On this episode of Unregulated Tom & Mike discuss what last week’s election means for the country, the media, and America’s energy producers. They also talk about what the Trump administration’s best next moves are.
Links:
Election 2020: Where Things Stand for Energy
November 5, 2020 by Leave a Comment
As of Thursday, presidential election results are still being tabulated. Former vice president Biden has a slight edge, but final results will depend on tallies in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia. Elsewhere, however, there is a clear picture coming from the 2020 election: the blue progressive wave meant to sweep to power and remake energy markets did not appear. Affordable, reliable energy remains a vote winner, with voters recoiling at the ambitious progressive energy and climate agenda.
The Senate
In the Senate, Republicans are set to retain control. Losses in Colorado and Arizona were balanced by a pickup in Alabama; a hold in Maine; and a hold in North Carolina that awaits final confirmation. Two seats in Georgia a likely headed to runoffs, where Republicans traditionally do well. This means a 52-48 Republican majority come January 2021.
This result should be seen as a rebuke of the extreme environmentalist agenda. Across the country, environmental activists sought to nationalize Senate races, campaigning for a Democrat controlled Senate to pass the $2 trillion Biden climate plan. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent, the result was failure.
Should Biden prevail in the remaining counts, he will be the first Democratic president since Grover Cleveland to enter office without control of Congress. In addition to crippling Biden’s extreme and costly climate agenda, Republican Senate control means that a President Biden will have to negotiate his cabinet nominations. It will be hard to nominate extremists like Mary Nichols, the former head of California’s environmental regulator, at the Environmental Protection Agency. Radicals like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren should be out of the question in the cabinet. This will be a win for American energy consumers and may constrain the sort of regulatory overreach undertaken under the Obama administration.
The House
In the House, Republicans are set to pick up double-digit seats, a shocking reversal from pre-election expectations of Democratic pickups. Democrats especially struggled in swing districts where energy was on the ballot. In Oklahoma, Rep. Kendra Horn, who represents Oklahoma City, was soundly defeated. Her 5% score on the American Energy Scorecard was a major topic in the campaign’s final debate, and she was clearly hurt by being out of step with her district. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, representing a major oil-producing district in southern New Mexico, was similarly defeated. Here too, a 0% score on the AEA scorecard was at issue in the campaign and exposed Torres Small for voting against the interests of her constituents.
Other endangered incumbents where vote counts have not been finalized include Rep. Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania and Rep. TJ Cox of California, but representing energy producing districts yet scoring very poorly on the AEA scorecard. Because of Biden’s energy comments at the final presidential debate, energy was a major issue in the close weeks of all races. The House results are a sound rejection of the kind of radical environmental agenda proposed by the Biden-Harris campaign.
Come January, with the House more closely balanced, the kinds of radical energy proposals passed by Speaker Pelosi’s caucus last congress should be off the table.
The States
Outside of Washington, affordable energy prevailed as well. Across the country, pro-energy majorities retained control of state legislatures. A much-hyped effort by Democrats to win control of the Texas House of Representatives fell flat. Big spending environmental interests failed to take control of any new state legislative chambers.
Also in Texas, despite vast spending by Mike Bloomberg and other out of state environmental interests, Republican Jim Wright won is race for the Texas Railroad Commission, the state’s oil and gas regulator.
In Arizona, pro-affordable energy candidates are currently in position to take two of three seats up for election. This means that the Commission’s foolish and expensive 100% clean energy mandates, passed last week by the outgoing commissioners, will be ripe for reconsideration.
Conclusion
Nationwide in 2020, energy was on the ballot: the radical Green New Deal, which the Biden-Harris campaign couldn’t stop praising; he Biden $2 trillion climate plan; the Biden fracking ban that he tried to pretend was not a ban. The campaign was packed with energy policy, and the final weeks were dominated by energy policy. Whatever the ultimate outcome of the closely fought presidential race, everywhere else on the ballot voters delivered a rebuke to anti-energy candidates at every level. Should the former vice president win the race he should take note, and abandon his plan to go to war with affordable, reliable, American energy.
American Energy Wins at the Ballot Box
November 4, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Results prove that voters reject incumbents and candidates seeking to dismantle newfound American energy independence.
