Republicans Not So Sure About This Free Market Thing When It Comes to Oil

One of Republicans’ arguments against any form of climate action has been that government should let the market take its course. This ignores the massive subsidies incumbent fossil fuels enjoy, including the fact they’re destroying the planet without having to pay for it.

But reality is catching up with fossil fuels. Oil prices are in the pits due to the coronavirus-fueled demand drop. A growing number of banks and investment firms have also decided to pull their financial support from the riskiest fossil fuel investments in the Arctic and elsewhere. The logic is pretty straightforward: All signs point to funding oil exploration as a pretty terrible allocation of financial resources.

Maybe we should let the free market decide, no?

The invisible hand is guiding banking titans out of the Arctic oil loan business, and the coronavirus demand collapse only further underscores the risks of investing in new oil exploration. The market, it appears, has spoken.

Yes, the market speaks. We as capitalist, should listen to our Republican conservative ideals....right?

But Republicans don’t like what they’re hearing. In a letter sent last week to the Trump administration, 36 Republican members of Congress who have received nearly $30 million in oil and gas donations, spearheaded by Senator Dan Sullivan ($691,824 in oil and gas donations), decried banks’ decisions to cut fossil fuel funding and begged the administration to protect their preferred sector.

So here is part of their letter;

“We write with critical concern as major American financial institutions continue unfairly to pick energy winners and losers in order to placate the environmental fringe....We urge you and your Administration to use every administrative and regulatory tool at your disposal to prevent America’s financial institutions from discriminating against America’s energy sector while they simultaneously enjoy the benefits of federal government programs.”

The Republican argument for the past two-plus decades is that the market should, in fact, pick winners and losers. Remember Solyndra? Republicans tripped over themselves to yell about how the solar panel company defaulting on its loan was proof the government shouldn’t “pick winners and losers,” and that the U.S. should just let the free market take its course. (The loan program that lent to Solyndra turned a profit by the way.)

The free market lovefest has always been a cheap attempt to wave the American flag, hiding the crony capitalism behind the scenes. Most of the letter’s signatories owe their political lives to the fossil fuel industry, which has made it rain on their campaigns. Hypocrisy is nothing new in politics, but it’s nonetheless stunning to see many of the same people who have used the “winners and losers” line to whine in bad faith about federal government programs vs. the free market now turn it completely around.

Wait, conservatives abandoning their free market ideals!?!? Say it ain't so! But why? What possible barrier could there be to free market, capitalist ideals???

Here are just some of the many instances the letter signatories deploying the line verbatim to argue against government investments of any form:

In 2012, Rep. Fred Upton ($1,148,561 in lifetime oil and gas donations) introduced the so-called “No More Solyndras” Act (lol), noting “as the case of Solyndra proves, government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers.”
Senator John Cornyn ($4,109,371 in lifetime oil and gas donations and the top 2020 industry largesse recipient so far) says on his campaign website “Senator Cornyn believes the industry must not pick winners and losers.”
Senator Bill Cassidy ($1,562,025 in lifetime oil and gas donations and fifth-highest recipient of 2020 oil and gas money) derided the idea that the “government should pick the winners and losers and the politically well-connected benefit” during his 2014 Senate race.
Senator Ted Cruz ($3,626,788 from oil and gas industry donations) wrote an op-ed for the Des Moines Register during his failed presidential bid saying his “view on energy is simple.” That includes noting “Washington shouldn’t be picking winners and losers.” (Side note: Maybe Ted can talk to his wife, who works at Goldman Sachs, to see if she can get the bank to reverse course.)
The entire Wyoming Congressional delegation of Senator John Barrasso ($564,325 in oil and gas donations), Senator Mike Enzi ($531,583), and Rep. Liz Cheney ($412,475) sent a letter to Trump about coal subsidies for West Virginia. The press release on Enzi’s website is filed under the headline “Federal government should not pick winners and losers in coal market.”
This is a truly rare and fine vintage of fossil-fuel-on-fossil-fuel hypocrisy. Savor it.

Ahhh, GREED.
Privatize gains, socialize loses.

Conservatives down with this?

A smart government would use now as a chance to start untangling the web of fossil fuels and the economy and support workers in the transition to phase out oil, gas, and coal.

This right here. It's time to get our heads out of our arses and build for the future. Not continue to waste resources on the PAST>
earther.gizmodo.com...

The American free market system is doing great producing Solar and other energy sources 😃


Renewable energy is the fastest-growing energy source in the United States, increasing 100 percent from 2000 to 2018

I find it funny that some people complain about TESLA getting subsidies but yet most politicians are subsidized by big oil.

