JAMES CARTER: Time To Invest In America’s Economic Renaissance

Politicians love to talk. Occasionally, it pays to listen to them. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ bold comment on climate change last month is one of those times. He declared, “We cannot, must not, and will not let up on climate action.”

So definitive… and so wrong!

Referencing my handy politician-to-English dictionary, the Secretary-General’s translation reads, “We cannot, must not, and will not stop using the political cover of a green energy agenda to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to favored industries, political contributors, and special interest groups.”

Fortunately, the Trump administration has attacked the Secretary-General’s perspective head-on. The administration is rightly and systematically unwinding the Biden administration’s costly commitments to fund the so-called “Green New Deal.” That is, to defund previously favored industries, political contributors, and special interest groups.

For example, CNN reported last month that the Trump administration cancelled $575 million “climate-friendly” energy grants slated for Cleveland-Cliffs, a steel company operating in Middletown, Ohio. Remember that Ohio is Vice President J.D. Vance’s home state and that he was raised in Middletown. Talk about leadership! This is an example of an elected official doing the right thing for the country, even if he may temporarily suffer politically.

According to CNN, “The Energy Department has frozen billions of Biden-era, congressionally appropriated grant programs for months while it reviews them and decides which ones to cut. The department’s $6.3 billion program that gave money to Cleveland-Cliffs and other big industrial companies to modernize their equipment could be cut by two-thirds, according to internal documents obtained by CNN.”

What’s implicit here is that Vance and Trump know that