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June 2022

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Costly Contradictions of Biden’s Crusade for Green Energy The assault on fossil fuels distorts or undermines many other domestic and international priorities. By Thomas J. Duesterberg

By on June 13th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-crusade-for-green-energy-oil-venezuela-saudi-arabia-solar-panels-cost-emissions-11655038751?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

President Biden’s energy program is crystal clear: an all-of-government assault on the domestic fossil-fuel industry to further a green agenda. But its economic and political fallout is a muddled contrast. The Biden plan distorts or undermines so many other domestic and international priorities that it is in dire need of a midcourse correction.

The administration’s efforts, led by climate czar John Kerry and propelled by the progressive wing of Mr. Biden’s coalition, have included curtailing new leases for drilling, preventing new pipeline development, and expanding the areas off-limits for production. The Securities and Exchange Commission has discouraged new financing of fossil-fuel projects. New automobile mileage standards and increased mandates for ethanol blending in gasoline are part of the program. Pressure to phase out coal-fired electricity production and thwart new mining projects also contribute to the higher prices deemed the best tool to force the transition to a green-energy infrastructure.

To avoid the political brunt of historically high consumer energy prices, the administration apparently is considering allowing more exports of oil by Iran, as it is for Venezuela. It is also tolerating the somewhat inconsistent application of oil and gas embargoes on Russian supplies and increased purchases by China and India.

Despite the urgent global need to displace supplies of Russian oil and gas, encouraging domestic production of these fuels isn’t part of the administration’s response to Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. And pressure on domestic production undermines other administration initiatives, such as rebuilding the manufacturing sector, creating jobs, strengthening supply-chain resilience, and weakening dictatorial adversaries such as Iran and Venezuela.

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Permanent Pandemic Means a Huge Medicaid Expansion The need for an official emergency is long past, but the Administration keeps it going to retain 14.4 million more people on the rolls. By Joel Zinberg and Gary D. Alexander

By on June 13th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/permanent-pandemic-means-medicaid-expansion-rolls-remove-health-care-public-health-emergency-covid-biden-welfare-government-spending-11655057229?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

Covid is now endemic, yet the Biden administration keeps extending the public-health emergency. Its goal is to preserve the expansion of the welfare state through Medicaid, even though large and growing numbers of enrollees are ineligible for the benefit.

Medicaid, the federal-state entitlement that provides health insurance to nearly 1 in 4 Americans, ballooned during the pandemic. Enrollments had declined in 2018 and 2019, but jumped by 15.9 million—about 25%—between February 2020 and February 2022. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the increase was “due, in large part, to the continuous enrollment condition” in Congress’s March 2020 Covid relief package, which encouraged enrollments by temporarily increasing the federal government’s share of total Medicaid costs by 6.2% while prohibiting states that accepted Washington’s help from redetermining Medicaid eligibility and removing ineligible people from the rolls until the emergency ended.

In other words, so long as the emergency persists, so too does the expansion of the welfare state. More than two years later, the Biden administration is intent on making permanent what were meant to be emergency measures.

States routinely redetermine Medicaid recipients’ eligibility. As the program grows, so too do the chances for improper payment. Medicaid’s national improper-payment rate, which includes payments to ineligible beneficiaries, soared under the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion. The most recent rate, which incorporates three years of data through the first five months of the pandemic, reached an all-time high of 22%, a cost of $99 billion.

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