Please select your state
so that we can show you the most relevant content.

Why trading higher energy costs for no environmental benefit is a bad deal

Jun 23, 2021 by AFP

A cleaner environment, which we all want, and affordable, reliable energy, which we all need, are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they are mutually reinforcing.”

Chris Hudson, vice president of government affairs at Americans for Prosperity, brings home that point in a new op-ed in the Washington Examiner that calls on Congress to reject an attempt to overturn a Trump administration rule that eliminated costly — and ineffective — mandates on energy companies.

“We can, and must, be good stewards of our environment,” Hudson writes. “At the same time, we must not hurt the most vulnerable in society by putting affordable, reliable energy further out of reach or damaging the economy.”

Accomplishing both requires innovation. Top-down mandates like the proposal to reverse the 2020 methane rule drive up the cost of energy, stifle innovation, and hurt the most vulnerable.

The Environmental Protection Agency has said that “rescinding the methane limits will not actually change the amount of methane emission reductions.”

Which would lead a logical person to ask: What’s the point?

As Hudson explains, the U.S. leads the world in reducing carbon emissions, and it’s doing it through innovations like fracking, not through heavy-handed mandates. The same is true among states that have chosen innovation over regulation.

Read more in the Examiner about how S.J. Res. 14 would derail innovation, open the door to an outright ban on fracking, and lead to higher energy costs with no accompanying environmental benefit.

© 2024 AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. | PRIVACY POLICY