The Energy Question Episode 39 Tom Pyle, American Energy Alliance

 

David Blackmon [00:00:10] Hello, Welcome to the Energy Question with David Blackmon. I’m your host, David Blackmon. And my special guest today is Mr. Tom Pyle, who is the president of the American Energy Alliance and also leads the analytics arm of the AEA, which is the Institute for Energy Research. Tom, how are you doing today?

Tom Pyle [00:00:30] I’m good now that I’m here with you, Dave, It’s been a while. Good to see you again.

David Blackmon [00:00:34] It s it’s been too long for those who don’t remember, Tom was with us last. What was that? November I guess it was so.

Tom Pyle [00:00:40] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:00:41] Yeah and it’s always fun fun to catch up with Tom because he is, you know, in touch with everything that’s happening in Washington. In fact, Tom, just just take a minute to talk about AEA and what you do there.

Tom Pyle [00:00:54] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:00:55] What your missions

Tom Pyle [00:00:55] Is. So we’re here. We are here for your readers or listeners and podcast viewers, We are a nonprofit. We call ourselves a kind of a consumer advocate watchdog organization. We just focus on energy, energy policy, the implications for you, for companies, for the economy, things like that.

Tom Pyle [00:01:16] What what’s great about AEA we give you tools to do participate in this process, we wake you, we make you informed, and we we have a program called the American Energy Scorecard. So you can type in your zip code.

Tom Pyle [00:01:31] You can see how your elected representatives are treating these issues, whether they are creating or advocating for policies that allow us to produce more of our resources at home, allow us to have affordable and abundant, reliable energy or the reverse. If your member is promoting policies that make it more expensive that force us to be dependent on countries like China and things like that.

Tom Pyle [00:01:57] And then also we have the ability to go out there and do public polling and things like that. So we’re sort of a one stop shop for all of your energy information, but also the ability to engage in and impact the process yourselves. So American Energy Alliance dot org sign up for that little annoying little sign up deal and everything else to get fed to you.

David Blackmon [00:02:19] So exactly, exactly. It’s it’s invaluable to me. I use it, reference it all the time, the things I write and talk about. So it’s talking about making things more expensive for us. The EPA recently announced it was going to implement new automobile standards and emission standards for for automobiles.

David Blackmon [00:02:42] And the obvious desire of the Biden administration is to force more and more vehicles or drivers to switch over from internal combustion cars to electric vehicles. Isn’t the effort here just to essentially make it impossible to produce internal combustion cars in the United States anymore?

Tom Pyle [00:03:07] Yeah, well, the agenda is slightly bigger than that. The ostensible purpose is to get us in EVs. Yeah, but right now, today, we’re driving about 6% of the fleet is electric. Okay? And if you I don’t have the breakdown of that 6% in front of me, but I bet you that almost all of it is affluent, wealthy individuals and households who live on the coasts, mostly maybe in Austin.

Tom Pyle [00:03:34] And it is their fourth car. In some cases, it’s their guilt you know, get out of guilt car for being a human being that produces and makes things and consumes things. And it is not something that is practical yet for working class Americans, for small businesses, for folks who depend on their vehicles, for their job.

Tom Pyle [00:03:59] We bought a new house we have run a lot of repairs. I see a whole lot of F-250s. I see a whole lot of work trucks coming and going and you can bet that they’re not electrified. That’s because the stuff that works works and that’s why people purchase them.

Tom Pyle [00:04:13] What the government is trying to do is force us to buy things that we don’t want or don’t need or aren’t ready. Right. And that’s what this is. And if they were to let’s put this rule in sort of in terms of numbers, 6% now of the vehicle fleet  is roughly electric.

Tom Pyle [00:04:36] They want us to be  up to 67% by 2030. Okay.

David Blackmon [00:04:42] 7 years.

Tom Pyle [00:04:43] In seven years now, there are all kinds of stats and statistics out there and you mentioned the Institute for Energy Research. We’re actually releasing a report this week. It’s kind of a fancy title, but I call it mine, baby. Mine. Right. Do you remember Drill, baby, drill?

David Blackmon [00:05:01] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:05:02] You know, same concept. We do now produce the materials and minerals needed for these for these electric vehicles. And if if just the United States alone were to try to get to 67% in that seven years, we wouldn’t have enough.

