President Ted Cruz’s dystopian America: The scorched hellscape of a climate-denying White House

Salon ^ | March 27, 2015 | Lindsay Abrams

[2ndDivisionVet]

Welcome to the nation of Ted Cruz's dreams — and the planet's nightmares.

Ted Cruz — adamantly, and against all logic — does not believe in climate change. It’s an untenable position to hold in 2015, when the world’s scientists are more certain than ever that global warming is happening and that we’re causing it; when large portions of the country are already suffering the impacts of a changing climate; and when there’s an urgent need for immediate and drastic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also just hard to imagine a scenario in which a candidate who is not a scientist and yet fancies himself a Galileo could actually win the nation’s highest office. His rejection of the basic tenets of science alone should, as Gov. Jerry Brown said last weekend, render him “absolutely unfit” for the presidency.

But let’s picture, just for a moment, a bizarro world in which Ted Cruz is president and, taking a cue from him, we no longer have to consider climate change or, for that matter, any potential downside to fossil fuel development. We can actually get a pretty good idea of what that would look like, thanks to the “American Energy Renaissance Act,” an omnibus energy bill Cruz introduced last year, and reintroduced just last week, that lays out his vision for a fossil-fueled, regulation-free oil-palooza.

“A Great American Energy Renaissance is at our fingertips,” Cruz said at the Heritage Action for America’s 2014 Conservative Policy Summit. “There is only one thing that will stop us from embracing it to its full potential: the federal government.”

Looking over his proposals, it requires only a small leap of the imagination to picture the headlines that would emerge from President Ted Cruz’s America…

President Cruz initiates oil free-for-all: “There’s literally nowhere I won’t let you drill.”

About 43 percent of oil and 25 percent of natural gas reserves are located on federal land, and Cruz is furious that not all of it is open for drilling. He wants to give states the power to lease, permit and regulate all energy development on federal lands (and waters) within their borders. The 19 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would be opened to developers too, as would Native American land — because, he’s explained, ”it is only the federal government” that is keeping Native Americans in poverty.

President Cruz gets his Keystone revenge by pre-approving every pipeline, ever.

The decision on whether or not to approve Keystone XL will be made before President Cruz ever takes office, but getting the pipeline built, he’s said, is only the beginning of what he envisions for America. As he told the Conservative Policy Summit, “we…need to think bigger than a single pipeline.”

“The Keystone saga imposed by the federal government,” his bill explains, “demonstrates the need to reform the process of approving oil and natural gas pipelines,” removing barriers to the development of all cross-border energy infrastructure. “The Canadians won’t leave the oil sands unmolested,” Cruz further explained — and he’d be loathe to miss out on the action.

President Cruz: The fracking industry knows what it’s doing and states totally have it handled.

Last week, the Obama administration finally introduced some regulations for fracking operations on federal lands — a small yet significant act, in that it could begin to hold the industry responsible for the environmental and public health impacts of fracking.

Unsurprisingly, Ted Cruz doesn’t think those are at all necessary.

“States have proven they can oversee hydraulic fracturing in a responsible, safe manner,” the most recent version of his bill reads, in one of its more drastic departures from reality. Any intervention from the federal government will kill the American Energy Renaissance dead.

“I couldn’t care less about some ‘international climate agreement’”: President Cruz strips EPA of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases.

Yep, this is an actual thing Cruz would like to see happen: He’d strip the EPA of its mandate, awarded to it by the Supreme Court in 2007, to regulate climate change-causing emissions — elevated quantities of which, the agency determined two years later, threaten “current and future generations.” He would, predictably enough, undo the efforts the EPA’s already undertaken to regulate emissions from coal-fired power plants; in the future, any regulation that could possibly harm jobs would have to go through Congress and be signed into law by the president. Assuming, optimistically, that the world pulls itself together and agrees a climate pact in Paris at the end of this year, this would likely mean going back on whatever commitment the United States ends up making. (This wouldn’t be a problem for Cruz, of course, because in his world, the science, evidence and data all say that global warming isn’t real anyway.)

President Cruz blesses the world with the gift of fossil fuels.

Cruz doesn’t want America to keep its unfettered fossil fuel production to itself — he wants to streamline the permitting process for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, end the ban on crude oil exports and remove “excessive environmental reviews” for coal export terminals. It’s an important priority that would allow the entire world to have more of a hand in destroying the climate.

Largest-ever campaign donation from Big Oil ensures four more years for President Cruz!

Ted Cruz is one of the few politicians to have freely admitted that he opposes putting any cap on campaign contributions. If he succeeded in lifting all limits on direct political contributions, there’s no telling how far his biggest supporters — the gas and oil industry and a Koch-backed advocacy group — could take him.

The America of the future?

Fortunately for all of us, Cruz’s candidacy is, at best, a long shot. But his politics serve as a useful worst-case scenario for what could happen should we fail to address and instead exacerbate our dependency on fossil fuels: more oil train explosions and pipeline leaks, heightened risks to our coasts from offshore drilling and the near-inevitability of a disaster in the Arctic and poisoned air, soil and water, not least to mention the mega-droughts, monster storms and other extreme weather events that will characterize an America hit increasingly hard by the effects of climate change. An energy policy like Cruz’s could, to the incredibly uninitiated, indeed be great for the country — but knowing what we do of its consequences, we can only call it what it is: a disaster in the making.