WASHINGTON DC (November 4, 2020) – The American Energy Alliance (AEA), the country’s premier pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, and free-market energy organization, has released a statement in reaction to yesterday’s election results. While the final outcome of the presidential election remains unresolved, there were clear winners and losers in last night’s election.
Thomas Pyle, President of AEA, issued the following statement:
“Americans clearly rejected the policies of the progressive left with respect to energy policy and any attempt to transform America into a socialist country. The polling industry had another abysmal night, calling into question the competence and objectivity of nearly the entire lot.
“The Democrats had an equally disastrous performance. Republicans will most certainly hold the Senate, and in the House, Republicans narrowed the gap and both incumbents and candidates who embraced our hard-won energy independence were victorious. Those who talked a good game, but ultimately voted in lockstep with Speaker Nancy Pelosi – including Rep. Horn (D-OK) and Rep. Torres-Small (D-NM) – are going home. Rep. Connor Lamb (D-PA) and Rep. TJ Cox (D-CA), who are both trailing, could both enjoy a similar fate.
“One thing is for certain: if Joe Biden shuffles into the White House, he will do so lacking any kind of mandate to make energy more expensive, restrict the use of our domestic natural resources, ban fracking on federal lands, or impose a carbon tax or other restrictive carbon policies on the American public.
“We look forward to working with the next President to keep energy affordable, maintain American energy independence, and help the families, workers, and businesses that make America great.”
For media inquiries please contact:
[email protected]
Biden Thinks Magic Can Power America’s Economy
October 30, 2020 by 4 Comments
Joe Biden’s climate and energy plans mandate a carbon-free generation sector by 2035. Since new nuclear and carbon capture and sequestration technologies are not economically competitive, subsidized wind and solar power would have to make up the share from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil) that currently make up 62 percent of the generation market. Biden’s plans call for large expenditures in renewable energy, including installing 500 million solar panels and manufacturing 60,000 wind turbines.
The Benton Public Utility District in Washington State said, in a report, that overly aggressive clean energy policies bring about an unacceptably high risk of power grid blackouts. While the development of wind farms may be “politically fashionable” and appeal to many in the general public, science and economics show that attempting to power modern civilization with intermittent electricity from wind and solar will come at a high financial and environmental cost. The report is consistent with what has happened in Germany and Australia, as residential electricity prices in Germany are among the highest in Europe and 50 percent more than they were in 2006.
In 2014, Germany’s solar production was just 6 percent and the country barely managed to escape an eclipse by importing electricity from neighboring countries. In August, still air hit California’s wind farms during a heat wave and smoke from its wild fires reduced solar power by 30 percent, causing rolling blackouts in some locales.
The enormity of the task Biden is making that some believe is doable can be best expressed by realizing that 80 percent of all U.S. energy comes from fossil fuels and almost 9 percent comes from nuclear power. Solar and wind combined contribute less than 4 percent. Solar and wind’s contribution in the generating sector is more sizable at 9 percent of U.S. generation because of the smaller market. Wind power and solar systems produce electricity at an average of just 25 percent to 35 percent of the year, while conventional natural gas plants have very high availability at 85 percent.
Because wind and solar are intermittent, they require back-up from natural gas technologies, which must be inefficiently ramped up and down like a car driving in stop-and-go traffic to balance the energy grid. Storage technologies (batteries) could substitute, but they are not currently economic. Further, China controls about 70 percent of the world’s lithium supply and 83 percent of the anodes to make them. A U.S. lithium project has been seeking approval to mine the material in a Nevada desert, but has been blocked for more than a decade by environmental groups.
Now consider that Biden also wants the U.S. energy economy to be totally carbon free by 2050. That means electric vehicles instead of gasoline and diesel vehicles. Then consider the electricity that these electric vehicles will need to charge their batteries. And add to that, the half million electric car chargers that Biden proposes to have taxpayers finance along with funding to help car makers convert their factories to electric vehicle production. Producing and recharging those electric vehicles will require that electricity is constantly available, which, based on California’s experience may not be achievable with renewable power.
Building wind turbines and solar panels to generate electricity, as well as batteries to fuel electric vehicles, requires, on average, more than 10 times the quantity of materials, compared with building equivalent systems using fossil fuels to deliver the same amount of energy. To replace a single 100-megawatt gas-fired plant would take at least 20 wind turbines, each about the size of the Washington Monument and covering about 10 square miles of land. The wind farm would consume about 30,000 tons of iron ore and 50,000 tons of concrete, as well as 900 tons of non-recyclable plastics for the blades. A solar plant with the same output would require half again more tonnage in cement, steel and glass. And, based on current plans, by 2050, the quantity of worn-out, non-recyclable solar panels will double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste, and there will be over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades.
