Pence urges climate slowdown; former VP argues Biden efforts have hampered industry

CASPER — Democrats’ efforts to curb climate change drew considerable ire from speakers at an oil industry event on Thursday in Cheyenne. 
Former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. John Barrasso said the Biden administration had renounced the “American energy independence” achieved during the Trump presidency to pursue renewable energy. 
The previous administration’s energy policies “unleashed this country’s economy and potential” and “demonstrated what American leadership on energy can mean to the American people,” Pence said — only to have its achievements dismantled under President Joe Biden. 
“The war on energy that we ended — I don’t have to tell anybody in Wyoming — has returned with a vengeance,” he said. 
Climate change lies at the center of the dispute. 
Pew Research Center reported in mid-2020 — before the last presidential election — that 65% of Americans felt the federal government was doing “too little” to reduce the effects of climate change. 
Four in five favored “tougher restrictions” on carbon emissions from power plants. 
Another Pew survey conducted in January found that Americans strongly favor prioritizing development of wind, solar and other alternative energies over expanding fossil fuels, but want the country to continue using a combination of fossil fuels and renewables. 
“A majority of Americans believe in an all-of-the-above energy strategy for this country,” Pence said. “Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has been overtaken by the radical left and their radical climate agenda. I want to assure you, the majority of American people are on our side.” 
The disagreement between parties no longer centers on whether climate change is real. 
According to the 2021 Yale Climate Opinion Maps, which researchers modeled using national survey data, 72% of Americans believe global warming is happening, 65% are worried about global warming and 59% believe it is already harming people in the U.S. 
“We all understand the climate is changing, and man has an impact on the Earth, and the things we can do,” Barrasso said. 
The divisive question now is what the country should do about it. And as Democrats (and climate scientists) urge immediate action, Republicans are calling for Biden, Congress and other federal officials to stop trying to accelerate the ongoing transformation of the energy sector and instead let those decisions be made locally. 
Barrasso described Democrats as “climate alarmists” who “want to do things dramatically, unilaterally — no matter what China does, no matter what India does — and do it immediately. No matter what the cost to our economy, and what the cost to our freedom.” 
China is the world’s No. 1 carbon emitter. India ranks third, after the U.S., where daily electricity production from natural gas set a new record amid unrelenting heat last month. 
Pence argued that the true harm to the U.S. comes not from the effects of climate change — which he feels have been overstated — but from the reaction Democrats are “imposing” on the country’s energy producers, while allowing fossil fuel development to continue in China, India and elsewhere. 
By 2030, China plans to install enough wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear and natural gas to begin reducing its total emissions, and India aims to generate half of its power from renewables, according to targets set within the last year, following pressure from the United Nations. 
But both countries are also still building coal-fired power plants. 
“I think the American people are onto it, but we’ve just got to keep calling them out,” Pence said. “Understand that this is an agenda that I believe, ultimately, is about weakening America.” 
The Yale climate opinion estimates found, however, that 70% of Americans want corporations to “do more to address global warming,” 61% want Congress to and 52% want the president to. And 55% want climate change to be a “high priority” for Congress and the current administration. 
In heavily Republican Wyoming, those totals sink to 62% for corporations, 44% for Congress and 37% for the president. Only 38% think a climate should be a top federal concern. 
“Cynthia (Lummis) and I have a message from Wyoming to Washington, and it’s just three words,” Barrasso said. “Leave. Us. Alone.”
 
This story was published on August 28, 2022.