The end of one year and the beginning of another offers the occasion to reflect on what has changed and what remains the same.
The good news is that the law of cause and effect remains in place. The bad news is that a lot of misguided and erroneous causes/ideas pushed by the Biden Administration and congressional Democrats have produced a series of lamentable effects.
Take energy policy. The progressives currently in power in Washington have taken up the mantle of the Green New Deal and its war on reliable and affordable energy. They push energy sources that even their own experts admit are not ready to take on the main electric load for the United States. Meanwhile, they make fossil fuels harder to produce in the United States.
As a result, energy prices surge and eat into family budgets.
What the radical push for decarbonization fails to account for is that the United States can reduce its fossil fuel usage, but the rest of the world will not necessarily follow suit.
In fact, the International Energy Agency estimates that worldwide demand for coal is nearing an all-time high.
Among the places expected to use more coal: India, with consumption projected to grow by 12 percent; China, expected to increase by 9 percent, and the European Union, anticipated to rise by 11.5 percent.
Based on these trends, fossil fuels will clearly not go away anytime soon. Instead of doing away with domestic fossil fuel production and use, the Federal Government should increase its research on ways to use fossil fuels in a cleaner and more efficient manner. We can deploy the technologies to do so at home and export them abroad.
The Democrats’ policies are causing increased energy prices and will cause a loss of American jobs.
I have repeatedly called in Congress for parity in federal research dollars between spending on renewable and nonrenewable resources, so that improvements in the fossil fuels we still use are not shortchanged by a focus on other energy sources that are far from ready to meet our energy needs.
Interesting developments are occurring in the field of direct air capture, in which carbon dioxide is extracted directly from the atmosphere for storage or use. In September, the largest direct air capture plant, constructed by a Swiss firm, opened in Iceland.
The United States should not miss out on the chance to lead the way on direct air carbon capture (see my prior comments on MOVA Technologies in Pulaski). The myopic policies of the Biden Administration will sacrifice these opportunities as well as energy security and affordability for the average citizen.
The law of cause and effect is also still in force at the southern border.
To our country’s detriment, immediately upon coming into office President Biden sought to reduce or eliminate the border security measures taken by the Trump Administration. He immediately halted further construction of the border wall, even stopping work that had already been contracted. He also rolled back programs such as Remain in Mexico and tied the hands of Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
As a result, it is much harder to remove people present in the United States illegally. Democrats in Congress, with the support of the Administration, have also tried to give illegal immigrants amnesty. Unsurprisingly, these actions have enticed more people to enter our country illegally.
In November, 173,620 encounters with illegal immigrants took place along the southern border, a 5 percent increase from October. November was the ninth consecutive month with more than 100,000 encounters at the border. So far under the Biden Administration, there have been over 1.7 million illegal border crossings.
The scale of illegal immigration places immense strain on the Border Patrol, disrupts lives along the southern border, and encourages the criminal cartels smuggling people and contraband into our country. These dangerous consequences are the natural result of the Biden Administration’s intentional laxity on border security.
I think a good New Year’s resolution for President Biden would be to relearn the concept of cause and effect. Ideas have consequences. Really bad ideas have really bad consequences. The Biden Administration and its congressional supporters have advocated for far-left ideas that anyone not sharing their ideology could see as really bad ideas. These really bad ideas, if continued, will produce bad outcomes.
If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405, my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671, or my Washington office at 202-225-3861. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov. Also, on my website is the latest material from my office, including information on votes recently taken on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Morgan Griffith represents Virginia’s Ninth District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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