Conclusion
Biden’s plans to recreate the entire U.S. energy system beginning with electricity over the next 14 years will result in enormous costs for U.S. consumers and taxpayers. Further, it makes little sense to take a system that works efficiently and replace it with technologies that cannot do the job 24/7. Americans rightly expect electricity on demand and will continue to expect that while Biden creates large new uses for electricity that will tax the electric grid. His vision of American energy is one where air conditioning may not be available in the summer and heat may not be available during winter.
*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.
For more information on these issues check out AEA’s Vote Energy 2020
Unregulated Podcast #9: Tom and Mike Reflect on Trump’s First Term
October 28, 2020 by Leave a Comment
On this episode of Unregulated Tom & Mike discuss Biden’s biggest gaffe thus far in the campaign, and what Trump’s first term meant for America.
Links:
• Trump and Biden debate on ‘clean energy’
• Biden accidentally tells the truth about his plans to outlaw oil
Biden Lets The Mask Slip On Energy
October 26, 2020 by Leave a Comment
In his debate with President Trump on October 22, Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden said he would rid the nation of oil and gas—“over time, over time”. Biden’s costly and radical energy transition from oil and natural gas to renewable energy would hurt the U.S. economy, put the United States on a path to third-world status, subject the nation to rolling blackouts as the nation saw in California this past summer, lose American jobs to offshore countries, and help China to prosper more than ever for the Chinese control the supply chain for the critical metals that the United States needs for solar, wind, and electric vehicles. Biden’s transition is reminiscent of Germany’s Energiewende, or energy transition to renewable energy, where Germans are already paying three times the amount for residential electricity as U.S. homeowners.
After admitting to a desire for the elimination of the oil industry, Biden tried to back-pedal by saying, “because it has to be replaced by renewable energy over time, over time, and I’d stopped giving to the oil industry, I’d stop giving them federal subsidies. You won’t get federal subsidies to the gas, oh, excuse me to solar and wind.”
Tax Deductions vs. Tax Credits (Subsidies)
The Institute for Energy Research has explained the difference between the tax deductions that the oil and gas industry gets and the subsidies that the wind and solar industry gets numerous times and most recently here. The tax credits that wind and solar receive were to spur the advent of young industries. The wind and solar industries are now decades old and should be able to advance without continued support from lawmakers.
The oil and gas industry receive tax deductions, not credits that are mainly targeted to small independent oil and natural gas producers, rather than the major integrated oil companies. One of the tax deductions is provided to all U.S. manufacturing firms, not just oil and gas producers, while the others are for typical business deductions in the tax code akin to research and development costs available to all industries.
Tax credits are something quite different. In the case of wind, producers are literally paid by taxpayers to produce energy, whether it is needed or not. For solar, taxpayers assume a percentage of the capital cost of the systems. These are dollar-for-dollar credits against taxes owed, rather than deductions, which allow for tax obligations to be reduced by whatever tax rate applies.
The advantages and disadvantages of these incentives vary greatly in terms of benefits—revenues to the government, employment, and energy contribution. The small tax benefits available to oil and gas producers pale in comparison to the vast sums of taxpayer money being handed to wind and solar generators, especially when compared to the relative amounts of energy they produce. After billions of dollars to the wind and solar industries, the U.S. economy gets less than 4 percent of its energy from wind and solar, compared to 69 percent from natural gas and oil. And, wood produces more than twice the energy solar does.
Biden on Fracking
At the debate, Biden said, “I do rule out banning fracking because the answer we need, we need other industries to transition, to get to ultimately a complete zero emissions by 2025. What I will do with fracking over time is make sure that we can capture the emissions from the fracking, capture the emissions from gas. We can do that and we can do that by investing money in doing it, but it’s a transition to that.”
Biden appears to have upped his zero emissions economy by 25 years from 2050 to 2025. It would be hard enough and extremely costly to achieve that goal by 2050, much less 25 years sooner.
