by Congress and "help[ed] lead the debt ceiling negotiations, which yielded the biggest discretionary spending cuts in 10 years.”

California Dream’in

Berkeley Gets Mugged by Reality

Regular readers of the HOTLINE are familiar with the panoply of issues plaguing the California economy, which include high taxes, excessive regulation, and a breakdown in law and order - all of which have contributed to an unprecedented decline in the state's population. The massive homeless population is emblematic of the state's woes, and now even the most liberal of jurisdictions - Berkeley - has had enough with the homeless encampments that are littered throughout the city. 

On September 10, Berkeley's city council voted 8-1 to approve a measure that will make it easier for the authorities to clean up the areas where the homeless are concentrated.

This met with some opposition from progressive voices, but the city's mayor explained why the law is necessary in a recent interview: "We have these large sprawling encampments where there have been major safety issues - fires, rats, crime; things that pose a risk to the homeless people who are sheltering there and to the broader community." 

The resolution, introduced by two city council members, included recent observations from residents who live near one encampment area:

• Barely clothed woman, clearly impaired by drugs, exiting an RV on cedar between railroad tracks and 4th street. 
• Human feces just about anywhere you dare to look. 
• Needles on sidewalks and in grass and bushes. 
• Drug dealing. 
• Infighting among the un-housed people, many times resulting in retaliatory arson. 
• Trespassing 
• A stabbing

No wonder nine businesses recently filed a lawsuit against the city of Berkeley, charging it is liable for failing to crack down on the encampments, identifying them as "illegal public and private nuisances."

We're hopeful that Berkeley's move will be a wake-up call to the state's political class and spur a move toward deregulation and free enterprise that California desperately needs. 

Heritage Foundation President Schools The New York Times on Climate Alarmism, Clean Energy

Diana Furchtgott-Roth@DFR_Economics

Diana Furchtgott-Roth is director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in Energy and Environmental Policy at The Heritage Foundation.

After challenging the elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, back in January, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts this week was interviewed by New York Times reporter David Gelles on climate and energy.

Roberts’ message: Environmentalists’ obsession with radical climate policies is leaving America’s workers and the global poor behind.

“The climate agenda is ending the American dream,” Roberts told Gelles. The Left’s war on affordable, reliable energy sources is an attack on the American Dream—the very foundation that lets hardworking people get ahead and build a future for their families.

The American dream is the envy of the world. Emerging economies cannot have their own dreams if they are forced—or bribed—by the West to abandon a fossil fuel economy and use renewables.

The world faces a growing energy crisis with severe economic, humanitarian, and security consequences. That’s the direct result of climate policies aimed at dismantling U.S. fossil fuel production while claiming to “save” the climate.

Inflation Reduction Act and Energy Poverty

These policies are failing and are pushing everyone—on all continents—toward energy poverty. The Inflation Reduction Act provides incentives for renewable energy and electric vehicles, which raise the prices of electricity and transportation. States with higher shares of renewables have higher electricity prices, and EVs are more expensive than other cars.  As Roberts said, Americans may not be able to name the Inflation Reduction Act, “but they sure feel the effects of it.”

Environmentalists say that if America eliminated fossil fuels, the world would follow, but that hasn’t happened. While U.S. emissions have declined modestly, global emissions have risen—particularly in China, where more than 300 new coal plants are planned, and a new plant is being built every week.

All over the world, people want to move to energy-intensive goods and services, such as heating, air conditioning, washing machines, hot and high-pressure showers, and personal vehicles.

The U.S. emits just one-seventh of the world’s CO2. America’s eliminating all fossil fuels “would have an almost nonmeasurable impact” on global temperatures, as Roberts explained, because Western emissions are a small share of the total.

Americans were promised that if fossil fuels were phased out, they would be seamlessly replaced by less expensive wind and solar. But that hasn’t happened.

America added just 4 gigawatts of utility-scale battery storage last year, while a serious net-zero transition would need at least 200 gigawatts. Instead, electricity prices are rising in states with renewable-portfolio standards.

“We have taken this idea of an energy transition and accelerated it so artificially that it is harming people,” Roberts said.

At Mercy of Hostile Regimes

The North American energy platform makes America into a net energy exporter, with no need to rely on hostile foreign regimes for oil. At the same time as the Biden-Harris administration ended the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, President Joe Biden was begging hostile regimes like those of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela for oil.

The Biden-Harris administration even paused new clean natural gas exports, purposely leaving Europe at the mercy of Russia.

While ordinary Americans are facing rising energy costs and unreliable grids due to misguided climate policies, companies such as Microsoft and Amazon are ensuring they have access to stable, affordable energy—such as nuclear power.

These corporations can make purchase agreements to safeguard their own energy needs, while funding environmental causes that advocate limited access to affordable and reliable energy sources for the rest of the country.

Roberts noted that climate danger is declining, not rising. “There has actually been a reduction in climate-related deaths over the last century by 98%,” he said.

