President Trump’s historic victory in the November election gave him a clear mandate from the American people. And so far, he hasn’t wasted any time getting to work. In his first month back in office, Trump signed 45 Executive Orders (EO) in an effort to put America first and undo much of the damage created by the Biden administration. And that’s especially true with his executive actions to unleash American energy.
Ending the Net Zero Climate Cult Fantasy
For four years under President Biden, the American people were forced to endure an administration that was hellbent on pursuing a net zero agenda. Across the country, they pushed these radical and costly climate action plans to fundamentally transform and restrict the energy options available to consumers. Along with this came calls from the Left to ban gas stoves, gas cars, gas-powered lawn equipment, and hundreds of other draconian ideas to limit the freedom of the American people.
If the high cost of these plans wasn’t enough, they have also proven to be unreliable. States and countries that have committed to energy sources like solar and wind as part of this net zero fantasy have experienced rolling blackouts, continually demand that their customers use less, and eventually have to make haste to open reliable sources of generation they had closed down. Isn’t that right, California?
But Trump’s Executive Order 14154 unleashes fossil fuel production and use in America while unwinding much of the damage caused by the Biden administration…
In a 5-2 vote last week, the Fountain Hills Town Council rejected the ‘Vision Zero Road Diet Plan,’ to be initiated through a Federal FY 2024 SS4A Grant Program applied for under former Mayor Ginny Dickey.
The grant is part of the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), known as the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law” despite its wide rejection by all but two House Republicans and a majority of GOP Senators. The grant would have launched a two-year long project with $240,000 in federal funds matched with $60,000 from the town, bringing the total taxpayer cost to $300,000, according to documentation prepared by Town Engineer David Janover.
The summary of the plan explains: “This grant aligns with the Town’s commitment to Vision Zero principles, aiming to eliminate traffic-related fatalities and severe injuries while fostering safer, more accessible transportation infrastructure. Additionally, the grant is in direct accord with the Town’s 2022 Strategic Plan which notes a priority of ‘improving the public health, well-being, and safety of our town.’”
The plan purported to:
Identify areas for infrastructure improvements to enhance safety for all users.
Develop speed management strategies in high-risk areas.
Engage residents through public outreach to reflect community needs.
Address pedestrian accessibility and emergency route improvements.
Provide a framework for future safety improvements and grant applications.
Councilman Allen Skillicorn, joined by fellow councilors Gayle Earle, Rick Watts, Vice Mayor Hannah Toth, and Mayor Gerry Friedel, voted to reject the Resolution citing the plan’s inclusion of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) policies.
Councilwoman Earle asked pointedly during the Jan. 21st meeting, “How is this plan racially equitable? Climate change, how does that relate to streets?”
As noted by Earle, the text of the grant agreement included a page-and-a-half-long commitment to “Improve Racial Equity and Reduce Barriers to Opportunity,” in which the town provided a “supporting narrative.” It stated, “The Town of Fountain Hills is committed to addressing equity considerations as part of its Comprehensive Safety Action Plan under the SS4A grant. While Fountain Hills is an affluent community, its neighboring community, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, represents an underserved population. Recognizing the proximity and interconnectedness of these communities, the Town will actively engage with representatives from the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation to gather input on how Fountain Hills’ street and walking networks can better serve all users and improve regional equity.”
“Efforts will include:
Targeted Outreach: Collaborating with leaders and residents of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation to understand how Fountain Hills’ transportation infrastructure impacts their access to opportunities and regional connections.
Community Engagement Workshops: Hosting inclusive sessions to gather feedback on specific barriers to safe walking, biking, and driving within Fountain Hills for residents traveling from or to the Nation.
Equity-Focused Improvements: Using feedback to identify opportunities for enhancing transportation safety and accessibility in Fountain Hills, such as improved pedestrian crossings, better wayfinding, and multimodal infrastructure.
This approach ensures the Town of Fountain Hills addresses equity and reduces barriers to opportunity within its jurisdiction while fostering a collaborative relationship with its neighboring community. By integrating these considerations into the Safety Action Plan, the Town demonstrates its commitment to creating a more inclusive and accessible environment for all.”
Skillicorn condemned the plan saying, “This plan includes a commitment to gender equity, why? This plan mentions greenhouse gases seven times, mentions climate change nine times, mentions environmental justice thirteen times, and mentions equity twenty times. Our town and our nation have rejected wokeness and DEI. Today is a new era of common sense. This is not for our town.”
Last night Fountain Hills, AZ rejected woke DEI Road Diets 5-2. Earle, Friedel, Toth, Watts, and Skillicorn all voted to kill woke Vision Zero while both McMahon and Kalivianakis voted for road diets and transportation social justice. pic.twitter.com/QefGwvtSNl
— Skillicorn for Arizona🌵 🇺🇸 (@allenskillicorn) January 22, 2025
As referred to by Skillicorn, the grant agreement included a commitment to “prioritized climate change resilience and environmental justice.” It stated, “To address environmental justice, we have engaged with local communities, including those historically affected by environmental disparities, to understand their specific needs and concerns. This engagement informs our plan to incorporate shaded pathways, safe pedestrian areas, and accessible emergency routes, ensuring equitable access to cooler, walkable areas that mitigate urban heat island effects. Together, these actions reflect our commitment to climate adaptation and environmental justice, enhancing the well-being and resilience of all residents.”