I see no problem with TESLA or Elon Musk and couldn't care less if it's subsidized. I don't agree with subsidizing the oil and gas industry because it will bounce back, it's not like people stopped driving gasoline and diesel powered vehicles over night..

a reply to: ErEhWoN

Since I am a oil industry gal that produces my own power at home with solar/hydro, I say let's go for it!!!

Of course, I won't be affected by adding a decimal point to my power bill like y'all will...

Closing down 8% of our GDP won't really effect me either....

The loss of hundreds of billions of dollars a year in Federal tax revenues I am fine with too... let's get rid of all those old clunky "safety nets" we can no longer afford, like Social Security, Welfare programs, Medicare and Medicaid.

Transporting goods will become a LOT more costly, but I am not really concerned with everyone else's food bill doubling either when that cost is passed to the consumer.

Super idea!!!

Where do I sign up!!!

Oil is precious, and it needs to be concentrated where it's worth the most.
When it comes to market systems, I believe on a massive scale it doesn't work. Regulation of some sort needs to be implemented, otherwise, conflicts, and other strong arm tactics are used and it no longer becomes 'free'.

As a closing note, the Republican party has gloated about Friedman economics for too long, and it's caused a world of hurt.

Since I am a oil industry gal that produces my own power at home with solar/hydro, I say let's go for it!!!

Of course, I won't be affected by adding a decimal point to my power bill like y'all will...

Closing down 8% of our GDP won't really effect me either....

The loss of hundreds of billions of dollars a year in Federal tax revenues I am fine with too... let's get rid of all those old clunky "safety nets" we can no longer afford, like Social Security, Welfare programs, Medicare and Medicaid.

Transporting goods will become a LOT more costly, but I am not really concerned with everyone else's food bill doubling either when that cost is passed to the consumer.

Super idea!!!

Where do I sign up!!!

a reply to: Lumenari

That was all sarcasm right? I just wanted to make sure I understood that.

I am actually thinking about investing in oil

a reply to: Lumenari

And nothing about the hypocrisy of Republican senators speaking out of both sides of their mouth.

Socialism works for the rich, capitalism is imposed on the poor.

It's disgusting, and makes me regret serving as a soldier for this country. To think I would have died for them. I was so naive.

originally posted by: ErEhWoN
a reply to: Lumenari

And nothing about the hypocrisy of Republican senators speaking out of both sides of their mouth.

Socialism works for the rich, capitalism is imposed on the poor.

It's disgusting, and makes me regret serving as a soldier for this country. To think I would have died for them. I was so naive.

You think you're not now?

LOL!!!!

To be honest, I'm personally tired of the capitalism vs socialism fight online.

I'm hoping now that socialism gets a big win in the United States and we go straight off of fossil fuels.

That way the weak-minded voters will die off soon and the People of America that are left can get over the big Reset and start to rebuild.

We need an economic event so large it will be burnt into our cultural memory for the next few hundred years.

Perhaps we will erect statues of Bernie, Obama and Bush with a simple epitaph.

"We Will Not Forget".

and we go straight off of fossil fuels.

a reply to: Lumenari

There are currently zero parties advocating for that. Only ones I have heard anything like that from are conservatives. Hard to have a grown up conversation with them, they are so emotional.

originally posted by: ErEhWoN

and we go straight off of fossil fuels.

a reply to: Lumenari

There are currently zero parties advocating for that. Only ones I have heard anything like that from are conservatives. Hard to have a grown up conversation with them, they are so emotional.

Erm....

Please post links for me about conservatives promoting the New Green deal.

Do you need for me to post links on Democrats in office and running for President supporting the New Green Deal?

Nevermind.

I just took the time to briefly go over your posting history.

I'm wasting my time typing to you.

a reply to: Lumenari

Please show me in the Green New deal where they advocate "we go straight off of fossil fuels."

No one advocates for this, only conservatives spew this as an argument.

The approach pushes for transitioning the United States to use 100% renewable, zero-emission energy sources, including investment into electric cars and high-speed

en.wikipedia.org...

TRANSITIONING.

No one is advocating what you said except for conservatives.

Petroleum based products will be around for a long time after we transition. Last I checked, wind and solar make poor lubrication mediums.

We can still TRANSITION off them NOW.
We will transition off them, eventually. Might as well do it in a controlled manner, and be FIRST.

Imagine that, America First!

