Biden’s Anti-Energy Policies Are Crushing Michigan

Research

Democrats’ “Green” Energy Agenda Benefits Their Donors And Special Interests, Fails To Generate Promised Jobs, And Leaves Families And Workers Paying The Costs

BIDEN VISITS MICHIGAN TO PUSH HIS RADICAL ENERGY AGENDA

Today, Biden is headed to Detroit, Michigan to tour a General Motors assembly plant and tout his radical “green” energy initiatives such as tax credits for electric vehicles.
Biden’s visit to GM comes after the brother of top White House aide Steve Richetti was paid nearly $200,000 to lobby the White House on electric vehicle tax incentives.
- Electric vehicle tax credits are a tax credit for the wealthy paid for by nurses and factory workers and will benefit China.

DEMOCRATS CASH IN ON GREEN ENERGY

Biden and the Democrats’ radical energy policies use taxpayer dollars to benefit themselves.
Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, owned up to $5 million of stock in green tech company Proterra while the Biden administration promoted the company during official events.
- Members of the Democrat megadonor Pritzker family, which includes Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, are financially tied to Proterra.
- Former Vice President Al Gore’s investment firm raised $55 million in financing for Proterra in 2017.
Biden’s Climate Envoy, John Kerry is connected to a solar panel company which is linked to the slave labor of Uyghurs in China.
- Biden’s most up-to-date Build Back Broke agenda fails to include a previous ban of using taxpayer dollars to fund companies who use Uyghur Muslim slave labor.

DEMOCRATS WANT TO SHUTDOWN MICHIGAN’S LINE 5 PIPELINE, KILLING JOBS AND RAISING ENERGY COSTS

In November, Michigan’s Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered the shutdown of Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, which supplies the state’s families and businesses with fuel, including the propane that many use to heat their homes.
- More than half of Michigan’s propane is supplied by Line 5, including 65 percent of the propane used in the state’s Upper Peninsula.
- While Enbridge is fighting the shutdown order, the Biden administration has now gotten involved, saying they are “studying” shutting down Line 5 which would cause heating costs to rise even more than they already have.
Shutting down the Line 5 pipeline could kill nearly 6,700 Michigan jobs, cost the state’s economy more than $3 billion, and cut off transportation for nearly 66 percent of Michigan’s oil production.
- Across the Midwest, a shutdown would kill 33,755 jobs and cost the economies of these states close to $21 billion.
- Michigan Union works have acknowledged the move will “definitely impact” their families.
Despite fear-mongering from Democrats and far-left activists, Line 5 is safe and is in full compliance with federal pipeline safety standards.
- The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) – the federal government’s pipeline safety agency – said just last year that it was not aware of any “unsafe or hazardous conditions that would warrant shutdown of line 5.”

BIDEN WAGES WAR ON AMERICAN ENERGY

The Biden administration’s Line 5 announcement comes on top of other radical energy initiatives the Democrat Party has taken in the past year, putting good-paying energy jobs on the chopping block:
- On day one, Biden cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline, killing 11,000 jobs, many of them union jobs.
- Biden rejoined the disastrous Paris Climate Agreement, which estimates say will kill anywhere from 400,000 to 2.7 million jobs.
- Biden placed a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal lands, threatening an estimated 268,000 jobs.
- Biden’s Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg expressed support for a mileage tax which would require the federal government to track Americans and hurt poor Americans who can’t afford to live close to their jobs.
- Biden’s Climate Czar John Kerry recently announced that the Biden administration wants the United States to not have a single coal power plant by 2030.
While Biden has attacked American energy producers, he has begged foreign countries to pump more oil and gas.
- Amid a rise in prices for crude oil, natural gas, and coal, Biden pleaded with OPEC to pump more oil.
- After killing the Keystone XL pipeline, Biden lifted sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline, giving Vladimir Putin a huge geopolitical win.

MICHIGAN WORKERS AND BUSINESSES ARE FACING HIGHER ENERGY COSTS UNDER BIDEN

Michigan gas prices have risen 48 percent under Biden and are up 66 percent – $1.35 per gallon – from where they were last November.
- When asked about Biden’s plans to bring gas prices down, Biden’s Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, laughed and responded, “that is hilarious.”
As of July, nine of the top ten states with the highest gas taxes are led by Democrat governors, with Michigan having the tenth highest gas tax in the nation.
- Despite this, Whitmer attempted to raise Michigan’s gas tax to 71.3 cents per gallon, which would have made Michigan’s gas tax the highest in the nation.
Three out of every four Michigan families rely on natural gas to heat their homes, and those families are expecting to see the cost of natural gas rise by up to 30 percent this winter thanks to Biden’s anti-energy policies.

BIDEN AND DEMOCRATS’ EMPTY GREEN PROMISES

As vice president, Biden touted green investments that failed to deliver the jobs he hyped.
In 2009, the Obama-Biden administration gave a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, with Biden bragging that these jobs were the “permanent” “green” jobs of the “future.”
- Solyndra was supposed to create 3,000 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs once the factory opened, but just two years later, Solyndra filed for bankruptcy with promised green jobs nowhere in sight.
In 2009, Biden praised the opening of electric carmaker Fisker Automotive’s Delaware plant, saying the Obama administration’s $528.7 million conditional loan was “seed money that will return back to the American consumer in billions and billions and billions of dollars in good, new jobs.”
- In 2013, Fisker Automotive filed for bankruptcy, with the Department of Energy losing $139 million on its loan and the thousands of jobs promised never surfacing.
In 2011, Biden visited battery manufacturer Ener1 after the administration awarded the company with a $118.5 million loan.
- Ener1 filed for bankruptcy just three years later with their promise of 1,400 new jobs failing to materialize.
Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm also has a track record of failing to deliver on her “green” promises.
- In 2008, then-Michigan Governor Granholm signed a $6 billion alternative energy mandate, claiming it would generate nearly 17,000 jobs in energy; however, the number of energy construction related jobs actually dropped over the next three years.
- In 2010, Granholm predicted the creation of almost 62,000 new Michigan jobs due to investments in battery production, but by 2019 there were less than 2,000 battery manufacturing jobs in Michigan.
- In January 2021, Granholm bragged about her failed record in Michigan “in terms of seeding the area for battery technology.”
Now, Biden wants to give $40 billion in guarantee loans to “clean” energy projects despite these loans having a history of failure.