But rather than dwell on his flub, let’s look at his continued confusion about fracking. In March 2020, in his debate with Bernie Sanders, Bidden said that he would ban new hydraulic fracturing, without qualifying it to federal lands, which he later tried to do. Biden back-tracked on the ban when campaigning in Pennsylvania because the state uses fracking mostly on private lands to produce natural gas. Pennsylvania’s economy runs on energy. The state is the nation’s second-largest producer of natural gas, third-largest producer of coal, 16th-largest producer of crude oil, and third-largest producer of electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Biden added, for the first time, that he wants to capture the emissions from fracking. To do that he needs a technology called carbon capture and sequestration. A recent study showed that only 6 percent of existing coal and natural gas industrial and power plants could qualify for the current tax credit and economically retrofit to the carbon capture and sequestration technology. That is, only 418 U.S. facilities from over 6,500 could make the transition. Who is Biden trying to kid.
Solar and Wind Energy Jobs
Biden stated, “By the way, the fastest growing industry in America is the electric, excuse me, solar energy and wind…It’s the fastest growing jobs and they pay good prevailing wages, 45, 50 bucks an hour.”
While solar and wind energy, on a capacity basis, are the fastest growing industries in the electric sector, they only provided a combined 9 percent of generation in 2019 after decades of subsidies compared to coal and natural gas that provide 62 percent of generation. Wind and solar are intermittent technologies and generate electricity only when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining, regardless of whether electricity demand is high or low. This means that wind does not have much capacity value; it cannot be dispatched on an as-needed basis as coal, nuclear and natural gas technologies can. Thus, wind and solar get preferential treatment when they are available so that state mandates can be met and their industries can receive tax credits, which in the case of wind, literally pays them to generate electricity, regardless of whether the generation is needed at that time.
In reality, Biden’s proposed transition from oil and gas to renewable energy would result in lower pay for blue-collar workers and possibly lower benefits as well. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2019, the median annual pay for petroleum engineers was $137,210—three times that for solar panel installers ($44,890) and 2.6 times higher than the average salary for a wind turbine technician ($52,910). Even petroleum pump system operators and refinery operators ($72,570) made more than solar and wind technicians by 40 to 60 percent.
Assuming that solar and wind employees work 40 hour weeks over 52 weeks of the year and using the above salaries, solar installers would make $21.58 an hour and wind turbine technicians would make $25.44 an hour—twice what Biden is boasting his plan would produce. Plus, he would disrupt families, forcing them to move and the breadwinners to retrain for an entirely different work force.
Conclusion
Biden, if elected, would ruin America’s energy system, force the country toward third-world status, and hand China supremacy with its command of the critical elements needed for renewable energy technology, weapons, cell phones, and other technologies. Americans have a choice to keep the nation’s low cost and abundant energy resources fueling the U.S. economy or making a costly and radical transition to an energy future that some countries have tried only to see their follies.
*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.
For more information on these issues check out AEA’s Vote Energy 2020
Unregulated Podcast #8: Mike and Tom Discuss a Possible Path to Victory for Trump
October 23, 2020 by Leave a Comment
On this episode of Unregulated Tom & Mike postulate a path to president’s second term.
Links:
• Trump sees approval rating increase, majority expect him to beat Biden: poll
• Pebble Mine Could Reduce Dependence on China for Critical Metals: poll
• Democrats “gas lighting” themselves
• Joe Biden “shoot them in the leg” quote
• President Trump plays Biden and Kamala’s comments about banning fracking to the crowd
• Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Closing Statement at Confirmation Hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett
• ACB “needed a glass of wine” clip
• “WE DRANK BEER. I LIKED BEER. BOYS AND GIRLS.” – Brett Kavanaugh fires back
• Pelosi: GOP still doesn’t recognize ‘gravity’ of pandemic
• Blitzer presses Pelosi on why she hasn’t taken Trump stimulus deal
41 Free Market Groups Urge Senate to Stand Strong Against Powerful Wind Lobby
October 22, 2020 by Leave a Comment
The U.S. Senate, the only stronghold in Congress, must resist temptation to pass unnecessary handouts to special interests before – and after – the election.
