Biden Bans Offshore Oil Drilling, We'll See How Long It Takes For Trump To Reverse That

President Biden this week announcing a ban on oil
drilling in much of the offshore waters
around the United States.

 It might be a bit of a Hail Mary, and probably a bit Sysiphean, but President Joe Biden this week banned new offshore oil and gas drilling in almost all U.S. coastal waters.  

The move was an effort to at least throw a monkey wrench in incoming President Donald Trump's plans to, as he puts it, drill, baby drill. 

Climate change is part of Biden's motivation for this. "As the climate crisis continued to threaten communities across the countermand we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren," he said. 

Biden's move was also probably prodded by his memories of the big oil spill along the beaches of Santa Barbara, California in January, 1969.

".....drilling  off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation's energy needs," Biden said in a statement. 

Biden's acton will at least delay the offshore part of incoming President Trump's climate-denying drill baby drill approach to fossil fuel extraction.

Trump continues to cling to the notion that climate change is a hoax, and that clean energy is basically worthless, so we have to keep burning fossil fuel. His brain hasn't really left the 1950s. And besides, the United States has never produced as much oil as we do now, even with efforts to transform to a "clean energy economy."

For his part, Trump said he would end Biden's drilling ban on "day one." 

"I will unban it immediately," Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, "I have the right to unban it."

Actually, he doesn't.

According to the Associated Press, Biden's authority to enact this ban is under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which allows the president to protect offshore areas.  Once a president does what Biden has done, an act of Congress is needed to undo it.

It's a Republican Congress full of Trump fanboys and girls, so no doubt they'll do the deed, but it will take a lot more longer to complete than it say, the act of throwing ketchup against a White House wall.

Environmentalists were strangely elated at this development, considering the Republican Congress will get rid of this order soon enough. A for instance from the AP: "This is an epic ocean victory!" said Joseph Gordon, campaign director for the environmental group Oceana. 

For a little while, anyway. 

As NPR explains, much of the ocean territory where Biden banned new drilling is not of immediate interest to oil companies, except for an area they're salivating over in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Still, the ever-present American Petroleum Institute, who spent last week throwing darts at Vermont's climate superfund law, are in a bit of a snit over Biden's move.

"American voters sent a clear message in support of domestic energy development, and yet the current administration is using its final days in office to cement a record of doing everything possible to restrict it," American Petroleum Institute president Mike Sommers said in a statement. 

Or did voters actually send that "clear message?"

Trump clearly won the election, but in the popular vote it was only a 49-48 split in the percentages. And I didn't see any polling during the election in which there was a huge groundswell of Americans demanding new drilling.

Sure, nobody wants to pay an arm and a leg for gasoline, or fuel oil, and I suppose increased domestic production would help tamp prices down. Though it's a global market, so world events could upset that anti-inflationary setup no matter how much oil the United States pumps out of the ground. 

Besides, at last check, the United States was producing more crude oil than any other nation at any time, says the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

Given that fact it will be hard for Trump to increase oil production beyond where we're already at.  

Trump thinks his efforts will cut energy costs in half for consumers. That's a tall order, but he doesn't have a great track record of following through with his promises anyway, so take that with a grain of salt. 

Meanwhile, we're cranking out the oil and burning it up and making climate change worse and thus making disasters worse and making the world a more difficult place in which to live. 

Trump wants to make the U.S. dominant, all right. One of the main things we might well  be dominate at is making the most destructive contributions to climate change of any nation in the world.  

Canceled Biden Trip Would Have Been An Unintentional Climate Irony Moment

A huge coal train derailment in Pueblo, Colorado
on Sunday. It has blocked Interstate 25 since, snarling
traffic in the region. Photo is from Pueblo
County Sheriff's Office. 

President Joe Biden was supposed to travel to Pueblo, Colorado on Monday to talk about his clean energy initiative. 

He canceled at the last minute. He (quite reasonably, in my opinion) decided to instead hold meetings with his national security team regarding Israel's deadly war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. 

The trip to Colorado would have been a bit of an ironic moment. Any trip to a U.S. city by the President would screw up local traffic, due to the security such a visit would entail.   

The traffic in Pueblo would be extra messed up by a Biden visit for this reason: A coal train Sunday derailed on a bridge above busy Interstate 25. The bridge collapsed, sadly killing a passing truck driver.  Coal spilled everywhere, closing the Interstate in both directions and disrupting traffic throughout the city. 

