A bill that would safeguard Arizona lands from being owned by foreign adversaries is progressing through the state legislature along partisan lines.
Last week, the Arizona Senate passed SB 1403, which would “prohibit a foreign principal from a designated country from, directly or indirectly, purchasing, owning, acquiring by grant or devising or having any other interest in real property in Arizona” – according to the purpose from the chamber.
Sixteen Republicans voted for the legislation, compared to 12 Democrats (two members did not vote).
According to the bill, “designated country” is defined “as a country that is identified by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence as a country that poses a risk to the national security of the United States in each of the three most recent Annual Threat Assessments of the U.S. intelligence community.”
After the vote, the Arizona Senate Republican Caucus’ “X” account posted, “JUST IN – China, Russia, Iran & North Korea are enemy nations who only want to unleash harm on the United States and pose an incredible risk to our national security on a daily basis. Today, Senate Democrats voted ‘NO’ on legislation prohibiting these countries from owning land in Arizona. The Left’s reckless disregard for the safety of our state and our citizens continues to be on full display through every irresponsible vote undermining our efforts to protect our communities.”
🚨JUST IN- China, Russia, Iran & North Korea are enemy nations who only want to unleash harm on the United States and pose an incredible risk to our national security on a daily basis. Today, Senate Democrats voted ‘NO’ on legislation prohibiting these countries from owning land… pic.twitter.com/ToQLnU6taI
Senator Janae Shamp, the bill’s sponsor, added, “It was very disappointing to see only Republicans vote in support of a bill that our state’s military asked to protect our citizens, especially because the bill initially received bipartisan support in committee. SB 1403 prohibits organizations in a country determined to be a serious threat to the United States, from owning or leasing property in Arizona. I created this legislation because of real threats Luke Air Force Base has experienced. This base is home to the elite F-35 squadrons that train the world’s greatest fighter pilots around the clock to protect our nation. Arizona is also home to the Barry M. Goldwater range in Yuma, which is the third-largest land base in the US. Foreign adversaries have no business buying property near these bases, but this is happening, and it’s a threat to national security.”
If you're part of an org in a country that the DNI has determined to be a direct and serious threat to the U.S., then you have no business owning or renting land or any other property here in AZ! https://t.co/k4TJMefzw9
The second-year lawmaker opined on why members of the minority party in the chamber might have opposed her legislation, writing, “Why were Democrats so outraged over Saudis owning Arizona farmland, and yet they have no concern for these other real-time security threats? The answer: political theatre.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Throughout history, wars have been fought over who can control land and what can be done upon the land that is seized. Nowadays, valuable land is often given to foreign adversary powers at the cost of Homeland Security and the good ole American dollar. Arizona is currently one of these battlefields, where foreign powers are trying to seize control within the United States and take away opportunities from domestic businesses.
In 2022, Arizona passed a law stating that China or Communist party officials cannot directly buy land in our state. However, SB 1342 failed to address that anyone who is not a Communist Party member from China can still buy land. While well-intentioned, this bill left a major loophole that can and will be exploited for years to come, especially with heightening tensions across the globe.
China currently has access to 26.2 million acres of Arizona farmland, some of it being close to major infrastructure and military installations. To be clear, all foreign investors from anywhere in China are under the complete and total control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Even if they don’t claim to be members of the CCP, they have access to buy up this land.
In 2021, China owned 30,119 acres within the state of Arizona. This land is held by Walton Industries Group, a company that denied access to NPR about what they are doing with their land. The company also gives access to many other foreign nations to use this land right here in Arizona.
This is a glaring national security risk. These foreign investors’ tactics toward Arizona are not normal business operations. That’s why Arizona needs legislation put forth that will cut off foreign investor access to the farmland mentioned above.
Arizona can be on the cutting edge to put its people first through such legislation. It would be the first of its kind in the country. State Senator Wendy Rogers even advocated for this type of restriction within SB 1342, but unfortunately, it didn’t pass. Since then, the world and state of foreign affairs have changed, allowing for a perfect opportunity to pass this game-changing legislation.
A new bill could be introduced at the legislature, pass both the Arizona House and Senate, and put lots of political pressure on Governor Hobbs to sign. If she did, this legislation would give access to farmland across southern Arizona that would most certainly boost the state economy, especially for the lower and middle classes.
Arizona could be a breadbasket of growth based on a simple release of farmland that right now is open access for foreign investors. There has not been enough economic pressure put upon the Governor in the legislature. Now is the time for the state government to enact legislation before the next election to ensure that Arizona will be playing offense, rather than playing the “bend but don’t break” game that limits enacting effective legislation that helps everyday Arizonans.
