Britain’s New PM Is Taking Energy Seriously. What’s Wrong With the U.S.?

Just the News reports that Britain’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss is not screwing around when it comes to powering the country. On Thursday, Truss addressed Parliament and announced that she will move ahead with a plan to reinstate fracking in the North Sea with a goal to make the UK an energy exporter by 2040. She also said she would not yield to the opposition’s demand to use a windfall tax on energy companies, which according to Truss would undermine the investments needed to secure home-grown energy supplies. She said that her approach will be pro-growth, pro-business, and pro-investment, which is needed for the UK’s energy security, adding that “We can’t tax our way to growth.”

Truss made it clear that she knows that people are struggling with their energy bills and wanted to reassure people that energy would be affordable. She said that she is committed to reaching net zero, but she obviously realizes that the world is not quite there yet. She has also capped household power bills at the U.S. equivalent of $2,888 for two years. Truss has plans for natural gas and nuclear power.

You can watch the PM’s appearance here. Parliament is always so much more interesting than Congress.

Meanwhile, back at home, Democrats are gearing up to protest an oil permitting reform deal that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer offered Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). I know, Manchin caved, and the overall bill in question is a nightmare. But any energy produced in the U.S. is preferable to none. It is noteworthy that, so far, nothing has been offered to Western states where recoverable oil and gas reserves continue to lie fallow in the ground, albeit in many cases on federal land. Along with those resources are thousands of jobs that will be left uncreated.

At least 70 House Democrats penned a letter of opposition to the move, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) carping about the agreement being a “giveaway” to the fossil fuels industry. I’ve written before about climate celebrities who have no compunction about spewing carbon for personal travel. And of course, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is moving as quickly as he can to remove all internal combustion engine vehicles and replace them with EVs in a state where the status of the energy grid is six-to-five-and-pick-‘em these days.

Unlike Truss, our leaders hide behind fear-mongering and boost the media profile of a cranky teenager and other young people who have never had to meet a household budget while they continue to line their own pockets through crony capitalism and try to soothe their consciences about having seven-figure incomes.

Unlike our leaders, Truss seems to understand that the needs of her country come first and wants to wrestle with this problem. She at least knows that, soaring rhetoric aside, people in the UK need to heat and light their homes and need transportation and affordable goods. Her solution may not be perfect. There may be particulars to hammer out, and there may be a need for a debate on the profits made by energy companies. Oil and gas companies do make profits, but that beats having your electric company turn off your A/C in the middle of a heat wave or being told you cannot charge your EV.

Wind and solar are great ideas, but we are not at a point where they can replace fossil fuels. Body-slamming the population into accepting them will only widen the gap between the Hollywood and Washington elite and their hangers-on and everyone else. Liz Truss gets it. Our Democrats do not.