{"id":31638,"date":"2024-02-09T20:33:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-10T04:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=31638"},"modified":"2024-02-09T20:33:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-10T04:33:20","slug":"joe-biden-just-did-the-rarest-thing-in-us-politics-he-stood-up-to-the-oil-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/02\/09\/joe-biden-just-did-the-rarest-thing-in-us-politics-he-stood-up-to-the-oil-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Biden just did the rarest thing in US politics: he stood up to the oil industry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bill McKibben<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden administration suspended new permits for natural gas terminals. Can we see more of this kind of backbone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wed 7 Feb 2024 06.01 EST (TheGuardian.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

View image in fullscreen<\/a> \u2018Biden has called their bluff, and it\u2019s beautiful to watch.\u2019\u00a0Photograph: Michael Reynolds\/EPA<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten days ago\u00a0Joe Biden<\/a>\u00a0did something remarkable, and almost without precedent \u2013 he actually said no to big oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His administration halted the granting of new permits for building liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, something Washington had been handing out like M&Ms on Halloween for nearly a decade. It\u2019s a provisional \u201cno\u201d \u2013 Department of Energy experts will spend the coming months figuring out a new formula for granting the licenses that takes the latest science and economics into account \u2013 but you can tell what a big deal it is because of the howls of rage coming from the petroleum industry and its gaggle of politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you can tell something else too: just how threadbare their arguments have become over time. Biden has called their bluff, and it\u2019s beautiful to watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To give you an idea, politicians beholden to the industry are using this week and next to hold hearings about natural gas in Congress. Joe Manchin \u2013 who has received more lobbying money from big oil than anyone else in Congress, and is the founder of a coal brokerage business \u2013 is convening a session in the Senate on Thursday, but on Tuesday the House began the action with a hearing before a subcommittee of the House committee on energy and commerce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One \u201cexpert\u201d summoned by the panel, Toby Rice, owns the company that produces more natural gas than any other in the country. And he immediately deployed the sleight of hand that his ilk have used over and over again. I\u2019ll try and slow it down enough that you can see the hand dealing from the bottom of the deck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fracking revolution, Rice said, \u201chas powered our economy and prevented us from being reliant on foreign sources of natural gas \u2013 all the while driving over 60% of the emissions reduction the United States experienced since the turn of the century by displacing coal-fired power generation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key word here is \u201cemissions\u201d, by which Rice means carbon dioxide. And indeed fracked gas, when burned in a power plant, produces fewer emissions than coal. But there\u2019s another major greenhouse gas \u2013 methane \u2013 and that\u2019s basically what \u201cnatural gas\u201d consists of. When it leaks from a well or a pipeline, it\u2019s 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, molecule per molecule, at trapping heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so much is leaking that \u2013 when you combine those emissions with the carbon that still comes from burning gas \u2013 America\u2019s total contribution to global warming has probably not gone down at all<\/a> over the last two decades. Far from being a boon, natural gas has been a trap, one that the industry now wants to catch the rest of the globe in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tthere\u2019s no reason not to go straight from coal to renewable energy, with no intermediate stop at gas<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more \u2013 as new research<\/a> this fall showed \u2013 when you put fracked gas on a boat and send it on a long ocean cruise, so much leaks out that it\u2019s far worse<\/em> than coal. If the White House had kept granting all the permits that industry wanted, within a decade US natural gas would be producing more greenhouse gas emissions than everything that happens on the continent of Europe.<\/em> It\u2019s the biggest fossil fuel expansion project on Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s half the problem with Rice\u2019s argument. The other half is, it\u2019s not coal that Rice\u2019s gas mostly undercuts. We now live on a planet where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun; there\u2019s no reason not to go straight from coal to renewable energy, with no intermediate stop at gas. The idea that it\u2019s a \u201cbridge fuel\u201d is a decade out of date, but it\u2019s an argument that big oil wants to extend four or five decades into the future, because that\u2019s how long this new infrastructure is supposed to last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Rice\u2019s arguments were deceptive, the other industry witness was simply sad. Eric Cormier represented the Chamber Southwest Louisiana, where most of this infrastructure is located. It\u2019s his neighbors \u2013 environmental justice crusaders like Roishetta Ozane and James Hiatt \u2013 who have led this fight, pointing out the damage that these installations are doing to the air and water. Cormier, though, said LNG development was necessary because the region had taken such an economic hit from Hurricanes Laura and Delta, which had caused $17bn in damages, damaged 44,000 homes, and dropped the population by about 7%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s not wrong about the damage \u2013 Lake Charles, the big city in the region, is arguably the blue tarp capital of the planet. But think about his argument for even a second: the climate crisis is causing such grievous loss along the coast of Louisiana that \u2026 we need to make the climate crisis worse to pay for all the damage.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What? If any place on Earth should viscerally feel the urgent need to get off fossil fuels, the disappearing Louisiana coast would be it. But if you\u2019re the Chamber SWLA, short-term profit is the only metric you understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brand of greenwashing has been going on for years, of course. But big oil is having an ever-harder time making their argument, especially after a new economic survey published last week showed that continuing to build out the LNG export infrastructure would raise energy costs<\/a> for Americans by 9 to 14%. And polling shows<\/a> pretty conclusively that Americans don\u2019t want to frack their country to send cheap gas to China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That won\u2019t stop the industry from shouting. At this point, bypassed by new renewable technology, their only real hope is political gamesmanship. But it\u2019s getting far easier for enlightened leaders to stand up to them. In December, in Dubai, the world signed a pledge to \u201ctransition away\u201d from fossil fuels. Last month, in Washington, Joe Biden started to show that he meant it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n