OPINION:
After looking the other way for four long years, household economics is a top priority for the left — or at least that’s what they want us to believe. Their political leaders have been caterwauling about their purported concern about rising prices. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, even held a laughable press conference posing with beer and avocado.
Spare me the crocodile tears.
During the Biden administration, these phony politicians aided and abetted every piece of the climate agenda, which fueled once-in-a-generation inflation and soaring prices. The climate hysteria did indeed create a crisis: a consumer crisis, and it was very much man-made.
Here are ways climate policies made life more costly.
Household utilities
The cost of utilities is up 30%, and everyone pays the price. The hike is fueled by punitive actions around climate change, including the natural gas tax. In 2022, President Biden sneaked a new tax on methane into the Inflation Reduction Act, which is directly passed to consumers.
The added tax did not reduce natural gas usage. Biden’s government showed how natural gas consumption grew month over month. It just costs more.
Luckily, with a pro-energy Congress and a cost-cutting president, there is a plan to repeal this tax. However, Sen. John Hoeven, North Dakota Republican, and Rep. August Pfluger, Texas Republican, cannot move fast enough to pass their legislation ending this cruel tax, especially during one of the coldest winters in two decades.
Food
Food prices are up 30% nationwide. Legendary Democrat strategist James Carville, who coined the iconic “It’s the economy, stupid,” blasted his party for ignoring the kitchen table issues. “Talk about cost of living” and “we’re going to help deal with this,” he pleaded with campaigns last year, with little luck. According to exit polls, 7 in 10 voters said they were “very concerned” about the cost of food, and they broke for President Trump. Like utilities, food prices were made worse by the climate change agenda.
Federal efforts restricting drilling and permitting, environmental, social and governance requirements, fracking bans, and countless regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency have scared the industry about the future. Yes, production numbers are high, but the industry has been so uncertain about its future that oil prices have been hovering around $60 a barrel since April 2021.
Expensive oil is expensive energy, and energy is everything in food production. Everything we eat is grown or raised, irrigated and fed, fertilized, processed and transported with energy. Making energy expensive has made food production, from planting seeds in the ground to buying a vegetable at the store, more expensive.
Today, diesel is nearly $1.50 more per gallon than regular gasoline, and at least two-thirds of farm machinery runs on diesel. Farmers face an expensive cost-shifting process: to recuperate losses when harvesting food, they charge more to sell it to a processor, who will charge more to package it, who will charge more to transport it to the store, which will charge more to the consumer to purchase it. It’s a vicious cycle.
The supermarket customer is the final domino to fall in this awful chain of events.
Everyday goods
Prices on everything increased by 20% under the Biden administration, which makes sense because energy is everything. Clothes, computers, tablets, glasses: They all come from the fossil fuels the previous administration made so expensive.
Steel and cement require coal, rubber and plastic need oil, and lifesaving medicines and hygienic products come from natural gas.
Certain home construction materials have increased by 70%. Politicians talk emphatically about the housing crisis and lack of affordability. Still, they do not speak so candidly about “the root causes,” as border czar Kamala Harris was fond of discussing the southern border.
The very green agenda meant to save the planet has made life unaffordable.
The Biden administration prioritized climate change. By executive order signed Jan. 27, 2021, every Cabinet secretary and agency was required “to organize and deploy the full capacity of its agencies to combat the climate crisis.”
The Trump administration has prioritized cost-cutting. By presidential memorandum signed Jan. 20, 2025, every Cabinet secretary and agency is required “to deliver emergency price relief, consistent with applicable law, to the American people and increase the prosperity of the American worker.”
Undoing the climate agenda will take time, but prices will come down. The challenge will be making sure such a dangerous agenda never takes hold of our government again.
• Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. Contact him at daniel@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF.
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