WASHINGTON DC (October 22, 2020) – The American Energy Alliance (AEA), the country’s premier pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, and free-market energy organization, issued a letter to Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and many of his Republican colleagues urging them to stand strong against the powerful wind lobby. AEA, along with forty co-signing organizations, are seeking a final end to the production tax credit (PTC) for intermittent electricity generated by windmills. Subsidized wind power increases electricity costs, harms taxpayers, and destabilizes the electric grid. It is most beneficial to wealthy wind developers – many of which are foreign owned – who are able to reduce their tax rate at the expense of the rest of the taxpayers and ratepayers.
The PTC has drained tens of billions of dollars while foisting unreliable energy onto the grid. It has now been extended a dozen times. Enough is enough. AEA fully supports legislative efforts like S. 4678 / H.R. 8359, the PTC Elimination Act, proposed by Senators Lankford (OK), Cramer (ND), Hoeven (ND), Capito (WV), and Representative Marchant (TX) to finally end this unnecessary tax credit. In a second letter, AEA informed Members of Congress it will score co-sponsorship of these important measures in its American Energy Scorecard.
Thomas Pyle, President of the American Energy Alliance, issued the following statement:
“While America works its way back to economic strength following the coronavirus pandemic, leave it to the wind lobby to add more drag. At a time when the fundamentals of value and low costs are at a premium, undermining both with a perpetuation of the PTC could not be more foolish. The wind industry claims it is no longer an infant and is now the least expensive source of new electricity generation. It’s time for them prove it by standing on their own two feet. American families, who are facing continued economic uncertainty, shouldn’t be forced to reach into their pockets to subsidize Big Wind.
The wind lobby has shamelessly attempted to capitalize on the pandemic to coax Congress into breaking their deal to phase out the PTC this year. The PTC has run its course. It’s time to move on.”
The full letter and list of signatories can be viewed here.
Additional Resources:
- It’s Time To End Corporate Welfare for Big Wind
- Why the Wind Industry to Grow Up
- As Pandemic Spreads, Democrats Prioritize Green Giveaways for Special Interests Over Citizens
For media inquiries please contact:
[email protected]
Under Biden’s Plan, Energy Prices Go Up, And That’s The Point
October 20, 2020 by 11 Comments
According to Democratic Party presidential nominee Joseph Biden’s carbon plan, “he will demand that Congress enacts legislation in the first year of his presidency that: 1) establishes an enforcement mechanism that includes milestone targets no later than the end of his first term in 2025, 2) makes a historic investment in clean energy and climate research and innovation, 3) incentivizes the rapid deployment of clean energy innovations across the economy, especially in communities most impacted by climate change.”
The mechanism Biden refers to would most likely be a carbon tax, which Biden has said he would support, or a cap and trade program, which is implicitly a carbon tax. The latter was previously known as the “cap and tax” program when it was dismissed by Congress during the Obama Administration. In either case, a Biden tax on greenhouse gas emissions would significantly increase household costs such as cooling and heating, transportation, and even groceries as the United States gets 80 percent of its energy from fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas. It would also raise the cost of manufacturing in the United States.
Canada’s Carbon Tax
Our Northern neighbor has some experience with a carbon tax as well as other mechanisms for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. In 2019, Canada implemented a carbon tax under the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act supported by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The carbon tax started at $20 per metric ton in 2019, and is scheduled to increase at $10 per metric ton per year until reaching $50 per metric ton in 2022. The carbon tax will stay at that level unless the legislation is revisited and revised.
A $20 per metric ton carbon tax equates to a 16.6 cent per gallon surcharge on gasoline. In 2022, the $50 per ton carbon tax would increase Canadian gasoline prices by about 42 cents per gallon or about 8 percent. The price of coal in 2022 would more than double with a carbon tax surcharge of about $100 per metric ton. Natural gas prices would increase by about 10 cents per cubic meter in 2022 compared to current prices of around 13 cents per cubic meter—about a 75 percent increase.
Canada expects the carbon tax to increase the demand for carbon-free electricity. In 2019, however, Canada generated 58 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric power, 15 percent from nuclear, and 7 percent from renewable energy. Only 18 percent of its electricity came from fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas. The majority of Canada’s carbon dioxide emissions are not from the generating sector, but from the industrial sector, which is subjected to an Output-Based Allocations system (similar to cap and trade).