I wonder if there really is any such thing as clean energy or human activity that isn't bad for the planet? I mean let's be honest here. Manufacturing ANYTHING at all is going to pollute the environment. Especially if you're manufacturing "stuff" on a massive enough scale to provide for 7 billion people. What isn't made of plastic? What is the raw material for plastic? What are solar panels made of? Where do they come from? Who makes them? How do they get from the plant they're made in to your house so you can put them on your roof and pretend you're not doing any damage to the planet?

Let's talk about lithium batteries. You do know that you have to store that energy somewhere, right? So what do you reckon it's gonna do to the planet to manufacture enough batteries to power everything for 7 billion people?

What about nuclear power? That's not exactly clean energy, huh? Granted, maybe it could be better than fossil fuels IF it could be done safely and no unfortunate accidents were to happen. I don't think I would be too comfortable living in the shadow of a nuclear power plant but that's just me.

So maybe we should just give up all the comforts of modern life and go back to living in mud huts, huh? Have fun with that in the Winter in Canada.

a reply to: ErEhWoN

There is no such thing as "100% renewable, zero-emission energy sources", everything has an environmental cost, especially the manufacturing of electronic devices. As BrianFlanders pointed out, fossil fuels are still required in the manufacturing process. It seems to me people love to conflate "technologically advanced" with "environmentally friendly". In other words, if something appears technical and futuristic then it undoubtedly must be better for the environment than those coal plants functioning on ancient technology. That often just isn't the case in reality, the materials required to build massive solar and wind farms are not renewable and the devices don't last forever, on top of that they require massive amounts of land to be leveled, especially if we wanted to power entire nations purely on these dilute forms of energy with no reliance on fossil fuels.

The very idea of having zero CO2 emissions isn't good for the environment because CO2 is food for plants and trees, the Earth has experienced a significant greening effect over the last several decades which is caused by increased CO2 levels. Obviously having too much CO2 is a bad thing, but I would strongly argue that having too little is also a bad thing, it's very clear that the Earth can tolerate a certain level of CO2 emissions without global temperatures exploding, and it helps to fertilize the planet. It might also help reduce the chances of entering another ice age, there's a lot of upsides and virtually no downsides, yet we seem obsessed with this infantile notion that any amount of CO2 emissions is destructive. People are basically brainwashed to think that way from what I can tell.

From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.

An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.

Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds

a reply to: eXia7

My issue with Tesla is people bleet these cars are environmentally safe... when they are not in fact the damage from birth to death to disposal of those batteries is pretty fricking horrific.

But that's just my issue with them, Rich people buy and sell congress folks, if they own a business that usually leads to subsidies for their business.

originally posted by: ErEhWoN

and we go straight off of fossil fuels.

a reply to: Lumenari

There are currently zero parties advocating for that. Only ones I have heard anything like that from are conservatives. Hard to have a grown up conversation with them, they are so emotional.

Actually I have heard that from a number of the sheep pushing this horrific plan.

While the Green new Farce wasn't around yet, what do you think was going to happen with no new coal powered plants, and tighter emissions regulations from Obama, increase in the cost of power, because we had nothing to replace those plants with when they were not built to support growing population or when they closed down due to failure to meet new standards. (remembered that without having my morning Caffeine either)

Lastly anyone that thinks wind, and solar doesn't have a big negative impact on the environment has kept their head in the sand and not actually looked at the areas with big solar plants and wind farms. I would call wiping out the birds that migrate through that area a significant impact.

Double lastly, Oil will be around for a LONG time since it is in just about every manufactured item made, I dont have to like it that's just the reality of things as it stands.

Well, lets not forget that while the oil industry was facing some headwinds before the coronacrap started, the fact that the .gov forcibly shuttered much of the economy has had a huge negative impact on it as well. The point being, to say this is a free market issue is not exactly accurate. Taking that into consideration, I think the government does have at least some responsibility to help individuals and various industries to stabilize their finances and recover their losses that have arisen as a direct result of the shutdown. Its not their fault that the government intervened and impaired their ability to do business and disrupted their financial planning.

No one has abandoned their capitalized businesses.

What happened was the global economy was freaking f'd up because leftist wannabe faux commie screechers have thrown a tantrum and ruined the entire global market by causing hysterics using the flu season.

Think about this, Corona flue has existed for ever we endure it every year and it's lethality is less than 1% ... seriously.

Let it go, the political left is just using it to disrupt.

That's it. There's no Ebola outbreaks, if there was I'd understand the lockdowns. But it's not...

Agree to disagree, but I don't f''n care about politics any more. It's over rated drama which causes more divisionist activities than unity.

I for one, am done with distracting rhetorical bs.

Facts vs feelings.

I don't care about politic disposition. Let's talk solutions.


United We Stand, The Rest Is, Not An Option!