U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart recently told Just the News: "They're leaning in that direction. If you grant the president's emergency powers to declare a climate emergency, it's just like COVID."
He added that such a declaration would give Biden "vast and unchecked authority to shut down everything from communications to infrastructure."
He stated that the infrastructure plan would cover water and electricity, and additionally, Biden could potentially freeze assets under such a declaration.
President Trump's declaration of a White House COVID emergency in 2020 led to the closure of U.S. borders and mandated vaccination for federal government employees. Over the subsequent months and years, with numerous businesses forced to close, the country experienced a surge in unemployment and inflation, reaching record levels.
But Trump did not have the authority -- nor did he try to obtain it -- to shut down entire industries, states, and cities. Those were closed by governors and mayors; Democrats kept states and cities they controlled closed the longest, while red states and cities reopened much sooner.
Just the News noted further:
The calls for Biden to declare a climate emergency appear to be growing – amid what is being projected to be the hottest month in recent history and concerns the heat is the result of global warming created by greenhouse gas emissions.
Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer recently introduced legislation to require Biden to make such a declaration that also was co-sponsored by 62 congressional Democrats.
More recently, The Guardian -- a UK-based media outlet -- published an op-ed reading, "Biden must declare a climate emergency. And he must do so now.”
According to Congressional Research Service, presidential emergency powers “may be exercised in the event that the nation is threatened by crisis, exigency, or emergency circumstances,” and those powers could be explicitly stated and laid out or implied by the Constitution.
“They can literally do exactly what they did in COVID,” Stewart said.
Biden's handlers have repeatedly told him to claim that the world -- or at least the U.S. -- is in a "climate crisis," though it is plain that other nations like China and India pollute far worse than the United States.
Recently, the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity issued a "legal guide" laying out what the group believes Biden could legally do:
- End crude oil exports
- End all offshore oil and gas leasing
- Restrict U.S. fossil fuel exports and end hundreds of billions of dollars in overseas fossil fuel investments
- Dramatically accelerate a transition to clean energy
Stewart also cautioned that declaring an emergency might lead to the censorship of those who dissent on the issue of a climate crisis, similar to how critics of COVID mandates, such as masks and vaccines, have faced censure. Notably, President Abraham Lincoln ordered opposition newspapers in the North shut down, but at that time, of course, the nation was literally at war with itself. A so-called "climate crisis" is nothing close to that kind of threat to the country.
"If you disagree with the climate emergency, [speech] can be shut down," Stewart told the media outlet. “We really need to be paying attention to that because that power could be extended indefinitely until the ‘climate emergency’ is over. Who knows how long that would last."
Without calling for a complete emergency declaration, a recent story by a Los Angeles Times staff writer raised the question of whether Americans should be subjected to "occasional" power grid blackouts.
"What’s more important: keeping the lights on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or solving the climate crisis?” he asked.
The oil & gas industry chief said stories like that appear like a "softening up of the public."
"What they're saying is ... it’s your patriotic duty," he said. "It's your ethical duty or spiritual duty to the state."
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