David Blackmon [00:05:17] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:05:18] There isn’t enough right now to meet the sort of goals of our of our benevolent government. And what does that mean? That’s why I’m taking it full circle. The real agenda is to have less cars. It’s literally to get us out of cars. They want us to live in some fantasy world, some Little House on the Prairie situation where we, you know, have a little dry goods store that we have little credit, you know, account on and we exchange our eggs for our chicken and everything else.

Tom Pyle [00:05:50] And it’s just that’s. They don’t like cars. They don’t like they want us to all be packed into cities. They don’t want us to live the life that we live. And quite frankly, the folks who are pushing all this are living in those places anyway. The folks that advocate this stuff are already doing it.

David Blackmon [00:06:09] So that’s that’s the whole concept behind the Green New Deal. Right. Which AOC is out there promoting. Again, we saw her out doing interviews here just recently pushing the Green New Deal again, which the whole thing you know, I’m just having a conversation about that earlier today. In fact, you know, her goal is not to have an electric vehicle. Her goal is to have you at home. And if you have to go somewhere, you get on a train that doesn’t exist and won’t exist. It’s exactly what you’re talking about, right?

Tom Pyle [00:06:43] Yeah. So let’s talk about that train. They’ve tried to build one of those high speed trains in California. The plan was to go from San Francisco to L.A.. Well, you know where they’re at. They decided, Well, let’s cut it down from Bakersfield, Zimmer said. Yeah, to rural communities in the Central Valley, where no one really goes unless you.

David Blackmon [00:07:05] Have 90 miles apart. I think something like that. And they’re out.

Tom Pyle [00:07:09] There in excess of $4 billion now, I think in overruns and costs and projections on it, it’s not happening. Right. I mean. Right.

David Blackmon [00:07:18] Yeah. The initial project cost was 29 billion. And and now the estimate for the whole thing is is over 130 billion. And that’s just in 15 years. Right. So it’s it’s there and that’s what they want to do. But going back to EVs, I mean, your point about it being a luxury item for wealthy people, the average American kid, I mean, what’s the price differential in it, like 30 or 40% price?

Tom Pyle [00:07:43] So right now, the average cost of an EV is about $64,000. The average cost of a compact gas powered car is about $26,000. Yeah, and the reason I bring up that car is because those are the kind of cars that people who are on the lower end of the economic scale who are just starting out in their careers, coming from this country legally.

Tom Pyle [00:08:09] College kids, you know, high school kids who want their first car. A car is freedom. A car is a mobility. You know, we all get our first car was a beta, right? And ironically, ironically, this is going to price a lot of people out of even the used car market, because as they phase out gas cars and they get older, they come off.

Tom Pyle [00:08:36] The purchase feel. They get more and more expensive as there are fewer and fewer of them. Right. So it goes back to the cost thing I call Eve’s right now a luxury personal lifestyle, like a luxury lifestyle item, much like those really fancy watches with, you know, the names I can barely pronounce.

Tom Pyle [00:08:57] That cost lots and lots of money that I’ll never buy put on my wrist. Because that’s who’s using these vehicles now and the government is subsidizing them, which is ultimately ironic to purchase them. Right.

David Blackmon [00:09:12] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:09:12] So and then, of course, you have the car companies who I don’t have a lot of sympathy for, quite frankly, because since about 2009, 2008, I think right after the big crash with the mortgages and the housing.

Tom Pyle [00:09:27] They basically cried uncle and went to the government for bailouts and got them. And at that point President Obama was in office and he said, I’ll bail you out. But from now on. I’m sitting in your boardroom.

Tom Pyle [00:09:41] The U.S. government is now literally telling these companies what types of cars to to build and and in some instances how many and literally telling them. To basically make cars that people don’t want.

David Blackmon [00:09:59] Right. And, you know, I’ve just lately I’ve interviewed a couple of executives in the power business talking about the load that the energy transition is going to place on our power grid. Let’s say the EPA gets its way and we go from 6% EVs this year to 67% in 2030.

David Blackmon [00:10:23] I mean. Take in the grid, handle the additional load that’s going to come on just to recharge all those EV. I mean, California’s already telling people not to charge their EVs at night, which is the whole business model for Tesla. Right. Right. I mean, are we going to be able to expand the grid using only wind and solar? So being able to accommodate that.