Carson Carpenter is a student at Arizona State University, majoring in Political Science. He is the Vice President of ASU College Republicans and has interned for Reps. Gosar and Crane. You can follow him on Twitter here.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) recently announced a new program in which the Xi Jinping government will subsidize the building of new coal-fired electricity generation plants. Part of an effort to ensure power grid reliability and stability into the future, NDRC’s notice says the program will commence January 1, 2024.
The program will enable new coal-fired power plants to recover about 30% of their capital costs in just the first two years of operation. The government subsidies will be funded from tariffs directed to operators of coal-fired plants by the country’s various electricity grids, using monies collected from commercial and industrial users.
The new program is just another proof point that China is continuing to increase the pace of expansion of its coal-fired power sector as time goes on. Indeed, a report released earlier this year by Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) showed China permitted more coal-fired power plants in 2022 than it had since 2015, and has six times more coal-fired power plants under construction currently than the rest of the world combined.
Meanwhile, as the Xi government continues its massive expansion of coal-fired electricity to ensure grid reliability, the Biden government in the U.S. remains intent on destroying its own coal sector. The Institute for Energy Research (IER) notes that this effort is being underwritten by liberal billionaire philanthropists like former Democrat presidential candidate and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has now pledged $1 billion from his personal fortune to, as he put it, “finish the job on coal.”
In September, Bloomberg Philanthropies stated, “With 372 of 530 coal plants announced to retire or closed to date—more than 70 percent of the country’s coal fleet—this next phase will shut down every last U.S. coal plant.” The effort also targets cutting natural gas-fired generation capacity by half, and would block any new plants from being built in the future. Noting that coal and natural gas power plants account for 98% of U.S. plant closures during 2023, IER points to the fact that the federal government’s forcing of those closures is now negatively impacting reserve margins on the nation’s power grids.
Until the recent hyper focus on cutting atmospheric carbon dioxide, it was customary for grid managers to work to maintain a reserve of up to 20% of total dispatchable generating capacity to be available to come online during severe weather conditions and other instances during which demand threatens to overwhelm supply. Grid managers are finding it increasingly difficult to avoid blackout conditions as grids become increasingly overwhelmed by intermittent, unpredictable wind and solar capacity at the expense of reliable dispatchable baseload.
The problem of lack of dispatchable reserves was highlighted in a deadly way in Texas during February 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, a series of three severe cold fronts that froze most of the state for almost a week, leading to blackouts in which an estimated 300 Texans died. In the storm’s wake, the legislature and regulators identified a series of issues on the grid and at grid manager ERCOT that needed correcting, many of which were dealt with in that year’s legislative session.
But the grid’s shortage of dispatchable thermal capacity – a long-known issue – was left unresolved that year. The 2023 legislature enacted a ballot proposal (Proposition 7) creating a fund to subsidize the rapid building of up to 10 GW of new natural gas generation capacity in the coming years. It is exactly the opposite approach being pushed by the Biden government and its political funders in the climate alarmist community, like Bloomberg.
Texas voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 7 in the November 7 election. In doing so, Texans rejected the notion that their state, which produces more natural gas than all but two other countries, should ever be subjected to an unreliable, unstable power grid that causes hundreds of deaths during weather emergencies.
Sadly, Americans living in other parts of the country will remain saddled with the destructive Biden approach, with little hope for anything improving until at least 2025.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
It seems that any meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping inevitably presents another opportunity to render the U.S. increasingly reliant on China for its energy security.
This week’s meetings at the APEC conference in a suddenly cleaned-up San Francisco were no exception.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the bilateral meetings between the U.S. and China was the looming presence of John Kerry at the table. Kerry serves as Biden’s “climate envoy,” a made-up job that is not even a confirmed position and does not merit a seat at such meetings. But there he was, making sure the President and other U.S. officials toe the line on climate commitments.
Fox News reports that Kerry’s efforts resulted in more security compromising fruit, as State Department officials agreed with their Chinese counterparts to triple down on commitments to further inhibit American energy and national security in the name of climate change. The two governments agreed to “accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation” with renewables and electric vehicles in the coming years, a pledge that China has already undermined with its implementation of a new round of subsidies for the acceleration of its already-massive expansion of coal-fired power plants in the coming years.
It is the sort of deal China has routinely violated in recent years as it continues to prioritize its own energy security at the expense of stated climate goals. It is also the sort of deal that Kerry, Biden and other Democrats have systematically used over recent decades to render the U.S. increasingly reliant on China for its own energy future.
