Could President Joe Biden declare a climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act, expanding the president’s power to implement lockdown measures to address what U.N. Secretary Antonio Gutterres said is causing the globe to boil?
President Donald Trump used the National Emergencies Act in March 2020 to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
That this would be used for climate change, the media tell us, is just a conspiracy theory.
This is what was reported about any federal plans to ban gas stoves. Since the government said it wasn’t going to ban gas stoves, fact checkers assured us the government wasn’t going to ban gas stoves.
Well, turns out that wasn’t really true.
“We learned through the COVID experience that the distance between something being labeled a conspiracy theory and the Biden administration is about 90 days,” Tim Stewart, president of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, told Cowboy State Daily.
Serious Talk
In February 2021, a bill co-sponsored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, to require the president to declare a national climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act was introduced in the U.S. House.
In 2021, leading advisor to the World Economic Forum (WEF), Yuval Noah Harari, had proposed stopping all airlineflights and locking down entire countries as a means to make people “more open to radical ideas about how to deal with climate change.”
In February 2022, the Center for Biological Diversity published a roadmap for using the National Emergencies Act to, among other things, restrict international trade and halt all private investment in fossil fuels.
Most recently, The Los Angeles Times suggested we should live with the “occasional blackout,” as it would be an acceptable inconvenience to fight climate change, even though a Los Angeles energy official said that “someone dies every time we have a power outage.”
Pandemic Parallels
While some have called for Biden to do so, the president hasn’t said he’s considering using the National Emergencies Act to fight climate change.
There are, however, many parallels to the national dialogue on the pandemic and climate change. Beside drastic actions to address the problem, with little scrutiny if they’ll actually work, people who challenge the directives are said to be killing people.
“What was most concerning to all of us was how those presidential emergency powers were extended down to the state and local levels, giving local authorities unfettered power to control everything we did,” Stewart said.
In the same way governors and mayors shut down gyms, they could stop you from driving, Stewart said.
Interesting Strategy
Rep. Christopher Knapp, R-Gillette, said he wouldn’t put it past the Biden administration to try something like a national climate emergency declaration.
“I think everything is always on the table with them,” Knapp said.
Of course, if the president were to seriously consider such actions, the directives would face extensive political opposition and legal challenges.
Knapp said that hasn’t stopped the Biden administration in the past.
These include the EPA’s Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. The U.S. Supreme Court decided that the EPA, under the Clean Air Act, did not have authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and the high court also sided against the EPA on the Clean Water Act over what waters were subject to federal jurisdiction.
Though the courts shot down the federal overreach, Knapp said the rules still are acted upon while the legal challenges wind through the court system.
“It’s an interesting strategy,” Knapp said.
Historical Terms
Stewart said that whatever impacts result from climate change, they would be nothing compared to the elimination of fossil fuels, which are an ingredient or compound in 6,000 consumer products.
“The cost of eliminating fossil fuels can’t be put into monetary terms. It needs to be put in historical terms. Eliminate fossil fuels and we will party like it's 1699,” he said.
Stewart said that climate alarmism is Marxism repackaged for a new generation.
“Marxism is about mobilizing workers, but the use of fossil fuels created such a high standard of living for the developed world that the workers have a pretty comfortable life. So Marxism must change their appeal,” he said.
