Sullivan ignores climate change with myth that oil companies are victims of discrimination
To listen to Sen. Dan Sullivan, discrimination against the oil industry is one of the leading issues of the day.
At a White House ceremony last spring to sign a pandemic relief bill, Sullivan and former President Trump mutually bemoaned the way that big banks were trampling on the rights of Big Oil.
SENATOR SULLIVAN: Mr. President, could I make a comment on energy, sir? Sorry to interrupt.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, please.
SENATOR SULLIVAN: But, first, I want to thank you and your administration. Your involvement on the OPEC deal was incredible, vital. It wouldn’t have happened without what you did. Your whole team has been very focused on energy.
I do think one issue that a number of us are starting to have concerns about is there are big American financial institutions that the federal government has helped many times — they’re going to do well with regard to facilitating some of the CARES Act stuff — they’re starting to discriminate against American energy companies, discriminate against investment in my state, in Alaska. And I think it’s going to be really important. And these big —
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t like that. That’s —
SENATOR SULLIVAN: These big Wall Street banks that want to —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
SENATOR SULLIVAN: — that want the federal government to help support them and then they discriminate against a critical sector of the U.S. economy. By the way, the sector — the 2008-2009 recession, it really drove us out of our recession.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
SENATOR SULLIVAN: I don’t think they should be allowed to do that, sir, and I know you have concerns about it too.
THE PRESIDENT: I like the idea of looking into that. You’re right. You know, that got where they were pushed by the radical left, and so they’re afraid of the radical left. Shouldn’t be afraid of the radical left. Very nice people — AOC-plus-three and all of her friends. But you shouldn’t be afraid of them. You should reason with them. And if they don’t reason, you do what’s right. You cannot be discriminating against these great energy companies. And there is — I’ve heard that from them. That’s very hard.
SENATOR SULLIVAN: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: One of the banks, I think they said, “We want to be out of out of energy by 20- — 2050.” That’s a long time. But they want to be out of energy. What’s that all about – they want to be out of energy?
So, you know, we’re blessed in this country because we’re sitting on top of tremendous wealth. Very few countries have that kind of wealth. We’re bigger than Saudi Arabia, we’re bigger than Russia, we’re bigger than any other country, in terms of our energy.
And a lot of things like the Paris Accord — the Paris Accord basically took your wealth away. It didn’t give you the advantage. And I said, “I won’t sign it,” because it took the wealth of this country away because they didn’t want us to use our energy. They didn’t want us to use our — our great asset.
We have tremendous wealth. You know, one of the interesting things: If you look at Iran and you look at Saudi Arabia, and you look at the big, vast waterways that we patrol — years and years and years, gratis, for nothing, so that other people got rich, so that we could get oil out of there. But so that other people got rich. We never got anything. Now we get things for it.
But we don’t have ships very much in there anymore. And with all of the conflict and all of the things — they kept saying, “Where are the American ships?” We have so much energy now. We’re sitting on so much. And it’s happened, really, over the last three years, three and a half years. We’ve (inaudible).
SENATOR SULLIVAN: Yes, sir.
According to Sullivan, Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young, the discrimination against giant oil companies by giant banks constitutes racial discrimination against Alaska Natives and is an attempt to destroy the livelihood of North Slope Native communities. Justice for oil companies is justice for Alaska Natives, they said.
Fast forward to the Biden administration and Sullivan blames the new president, as well as the big banks, for federal discrimination against big oil companies and their employees.
“There shouldn’t be discrimination against good paying jobs. And I’m starting to feel that there is,” Sullivan said to Gina Raimondo, nominee to lead the Commerce Department, in a confirmation hearing. “We shouldn’t have that in our country, particularly as we are in a recession.”
This week Sullivan praised Janet Yellen as a nominee to lead the Treasury Department, but voted against her because she isn’t a champion of the oil and gas industry.
Sullivan’s approach to climate change is one in which he creates this discrimination fantasy, portrays himself as a civil rights champion, ignores scientific analysis and promotes ignorance about carbon emissions.
A more thoughtful analysis and approach to the future of energy, one of many that Sullivan could learn from, comes from Bill Gates.
In a recent blog post, Gates mentioned these four steps to get to zero emissions and become a world leader in responding to climate change:
1. Increase the supply of technological innovation. A five-fold increase in federal support for clean energy research would be a key first step toward creating more than 370,000 jobs.
2. Increase the demand for innovation. Create “incentives for inventors to create competitive carbon-free alternatives and for consumers to buy them.”
3. Work globally. “Climate change is the definition of a global issue. Temperatures won’t stop going up in Texas unless emissions stop going up in India (and temperatures in India won’t stop going up until emissions stop going up in Texas).”
4. Prepare for a warming world. “Countries will need to invest in climate-proofing infrastructure to cope with more severe weather and rising sea levels. This includes upgrading electrical grids, expanding storm water drainage systems, and building or expanding seawalls. And two of the best ways for wealthy countries to help low- and middle-income ones is to invest in primary health care and make sure smallholder farmers can grow enough food to feed everyone.”