Tom Pyle [00:10:46] Going to indulge your question and say we can get that right. Not that we should, but let’s say we do. The answer is no and hell no. Right. You know, D.O.T., which is a big Department of Energy, which is, you know, all bullish on this. Secretary Granholm is you know, I don’t we track her, her speeches and her conversation. It’s impossible.

Tom Pyle [00:11:11] To keep track of all the fabrications. Oh, come out of her mouth. It’s shocking to me how she just makes things up in a whole cloth. But there are numbers. People estimated that the average range model of a 2021 gas vehicle is about 403 miles. Right. So 403 miles, you run out of gas, you pull up to a station, you fill it. Maybe you go in and grab a like soda or a pack of gum, you come back out. What is that, like four or 5 minutes?

David Blackmon [00:11:41] 5 minutes, Tops.

Tom Pyle [00:11:42] Tops. You’re in and out. It’s three. Right. Unless your car messes up the average, the average range for a mile of your 2021 EV was 230 miles. Guess how long? If you can find a charging station, guess how long you’re going to be there. 30, 40 minutes, At least. At least.

Tom Pyle [00:12:02] So going back to your point about the grid. We we know we can’t. California is a perfect example. Concentrated EVs purchases purchased in California, New York and Texas. Like I said, Austin, they have huge problems with reliability.

Tom Pyle [00:12:20] The load in like the Silicon Valley area is like off the charts because there’s a lot of vehicles there. Right. And so what our United States government is doing. What this government is doing and the bureaucrats is two things at the same time, doubling the load. Of our electric grid. By doing things like trying to ban gas stoves. We can get into that if we want. And all this EV business.

Tom Pyle [00:12:49] And at the same time. Taking our off line. Taking off line perfectly good, reliable sources of electricity generation that have been around for a long time and still have a long shelf life. But they’re decommissioning plants.

Tom Pyle [00:13:08] And why are they doing Just this week, the EPA’s coming out with yet another rule. This is their third or fourth or fifth time now to try to clamp down on power plants, which is basically try to put the squeeze on the remaining 18, 19% of the coal generation in this country. Right. \.

David Blackmon [00:13:24] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:13:25] So, no, the answer is no, we can’t do we can’t. It’s not going to happen again. Back to my point. And so cars altogether are forcing us to make very difficult choices about. You know, paying our power bill or. Taking care of college bills, taking care of groceries, taking care of prescriptions. These are real, real world issues for people who are on the poor and of the economic ladder.

David Blackmon [00:13:54] And it impacts them more than anybody else in terms of percentage of income.

Tom Pyle [00:14:00] Yeah, absolutely. So.

David Blackmon [00:14:02] You know, it’s it’s stunning to me. And it’s it’s stunning that unfortunately, it’s the same people, you know, the lower you go in income, the more you tend to vote for Democrats. Right. And it’s like people don’t understand that their votes have consequences.

David Blackmon [00:14:17] And you continue to elect Democrats. We’re just going to go more and more down this road. And everything related to energy is just going to keep going up in price. It’s it’s it’s really a sad example of how uninformed our media and education system has succeeded in keeping the general public anyway.

Tom Pyle [00:14:39] Well, that’s why we that’s what we’re why we’re doing what we’re doing. And you’re doing what you’re doing, quite frankly, is, you know, providing that information to folks so they can be better informed and make better choices on this. EV thing. You know, obviously, we need to write our raps and say, stop the madness, right?

Tom Pyle [00:14:57] Your car company, right? You own a car, you know, a GM car. Right. And write Mary Barra and say, What are you doing to my beloved brand? Why are you why are you destroying my brand?

Tom Pyle [00:15:09] These car companies are now making decisions based on what the government wants them to do versus what their cause, what their loyal fans want them to do. Right. What their purchasers, the consumers want. And the irony is, is that like Ford, I gave you a prime example. The F-150 is the highest selling truck right now. The gas powered F-150 is the number one seller.

Tom Pyle [00:15:35] And has been for 20 something years in a row.

Tom Pyle [00:15:39] They’ve been putting so much money into this F-150 lightning. Yeah, the sport division. Every division announced they took a $3 billion hit last last quarter. They also announced recently and I don’t know if a lot of people saw this, that they stopped, they halted production of this vehicle.