Skillicorn followed with a motion to deny what he referred to in a statement to AZ Free News as the “Woke DEI Vision Zero Road Diet Plan.” Vice Mayor Hannah Toth seconded the motion observing, “Of course we want zero pedestrian injuries. My job is to find hidden meanings, often these are not so great in practice. Fifteen Minute Cities sound great but are not. Vision Zero is something I do not feel comfortable inviting into our town.”
Recognizing that voters are increasingly skeptical of extreme climate regulations, dark money groups have stepped in with millions of dollars to alter the conversation.
The goal of these groups, as reported in recent news, is to help climate activists “talk like humans” and present their ideas in a way that doesn’t alienate voters.
Essentially, these groups advise activists on how to sound less radical by softening the rhetoric and framing their climate agenda as more palatable and less divisive. But there’s an obvious catch: this is a messaging campaign, not a policy shift.
If you must teach someone to talk like a human, the message is probably not the problem — it’s the policy, isn’t it?
Beginning with the mythical “new ice age” predicted in the 1970s, the climate alarmists have tried for half a century now to convince us that humans are negatively impacting the climate and that the only solution is for us to diminish the very things — food, energy, and transportation, to name a few — that have brought progress not just to the United States but everywhere around the globe.
The problem is that folks just aren’t buying it, or at least aren’t buying the radical solutions proposed by far-left government officials, out-of-work politicians desperate to make a buck, and the NGOs and think tanks that provide financial backing to them all.
Now, since voters aren’t buying what they’re selling, they want dark money groups to help activists disguise their radical agenda by using softer language, subbing out phrases like “climate change” and “warming” to “extreme weather” and “overheating.”
It seems more than a little ironic that the same voices on the left who accuse energy companies of peddling “fake news” and “climate denialism” to protect their profits are now using a web of dark money to fund a communications strategy that relies on concealment and manipulation. Talk about hypocrisy.
Their problem, of course, lies in the reality that their policy “solutions” do not resonate with the public and do not deliver as advertised. Solutions that actually work and are truly affordable wouldn’t require these kinds of deceptive tactics to gain public support. But their approach is the furthest thing from in touch with what an endless numbers of pre-election surveys and exit polls showed is voters’ most pressing concern today — the economy.
Just look at the adverse economic consequences that came from President Joe Biden’s radical energy policies.
Within hours of assuming office, Biden canceled the Keystone Pipeline, killing thousands of union jobs. He conducted a regulatory assault on energy companies, limited drilling permits and access, supplied nearly $500 billion in tax dollars to green energy initiatives, and pushed policies that made fossil fuel production more difficult and expensive. Gas prices spiked, and utility bills soared for millions of Americans, hitting the middle class especially hard.
And that’s not all. Of course, nearly every good purchased or consumed is shipped by trucks and trains which run on fossil fuels. Driving up the cost of fuels drives up the price of shipping, which, in turn, drives up the prices of the goods being shipped. That is exactly what Biden’s radical energy policies did. Add to that the fact that, even as fuel prices moderated in recent months, prices for consumer goods have remained stubbornly high, and it’s no wonder the Biden policies became so unpopular.
While the administration justified these policies as steps toward a cleaner, greener future, the main effect felt by average American families was a squeeze on their household budgets and a heightened sense of financial instability.
No amount of dark money will bring the climate alarm movement’s views into line with the mainstream, and no amount of softer language will allow them to change the conversation in a manner that convinces the public to give up their gasoline-powered cars and gas stoves.
There is a fundamental disconnect between the radical Biden policies and the needs of average Americans living out here in “flyover country.” Until they can address the true economic consequences of their climate agenda, they will continue to lose elections and legislative policy battles. And that’s welcome news for us all.
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.
Starmer’s remarks came as he disembarked from a carbon-spewing jet upon arrival in Azerbaijan to attend the UN-sponsored COP29 climate conference.
The annual COP conferences, remember, are where the world’s elites gather each year to discuss ways to leverage climate-alarm dogma as a means of destroying western democracy and trapping the world’s masses in energy poverty while they consume $1,000 Wagyu steaks and $2,000 bottles of wine over dinner.
“I have repeatedly emphasized the importance of global leadership when it comes to the climate challenge,” said Starmer, “and therefore it is very important for me to come to COP… I see the climate challenge as a huge opportunity for the UK if we get it right, and that is why we have made it one of our missions to have clean power by 2030.”
