The Working Class Isn t Down with the Green Transition
An energy abundance approach would recognize that, in fact, Biden has done the right thing by greenlighting the Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska. Of course, the climate activists and punditocracy are furious and denunciations are pouring in. But this is exactly what working-class voters do want: an all of the above strategy that pushes forward renewables while continuing to use a mix of energy sources including fossil fuels. And what they want corresponds to the most practical course in pursuing a clean energy transition while assuring a reliable and secure supply of cheap energy. To go against this approach, as climate activists are pressuring Biden to do, is to accentuate the Great Divide between postindustrial metros and middle America, between Democratic elites and the working class.
Really, it s madness. Biden needs to do more not less on moving the Democratic Party away from its obsession with renewables. Instead of waxing apoplectic about the Willow project, why aren t climate activists demanding the radical restructuring of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? The NRC s new regulations for next-generation reactors run to 1200 pages and will effectively stymie a desperately needed nuclear renaissance in the country and indeed around the world if allowed to stand. Where are the demonstrations outside NRC headquarters? Instead, crickets as the NRC torpedoes the clean energy source most compatible with an industrial economy.
No wonder the working class doesn t trust these guys. They re more committed to their ideology than to their alleged end goals and certainly than they are to the welfare of the working class.