⤵ The absurd attacks on Joe Manchin's permitting bill

An inability to pass even modest regulatory reforms would be an alarming sign of American unseriousness

Item: U.S. Capitol police arrested 11 people protesting Thursday at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington after they entered a vestibule and refused to leave, Capitol police spokesman Tim Barber said. The demonstrators, climate advocates protesting legislation that would expedite the nation’s permitting process for energy projects, stood in a line and passed around a megaphone, each speaker decrying the “dirty deal" and demanding lawmakers vote no on any legislation that further invests in polluting infrastructure, according to a live stream of the protest. Those arrested were all directors with national environmental groups, protest organizers said. To secure the support of Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) for the Inflation Reduction Act — the climate, energy and health-care package that was the climate movement’s biggest legislative success — Democratic leadership reached a side deal with Manchin to pass permitting revision. - The Washington Post, 09/22/2022

It is 2026. In Washington, the new five-member U.S. Energy Mobilization Board — created by the GOP-controlled Congress in 2025 and signed into law by President Ron DeSantis — recommends numerous proposed energy projects be made exempt from federal environmental laws, as well as local zoning and health regulations. Natural gas pipelines, advanced nuclear reactors, enhanced geothermal drilling sites, hydroelectric dams, offshore wind turbines, even congestion pricing plans — all that and more, as well as an updated energy grid to more effectively move power around the county. DeSantis gives the green light to the whole kit and caboodle.

Jimmy Carter versus the environmentalists

And scene! Whether this scenario sounds like fantasy or nightmare, you should know it’s based on something that almost happened. Back in 1979, President Jimmy Carter proposed an Energy Mobilization Board with the powers of the fictional one presented above. In fact, it was the fifth point of the six-point energy agenda Carter proposed in a July 15, 1979 address to the nation that became known as the “malaise speech.”

From that address: “I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the red tape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects. We will protect our environment. But when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.”