Among the means Starmer’s government is using to show “global leadership” on the climate alarm front is to provide heavy subsidies for costly, low-efficiency offshore wind farms and cover up vast swaths of the UK’s farmlands and countryside with enormous solar arrays. Starmer’s government has simultaneously presided over the closing of the UK’s last remaining coal power plant and one of its last steelmaking factories as part of what appears to be a focused effort to deindustrialize its once-powerful economy.
Trump has made it crystal clear that his approach to energy policy will be diametrically opposite that of Starmer’s Labor government. Trump has already said he plans to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate agreement again, an action he took during his first term, but which was reversed by President Joe Biden.
Trump has also laid out plans to re-industrialize America’s economy with a carrot-and-stick approach that will include incentives for companies building new factories and assembly plants in the United States and imposing tariffs on those who choose to invest in capacity overseas. In a recent pre-election interview, Trump detailed plans to address instability and capacity shortages on the U.S. electric grid by implementing policies to speed up permitting and building of new natural gas and nuclear power generation.
“We have to produce massive electricity that we don’t have. But the environmental impact statements won’t allow us to do that. The rules and regulations that we currently have won’t allow us to do any of it,” Trump said. “But if I’m president, we’ll be able to do it and we’ll do it through natural gas, which is clean. And we’ll do it through primarily natural gas and nuclear.”
While on the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to bring back his first-term policies designed to stimulate the domestic oil-and-gas industry and return the United States to the position of “energy dominance” it enjoyed under his previous administration.
In kicking off the COP29 festivities, Azerbaijan leader Ilham Aliyev created a stir among the climate zealots who make up the preponderance of attendees by appearing to endorse the Trump approach.
Referring to oil and natural gas as a “gift of God,” the Azerbaijani President said, “Countries should not be blamed for having them and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market because the market needs them. The people need them.”
At another point, Aliyev appeared to lecture western elitists like Starmer, saying: “Unfortunately double standards, a habit to lecture other countries and political hypocrisy became kind of modus operandi for some politicians, state-controlled NGOs and fake news media in some Western countries.”
In an interview at the summit, Starmer displayed a shocking lack of self-awareness by claiming his government has no plans to “start telling people how to live their lives. We are not going to start dictating to people what they do.”
That is of course exactly what Starmer is doing, and exactly the sort of thing Trump plans to avoid doing regardless of any demands from the globalist climate-alarm industry. Americans stand to be the main beneficiaries from the contrast in policy approach.
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.
A few days before last week’s election, Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a dire warning to voters. If Trump won, “the struggle against climate change will be over.”
He had that right.
Climate change fanaticism was effectively on the ballot last week. That green energy agenda was decisively defeated.
It turns out the tens of millions of middle-class Americans who voted for Trump weren’t much interested in the temperature of the planet 50 years from now. They were too busy trying to pay the bills.
The result shouldn’t be too surprising. Polls have shown climate change ranks near the bottom of voters’ concerns. Jobs, inflation and illegal immigration register much higher on the scale of concerns.
But if you asked the elite of America in the top one percent of income, climate change is seen as an immediate and existential threat to the planet. Our poll at Unleash Prosperity earlier this year found that the cultural elites were so hyper-obsessed with climate issues, they were in favor of banning air conditioning, nonessential air travel and many modern home appliances to stop global warming. Our study showed that not many of the other 99 percent agree.
Wake up, Bernie and Al Gore.
Climate change has become the ultimate luxury good: the richer you are, the more you fret about it.
Among the elite, obsessing about climate change has become a favorite form of virtue-signaling at the country club and in the faculty lounges. There is almost no cross that the green elites — the people who donate six figures or more to groups like the Sierra Club — aren’t willing to make lower income Americans bear to stop global warming.
Herein lies the political curse of the climate issue. A millionaire doesn’t care much if the price of gas rises by $1 a gallon or if they have to pay another $100 a month in utility bills. But the middle class hates paying more.
It wasn’t just economic concerns that turned the voters against climate crusaders like President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Workers weren’t too thrilled with the heavy fist of government commanding them to buy an electric vehicle — whether they wanted one or not.
It hasn’t helped the greens’ cause that the same progressives who are out to save the planet with grandiose transformations and global government, seem to have no problem with the garbage polluting the streets of our major cities or the graffiti or the feces and urine smell on the street corners of San Francisco and New York. That’s real pollution. And it’s affecting us here and now.
The good news is this year’s voter revolts against the radical green agenda are not a vote for dirtier air or water. The air that we breathe and the water we drink is cleaner than ever — a point that President Donald Trump correctly made. We will continue to make progress against pollution.
To try to sell middle America on the climate-change agenda of abolishing fossil fuels, the greens peddled bogus arguments that climate change would hurt poor communities most. In reality the financial costs of the climate policies and the paychecks lost were felt by the non-elite.
Democrats forgot to visit the steel-mill construction sites or the auto plants or the oil patch and ask those workers what they thought.
Well, now we know the reality. Americans think their shrinking paychecks and the higher price of gas they pay at the pump is the real clear-and-present danger. If Democrats don’t start to get that, they too will go to bed worrying about their jobs.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity. His latest book is titled: “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