[kiryandil]

climate liars, also.

I do like climate flat-earthers, though.

[M Kehoe]

Senator Cruz is enjoying all of this publicity.

5.56mm

[GraceG]

Direct Heating of the environment Map of the United States and Canada....

Over every bright light cluster is a column of slightly warmer air than it's surroundings that slowly rises into the jetstream affecting the weather patterns!!!

Climate Change is real and Cities (just by existing) are CAUSING it via direct heating of homes / excess heat realsed by Air Conditioning in the summer, and the absorbtion of sunlight by aspault and cement and man made structures, not CO2....

Do the climate alarmists advocate tearing down their own liberal Cesspools called Large Cities?

Do the Libs really want to go down this road?

Or should they just shut the hell and accept this as the price of progress like they demand WE DO every time THEY push one of their progressive Liberal agendas as the "price of progress"....?

I think they should shut up and realize that we humans like all animals out there affect the environment to some degree and stop being such liberal anti-progress troglydytes.

[RayChuang88]

If AGW was such a big issue, China and India would have been very aggressive in closing down all those highly-polluting power plants fueled by uncontrolled coal burning many years ago.

At least China--who experienced that unhealthy smog in Shanghai and Harbin two years ago--signed that big deal with Russia to import natural gas so China can close down most of those highly-polluting coal-fired power plants.

[jurroppi1]

Dementia is really trying to witness in a loved one. When we see it on a large scale like this, it is just plain taxing.

[GraceG]

You are simplifying it a bit, because the bouyancy of a molecule doesn’t exactly corelate with it’s direct atomic weight, it also depends on it’s atomic electrical properties.

Which is a function of Boyle’s law to an extent.

If a complex molecule takes up a greater “volume” per unit of atomic weight than air then it will rise even if it is comprised of a sum total higher atomic weight than air.

But for simple molecules not comprising complex things like benzene rings, you are indeed correct!

[csivils]

Why do the call themselves progressives when they try so hard to drag everyone back to the Stone Age?

Every single point made in the article looked like an exaggerated version of a good policy move.

[RayChuang88]

I've always said the biggest determinant of Earth's climate is this big nuclear fireball 93 million miles away called the Sun.

We sometimes forget the radiation output of the Sun is of many types, many of which can directly affect the gases in our atmosphere. This is why during the famous Maunder Minimum of 1645 to 1715, the lack of sunspots resulted in much lower radiation output from the Sun, which caused essentially a mini Ice Age to occur, including regular freezing of the Thames and Seine Rivers in Europe. We do know that the Sun's radiation output has changed a bit in the last 100 years, and noted that the temperature on Mars and the upper atmosphere of our gas giant planets have been steadily warming at least since the 1950's. That multi-planetary warming--which also affects the Earth--is why it appears Earth's climate is warming--but in a natural fashion.

[Yashcheritsiy]

If this doesn’t deserve a “Derp derp derp,” then nothing does.

[tcrlaf]

Another hysterical, science-denying, flat-earther speaks.

They are trying to define Cruz, before he can define himself, just like they did to Palin.

[capt. norm]

"Mom! Louie's looking at me again Louie called me a climate denier again".

[JoeFromSidney]

they all graduated with degrees in " I WANNA CHANGE THE WORLD!"

I'm leery of those who want to change the world. Adolph Hitler changed it big time, and we can't go back.

[MeshugeMikey]

all the wanna change the worlders have many of the same sort of tendencies possessed by their Uncle Adolph

[RinaseaofDs]

. . . and since the idiots pushing AGW aren’t talking about complex carbohydrates, benzene rings, or bent-chain hydrocarbons floating around like little mylar balloons, then we are OK.

[backwoods-engineer]

President Cruz initiates oil free-for-all: “There’s literally nowhere I won’t let you drill.” ... President Cruz gets his Keystone revenge by pre-approving every pipeline, ever. ... President Cruz: The fracking industry knows what it’s doing and states totally have it handled. ... “I couldn’t care less about some ‘international climate agreement’”: President Cruz strips EPA of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases. ... President Cruz blesses the world with the gift of fossil fuels. ...Largest-ever campaign donation from Big Oil ensures four more years for President Cruz!

SOUNDS GREAT!

Let's get started!

[RWB Patriot]

Why do I get the feeling we’ll soon see the “deniers are terrorists” idea pushed by the wannabe-dictator politicians? Considering climate change/global warming has been declared a threat to national security (by what bloody logic did they do that, anyway?), they’d probably be able to convince all the Chicken Littles out there that it’s necessary.

[jughandle]

Need to get the left talking about gun control again, just to cement the fact they’re absolute loons.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I love the smell of spinning libtard heads in the morning. :-)

[American Constitutionalist]

” TED CRUZ CANT WIN “ .... The Cruz Deniers.

What they are attempting to do is dishearten, discourage the Ted Cruz supporters into not donating money to his presidential campaign in a self fullfilling prophecy.

They know the power of the Tea Party supporters and they know that support for Ted Cruz will snow ball into a unstoppable force if they let it, therefore they are all out in force, the Cruz deniers to stop him early.

[American Constitutionalist]

TED CRUZ DENIERS !