“The agreement speaks heavily about advancing — doubling down and tripling down on renewables, wind and solar. The majority of them are made in China,” Daniel Turner, the founder and executive director of Power The Future, told Fox News Digital. “It is basically guaranteeing China decades of wealth, guaranteeing America is going to buy their products.”
Turner isn’t wrong, and the effects on climate change from the latest Kerry-led deal will be negligible, if not actually negative given China’s far lower environmental regulations and standards. Even worse, China’s control of the supply chains for most of the parts and metals that go into the making and deployment of renewables and EVs leaves the U.S. and other western nations with a steadily diminishing sphere of geopolitical leverage.
But Americans did receive a bit of positive news in the green energy realm this past week from a seemingly unlikely source: Oil major ExxonMobil. The biggest U.S.-based oil company announced the kickoff of a new project to produce lithium from a deep underground saltwater formation in southern Arkansas called the Smackover.
Somewhat ironically, ExxonMobil will deploy standard oil and gas drilling, production and reinjection technologies and processes to produce, extract and process the lithium. If successful, the project will turn America’s biggest major oil company into one of the country’s biggest lithium companies, too.
This is probably not exactly the model Biden’s regulators, many of whom are alumni of leftist anti-fossil fuel lobby groups, envisioned when they began launching their myriad efforts to subsidize and regulate this artificial energy transition into being, but they should be glad to take the help where they can get it.
Given that the ExxonMobil project will qualify for the tax incentives contained in the Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden officials will even be able to point to it as a success story related to that costly legislation.
Given that the administration’s own efforts to source domestic supplies of critical energy metals and free their supply chains from Chinese dominance have to this point borne little fruit, the project being mounted by ExxonMobil amounts to a great leap forward.
What it all demonstrates is that all the handshake deals between government Mandarins like Kerry in the world cannot match the power of innovation and ingenuity from America’s private sector. It also demonstrates the absolute necessity of maintaining a healthy and robust domestic oil and gas industry, without which none of this is remotely possible.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ-09) said that “a better society” would hang General Mark Milley for his role in the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol.
Gosar issued the remarks in a newsletter over the weekend. The congressman pointed out that Milley delayed the deployment of the National Guard, criticizing Milley as a “homosexual-promoting-BLM-activist.”
“In a better society, quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung,” stated Gosar. “How this traitor remains in office is a question we need answered.”
Gosar also condemned Milley for his secretive 2020 calls to the Chinese government assuring that then-President Donald Trump wouldn’t launch a nuclear strike.
Although multiple media outlets reported on Gosar’s latest comments as novel, Gosar has called for Milley’s hanging before. In 2021, Gosar said that Milley’s collaboration with the Chinese government constituted “a hanging offense in most civilized societies.”
Add: Gen. Milley collaborated with Chinese military to undermine commander in chief. A hanging offense in most civilized societies.
Over 2 million illegal aliens, 10% Covid infected, prancing into the country.
The Gen. “I’m such a silly” Milley promised to give China the inside information. He may not be true to the US but he keeps his word to China. #AmericaLasthttps://t.co/KkTcaKjxDZ
Earlier this year, a day after the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 invasion, Gosar called for an investigation into Milley as well as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-11). Gosar declared Milley a traitor, and accused the pair of attempting a coup.
“Milley’s treasonous sellout to China will be investigated,” said Gosar. “Pelosi not warning members about intel of impending violence will be exposed.”
Remember – we will conduct a real investigation into J6. The effort to attempt a coup between traitor Gen. Mark Milley and Pelosi will be reviewed and exposed. https://t.co/miu5SZaZCo
Milley’s spokesman at the time, Dave Butler, said in a statement that the calls were routine practices vital to national security interests.
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs regularly communicates with Chiefs of Defense across the world, including with China and Russia,” said Butler. “His calls with the Chinese and others in October and January were in keeping with these duties.”
Yet, Trump and other Republicans have repeatedly argued that warning adversaries of an attack without executive approval constituted treason. This past week, Trump called for Milley to be tried for treason.
“This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” said Trump. “A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act”
In August, the Capitol Police Chief on Jan. 6, Steven Sund, told Tucker Carlson that there was a coordinated effort of intentional neglect by federal intelligence, Congress, and military leadership to properly secure the Capitol.
Sund shared that he never received any requests concerning permit revocation or a citywide lockdown as reportedly discussed ahead of the invasion by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.
Instead, Miller issued a memo restricting the National Guard from carrying various weapons or civil disobedience equipment.
Sund also shared that Pelosi was the ultimate authority in a chain of command that stalled the provision of additional military assistance.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