Generators fired by fossil fuels enable the creation of sturdy home cement and steel foundations and hurricane-proof poles for power distribution cables. Fossil fuels power irrigation, air conditioning, heating, storm-warning systems, and resilient buildings, which have allowed people to better handle climate risks in better-off parts of the world.

The war on fossil fuels endangers that mastery and puts lives at risk.

Sentencing Third World to Permanent Poverty

According to UNICEF, women and girls around the world spend a mindboggling 200 million hours a day walking to collect water. That burden could be lifted with access to electricity to pump the water where it’s needed. Without electricity, that life-sustaining water is a source of danger itself. More than 500,000 people die every year from preventable diseases caused by contaminated water.

Some radical environmentalists are OK with women and girls in the Third World—like these in Mutoko, Zimbabwe—having to walk with buckets to communal sources of water because of a lack of affordable energy from fossil fuels. (Hakan Nural/Anadolu/Getty Images)

These needless deaths, nearly unheard of in the developed world, could be prevented with clean water made possible by access to electricity.

Current climate policy is hostile to fossil fuels and ignores their immense benefits. These policies catastrophize climate risks that haven’t materialized while ignoring our proven ability to adapt to climate changes.

The only rational way to handle climate challenges is through energy abundance, climate mastery, and free-market innovation. America’s real effect on global emissions will come from superior energy alternatives, such as popular non-plug-in hybrid cars—which charge the battery from the operation of the braking and engine systems, not from attacking fossil fuels.

“The free market and private citizens are the best conservationists,” Roberts declared in the interview.

Artificial Energy Scarcity

The Biden-Harris administration is not just dishonest about its climate agenda, it’s promulgating policies that will crush the middle class with hidden costs, Roberts said. Gas taxes, electric vehicle mandates, and crippling EPA regulations are driving up energy prices and creating an artificial energy scarcity.

The Biden-Harris administration’s recent EPA power plant rules, if implemented, would force most coal-fired power plants and some natural gas-fired power plants to shut down by 2032 and result in a 30% electricity shortfall by 2032.

Inflation Reduction Act subsidies are distorting the energy market, forcing traditional power plants to sit idle during the day while subsidized solar floods the grid. Subsidies for renewables discourage investments in traditional fuels, such as natural gas. Inflation Reduction Act subsidies will eliminate millions of jobs and cost every American family at least $5,000 per year. Ford, Stellantis, and GM are all laying off autoworkers.

Politics is full of surprises, but energy security should not be one of them. Energy security is national security. America can’t compete internationally if our domestic development is strangled by the “green energy” movement’s hostility to humans.

The environmentalists who want to block minerals mining projects in Minnesota needed for green energy are the same ones who demand more solar panels and electric vehicles.

No Buy-In From China

The Biden-Harris administration’s policies prevent mining in the U.S. for domestic critical minerals, leaving the U.S. at the mercy of China for essential materials to build renewable energy technologies. China is buying up mines in Africa and Latin America for those critical minerals for its electric vehicles and batteries.

China has more than 1,000 coal-fired power plants, while the U.S. has fewer than 250, and China has made clear it won’t sacrifice its economy for Western climate goals. Put simply by Roberts: “We are benefiting the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of ordinary Americans.”

The West is hollowing out its manufacturing sector by moving energy-intensive production abroad, with an increase in global emissions, rather than a reduction.

The Inflation Reduction Act will cost Americans a trillion dollars in tax incentives and credits, propping up industries that have no chance of being internationally competitive. All these interventions neglect the best interests of American citizens.

As Roberts told The New York Times’ Gelles, “The Biden-Harris administration has made a grave mistake by imposing the will of elites on the American people.” States with more renewables have higher-priced electricity, without even including the environmental costs of mining for batteries and the devastating human toll of child and slave labor in the Third World.

False Scientific ‘Consensus’

Environmentalists also claim a false consensus among scientists on the dire effects of climate change. Contrary to their claims, Roberts said, “Government doesn’t have a monopoly on scientific knowledge.” In reality, the increase in global temperatures is lower than practically all predicted climate-change models.

Even the worst-case scenarios are not enough to justify decarbonization. The essence of the scientific spirit is skepticism. Reporters who are not skeptical are not doing their jobs.

Heritage Foundation experts have used the government’s own models to show that eliminating U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would reduce global temperatures by less than 0.23°C, an imperceptible change. Roberts said, “We are, as political conservatives, also conservationists of the environment … the United States has some of the cleanest air and water in the world.”

The American dream is powered by energy abundance. Any policy that creates energy scarcity is doomed to fail. Energy is the foundation of human flourishing—and fossil fuels have delivered it.

We must defend American energy independence and push for realistic solutions to future climate challenges. Those who advocate costly climate agendas cannot be allowed to destroy America’s future.

1. Biden Admin Suggests Spending $78 Trillion to Achieve Net-Zero Global Carbon Emissions
2. 1 More Way the Admin’s ‘Green’ Electricity Plan Will Cost Consumers Big: 91,000 Miles of New Transmission Lines

Biden Celebrates Offshore Wind ‘Progress’ Despite Industry’s Major Struggles, Cancellations

Via The Washington Examiner:
Believe It or Not, the House Budget Committee Is Getting Things Done

Last week, Kevin Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, published an article in The Washington Examiner highlighting the recent work the House Budget Committee has done to improve the way Congress budgets, as well as its bipartisan efforts to increase accuracy, timeliness, and accountability from the CBO. 