As of last night, Interstate 25 was still closed and was expected to remain that way at least until this afternoon (October 18) as tons of coal and wreckage are cleaned up. 

The Associated Press reports:

"A nine-mile stretch of I-25 - used by 39,000 to 44,000 vehicles daily - was shut down. Traffic was being detoured around the derailment site and through the town of Penrose, almost 30 miles west of Pueblo."

So yeah, pretty messy. Imagine mixing Biden's motorcade and security into that mess. 

 Coal isn't exactly clean energy.  It's one of the main, dirtiest culprit in causing climate change. Plus, the point of Biden's visit was to promote a clean energy industry aimed at muting the dangerous effects of climate change. 

It wasn't the entire coal industry's fault the derailment happened. Investigators think a broken rail was behind the disaster. 

But had Biden come to Pueblo to chat up his clean energy initiatives, the coal train disaster would have been pretty ironic.  I haven't heard of clean energy causing big problems like the train wreck, but maybe you can guide me toward an example.  

I get it that the situation in Gaza that Biden is dealing with is zillions of times worse and more complicated than the train derailment. But I can't resist highlighting the irony of the derailment and Biden's intentions for going to Pueblo.

Biden Proposed Civilian Climate Corp To Create Jobs, Fight Climate Change. Is It Big Enough?

President Joe Biden is creating a Civilian Climate Corp,
modeled on the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 
1930s.  Will it be as successful as that 
Great Depression-era project?

 When my dad was alive, he told me stories about the Civilian Conservation Corps or CCC during the 1930s Great Depression, and how the work helped get people back on their feet and gave them a sense of purpose.  

Now, the world is facing another crisis in the form of climate change. President Joe Biden, as you might have heard on the news, is proposing an "American Climate Corp."

According to NPR: 

"The White House on Wednesday unveiled a new climate jobs training program that it says could put 20,000 people to work in its first year on projects like restoring land, improving communities' resilience to natural disasters and deploying clean energy"

The American Climate Corps is intentionally modeled after the Depression-era  CCC. Participants will be paid, and most jobs in the Climate Corps won't require previous experience. The Biden administration is trying to establish new regulations that would make it easier for participants to enter the federal public service after the program, NPR reports. 

So far, the American Climate Corp sounds more low-key than the Civilian Conservation Corps nine decades ago. As History.com describes it: 

"The Civilian Conservation Corps was a work relief program that gave millions of young men employment on environmental projects during the Great Depression. Considered by many to be one of the most successful of Roosevelt's New Deal programs, the CCC planted more than three billion trees and constructed trails and shelters in more than 800 parks nationwide during its nine years of existence.  The CCC helped to shape the modern national and state park systems we enjoy today,"

My dad (who everybody called Red) did not participate in the CCC. But judging from the conversations I had with Red, it helped inspired in him a love and fascination with nature and the environment. That embrace of the natural world was passed down to me and my two sisters. I bet the same thing happened to millions of families, because of the CCC.

It appears the Biden administration has similar lofty goals. NPR again:

"President Biden's climate policy advisor Ali Zaidi told reporters that the program has broader goals beyond addressing the climate crisis. 

'We're opening up pathways to good-paying careers, lifetimes of being involved in the work of making our communities more fair, more sustainable, more resilient,' Zaidi said."

Sure, but this is much smaller than the CCC, despite its obvious benefits.  As the Washington Post reports, the program will hire more than 20,000 young people in skills that fight climate change, such as installing solar panels, restoring coastal wetlands and retrofitting homes to become more energy-efficient. 

Critics are saying Biden's goals for the Climate Corps aren't lofty enough. Lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass wanted more funding for the climate corps, So already, we know this won't be as ambitious as the 1930s CCC.

Biden's Climate Corp seems to have several purposed. Yes, fighting climate change is a biggie. It also looks like he's trying to shore up support among younger voters, who tend to be much concerned about climate change than a lot of Boomer wandering around out there. 

It's also a jobs program, as the Biden administration is emphasizing well paying union jobs, which he hopes the Climate Corp will help create. 

When this thing is set up, people will be able to log onto a new web site where they can learn about the program and sign up for training or jobs. 

 

 

There is another key difference, too. While the Conservation Corps primarily employed young, white men, the White House says that the American Climate Corps is designed to attract participants from disadvantaged communities disproportionately impacted by the changing climate.