Those carbon taxes, which at $50 per metric ton seem rather large, are insufficient for the country to meet its emission-reduction targets under the Paris climate accord. Canada’s parliamentary budget officer says the country’s carbon tax would have to increase over the coming years to meet emission-reduction targets. Canada’s budget officer, Yves Giroux, estimates the tax will have to increase to $117 per metric ton by 2030 if it is applied to all industries. And, if the government caps the tax at $50 per metric ton for large industrial emitters, households and other sectors of the economy would have to cover the difference, requiring a tax of $289 per metric ton in 2030.
Those are hefty tax increases.
Biden’s Commitment to the Paris Accord
If elected Biden will implement something similar, as his plans return the United States to the Paris Accord agreed to by the Obama Administration. The mechanism will be another tax imposed on American families, and just as Canada is finding, the carbon tax will have to increase to enormous numbers for the Obama-Biden Paris accord commitments to be met, which will hurt U.S. families and bog-down the economy that is trying to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. And, while the United States will have to buckle under to suffer severe cost increases in anything made from or consuming fossil fuels, China will continue emitting more carbon dioxide emissions as it builds 250 gigawatts of new coal-fired power plants, adding to the over 1,000 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity it already has. China is building coal-fired plants to get its economy rolling from the downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Those coal plants could easily last half of a century.
A carbon tax would not be a one-time deal. It will continue and increase until the United States will no longer consume the fossil fuels currently supplying 80 percent of our energy. Yet that enormous change in the U.S. energy sector will result in only a miniscule change in temperature. According to Bjorn Lomborg, U.S. climate policies, in the most optimistic circumstances, fully achieved and adhered to throughout the century, will reduce global temperatures by just 0.031°C (0.057°F) by 2100. This is unnoticeable. Further, if all countries comply with their Paris accord commitments, he estimates the total temperature reduction to be 0.048°C (0.086°F) by 2100. It will be a lot of pain for very little gain, as the energy necessary for modern life becomes more and more expensive for those who have it and less available to those in the world who are striving to use energy to lift themselves from poverty.
Conclusion
Biden has plans for a lot of tax increases, some of which are documented on his website, but others are not as obvious when he uses words such as a “mechanism” that requires legislation. Do not be fooled by the language, which disguises the means by which he seeks to fundamentally transform the entire United States energy system. There is a reason why he needs Congress to pass it. He cannot implement a tax by himself.
*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.
For more information on these issues check out AEA’s Vote Energy 2020 election hub.
Rep. Kendra Horn is Out of Step With Her District
October 19, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Last month the American Energy Alliance released its 2020 American Energy Scorecard results for the House of Representatives. The AEA scorecard scores voting and co-sponsorship decisions on legislation affecting energy and environmental policy, educating voters on how their representatives vote and holding members accountable for those decisions.
The scorecard is guided by principles such as:
- Promoting affordable, abundant, and reliable energy
- Expanding economic opportunity and prosperity, particularly for working families and those on fixed incomes
- Giving Americans, not Washington bureaucrats, the power to make their own energy choices
- Encouraging private sector innovation and entrepreneurship
- Advancing market-oriented energy and environment policies
- Reducing the role of government in energy markets
- Eliminating the subsidies, mandates, and special interest giveaways that lead to higher energy costs
This year’s scorecard compiled 19 votes and 2 co-sponsorship decisions from the 116th Congress. 74 House members achieved a 100% score.
While many members failed to achieve a perfect score for various reasons, the most concerning scores came from those representing districts where the energy industry is a major economic driver and job creator. One of these members is Rep. Kendra Horn, whose Oklahoma 5th Congressional District covers most of Oklahoma City and some nearby counties. Oklahoma City is one of the energy capitals of the United States, home to numerous energy companies, including several Fortune 500 firms, supporting tens of thousands of high paying jobs in the city. According to the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, more than a quarter of Oklahoma City GDP comes from the oil and gas industry.
Rep. Horn did not just score poorly. Her 5% score placed her at the bottom of the body along with extreme anti-energy members like Green New Deal creator Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Rep. Horn is clearly out of step with her constituents in the 5th district. That might pass in New York City, but it’s not OK in the Sooner State.
It also cannot be considered an accident. AEA notifies all members in advance of votes that will be scored. A member disagreeing with AEA’s position on one or two votes might be understandable, but Rep. Horn shows a consistent record of votes harming the American energy industry and consumers alike. Her record of voting against the interests of her constituents should be on the mind of every voter in 2020 as ballots begin to arrive in mailboxes in the coming days.