Throughout the 118th Congress, the House Budget Committee has worked tirelessly to return transparency, accountability, and responsibility to Washington’s broken budget process. 

The House Budget Committee has passed a record 10 bipartisan bills and two 10-year balanced budgets since the start of the 118th Congress. Additionally, for the first time in over a decade, not one, but two bills with sole House Budget Committee jurisdiction were passed out of the House of Representatives, with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Data Sharing Act becoming the first bipartisan House Budget Committee bill sent to the President’s desk with unanimous support from Congress. 

Kevin Kosar, Via The Washington Examiner:

• “The average person would be forgiven for thinking Congress is completely bungling budgeting. The national debt is on a path to soar to $37 trillion by the end of the year. Legislators have failed to enact the 12 government spending bills. They have spent September feuding over whether to enact a continuing resolution to keep money flowing and avoid a partial or complete government shutdown on Oct. 1.”
   
• “Yet amid all the bad news, there are shoots of green. The House Budget Committee is doing its job. It recognizes the nation’s fiscal troubles and is goading the rest of Congress to cut government bloat and staunch the flow of red ink.”
   
• "This spring, the committee approved a budget resolution to set total spending levels for the government. This effort was notable not least because it was the first time in the past five years that the committee had passed a budget on time.”
   
• "The 167-page document aims to eliminate the annual deficit over a 10-year period. It would slow the cost growth of many spending programs and outright repeal others, such as President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness. Other savings would be achieved through reducing the improper payments or the instances when the government sends money to individuals or organizations who do not qualify.”
   
• “No new taxes are included in the resolution. Instead, it hopes to increase the flow of dollars to the Treasury by directing Congress to enact “pro-growth” policies, such as cutting regulations and sporting the expansion of U.S. energy production. Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX) defended the trillions of dollars in proposed cuts: “Ladies and gentlemen, the facts are irrefutable. Our deficit spending is out of control, our national debts are unsustainable, and the fiscal state of the Union is in rapid decline.’”
   
• "Undeterred, Arrington and the committee have kept their shoulders to the wheel. The committee has drafted some ideas for improving the broken 50-year-old budget process, and it has asked for feedback and additional ideas from groups and individuals outside Congress. It also has approved 10 bills to alter aspects of the congressional budgeting.”
   
• “’My goal from the outset was to make the budget committee great again by reining-in spending, fixing the broken budget process, and restoring fiscal sanity in Washington,” Arrington said in an email shared by a committee staffer. Arrington added the committee had made “tremendous strides” toward these goals and noted that he and panel members “help[ed] lead the debt ceiling negotiations, which yielded the biggest discretionary spending cuts in 10 years.’”
   
• “While budgetary issues often devolve into partisan posturing, the House Budget Committee has moved legislation with the support of both sides of the aisle. Arrington co-sponsored ranking member Brendan Boyle’s (D-PA) measure to force executive agencies to share more spending data with the Congressional Budget Office. Committee Republicans and Democrats alike voted to establish a fiscal commission to get the nation’s finances in order and to have the Senate and House annually convene and listen to a fiscal “state of the union” presentation by the nonpartisan comptroller general.”
   
• “Committee Republicans and Democrats also have supported measures to require the president to include in his budget a debt-to-gross domestic product ratio and to add a per capita federal debt figure to each taxpayer’s W-2 form. (That number was about $229,546.702, or $35,256,056,842,790.06 divided by 153,589,908, at the time of writing.)”
   
• “Unfortunately, only two of the bills have won a vote in the House: Boyle and Arrington’s legislation and a measure to curb the long-term growth in healthcare spending by encouraging more preventive care policies. The Senate passed the CBO legislation, and it may soon land on the president’s desk.”
   
• “Quite possibly, the House will move more of these bills this autumn. But whether any of them get through the Senate is hard to say. The “world’s greatest deliberative body” has shown few signs that it is grappling with the federal budget mess.”
   
• “Its Budget Committee did not approve a budget resolution despite the law requiring it to do so by April. Much of its work has been devoted to expanding consumer uptake of electric vehicles, climate change, reproductive freedom, and increasing taxes on corporations. And while the House passed five of the 12 spending bills, the Senate has passed none.”

Fifty years after the establishment of the current congressional budget process, as the nation faces debt levels of over $35 trillion, it is abundantly clear that Congress must find ways to increase transparency, accountability, and responsibility in fiscal decision-making within Congress.

House Budget Republicans are committed to finding reforms that will not only strengthen the congressional budget process but also empower the CBO’s role in that process, providing critically important budgetary and economic analyses.

This month, the House Budget Committee held an oversight hearing with CBO Director Phillip Swagel to examine proposals to reform and improve the CBO. These steps and many others that the House Budget Committee has done will help Congress shift from managing fiscal crises to enforcing responsible, long-term budgetary discipline.