Exclusive: Biden’s Green Energy Agenda Would Make the U.S. Military Reliant on China, Study FindsKristina Wong 20 Jun 2024
The Biden administration’s aggressive push to transition to alternative green energy is leaving the U.S. military dependent on its top adversary, China, which would be disastrous in an event of a war with the country, according to a study by the Heritage Foundation publishing on Thursday and obtained first by Breitbart News.
The study, entitled “Chinese Handcuffs: Don’t Allow the U.S. Military to Be Hooked on Green Energy from China,” is the second part in a series researching the perils of over reliance on Chinese renewable energy and a “misguided” environmental agenda.
The top takeaways of the study, authored by Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow for Naval Warfare and Advanced Technology Brent Sadler, are:
— Due to a heavy reliance on foreign sources, poor policy choices, and constrained transport of fuels, the U.S. military could be vulnerable to potential localized fuel shortages and Chinese economic coercion.
— In a war where China is likely to use all means to slow or cut U.S. domestic fuel transport, including cyber, the federal strategic petroleum reserve’s locations could be cut off from where the fuel is most needed.
— The American industry must be freed from the distraction of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) special interests and the U.S. government must begin the process of loosening the shackles on American shipping imposed by the Jones Act and improve energy security.
The study’s main recommendations are to ensure the military has secure and readily available energy for a prolonged war by rethinking the role and management of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, reconfigure and build American refineries, tap into vast domestic energy reserves, and strengthen energy trade relationships with allies, and more.
Sadler said U.S. military forces for the foreseeable future will employ ships, planes, and combat vehicles dependent on fossil fuels. For example, he said the U.S. military still heavily relies on commercial carriers — which depend on conventional fuels for over 90 percent of its energy needs — to move personnel and critical repair parts.
“For context, in 2018, commercial carriers moved 90 percent of military personnel and 40 percent of material shipments,” he wrote, adding that “without sufficient fuel the American economy will markedly slow, with dire consequences for military operations reliant on a functioning domestic industry and logistics network.”
“This problem would be especially dire during a prolonged war with China,” he wrote.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/06/20/exclusive-bidens-green-energy-agenda-would-make-the-u-s-military-reliant-on-china-study-finds/