Tom Pyle [00:15:58] Why? Because they couldn’t figure out the battery.

David Blackmon [00:16:01] Yeah.

Tom Pyle [00:16:02] Okay. This isn’t you know, this is not ready for prime time. This is not like you’re not going from something less safe and less and more expensive to something safer and better. Right.

Tom Pyle [00:16:16] All you’re doing, in essence, with Eve is you’re transferring the technology. Okay? You’re taking a very complex motor. And a very simple fuel delivery mechanism, i.e. the gas tank. And you’re inverting it to make a very complex fuel delivery mechanism, i.e. the battery and all the components in a very simple motor.

David Blackmon [00:16:40] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:16:41] That’s it. It’s a transfer of technology and it’s a microcosm, which is why the Greens love this car so much, because what they want to do is transfer our our whole energy system, our entire economy as a result from a hydrocarbon based economy. To a minerals and materials based economy.

Tom Pyle [00:17:02] And to talk about how that’s going to make us reliant. Who’s that going to make us reliant on for future energy needs? Now the minerals. Who controls all that?

Tom Pyle [00:17:14] The Chinese Communist government of China controls 80. Owns or controls 80% of this minerals based economy. Yeah. If they don’t make it, they don’t mine it there or process it there. They have investments and investments in companies overseas that do.

[00:17:34] They’re a huge investor in the Congo, fields in Africa and cobalt fields in the Congo. Cobalt. Yeah. Which, by the way, is children are mining child labor in Africa by hand. They’re processing a lot of this stuff in Xinjiang, China, where they happen to be enslaving a whole sect of wiggers. And they’re doing it all by firing up coal plants.

David Blackmon [00:18:04] Yeah.

Tom Pyle [00:18:04] That’s the irony of it all. So and we in the meantime, if we have a high and the other great thing about is I’m to go back to gas powered transportation is is a way to diversify. Our our funding, our energy. Right. Electricity. You got coal. You got, you know, renewables find whatever. Right.

Tom Pyle [00:18:28] That does like the the main stuff for the businesses and the plants and homes. But then you’ve got things like gas stoves to offset it if the power goes out. Right.

David Blackmon [00:18:39] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:18:39] You got a car to get out and evacuate in a hurricane and in the south, in the in the Gulf. Right. Imagine if we had 67% of our vehicles, electric vehicles trying to evacuate a hurricane. Just imagine that. Yeah.

Tom Pyle [00:18:59] It’d be carnage on the roads.

Tom Pyle [00:19:01] It’s totally awful. It is. United States is the number one producer of oil and gas in the world. By far. We have the resources here. It is a national security imperative that we not be dependent on any one country, let alone China at this stage in the world for our entire economic system, which is is in essence what we’re talking about here, because energy is everything, right.

David Blackmon [00:19:30] You would think these officials would have learned this lesson over the last what is it now, 14 months since Russia invaded Ukraine and the the energy crisis that created mainly for Germany, but also for some other countries in Europe that have allowed themselves to become almost completely reliant on a hostile country, a historically hostile nation, Russia, for their natural gas supplies.

David Blackmon [00:19:57] And because of the sanctions they wanted to put on Russia, they suddenly had to figure out a way to do without that cheap natural gas from Russia. It’s created this enormous energy crisis and now an economic disaster.

David Blackmon [00:20:14] In Europe as a result of that. And but here we have you know, you talked about Secretary Granholm, who is is a disaster herself in that job and all the nonsense that comes out of the government that just demonstrates they don’t seem to have learned any lesson from any of that and are just essentially trying to repeat exactly the same mistakes. Right. I mean, that’s what it boils down to for me.

Tom Pyle [00:20:43] I would say that if our elected officials were trying to do what’s best for the American people, the American economy, our national security and all that. I would say you’re right. They are not learning from their mistakes. But I think it’s bigger than that. And it’s unfortunate. This isn’t about the environment.

Tom Pyle [00:21:11] This isn’t this climate change thing is is and there’s even debate like in the mainstream scientific community about whether or not the rhetoric has gone too far. Yeah, right. So this is not climate denier stuff. This is actual people who think that this is a real bad problem.

David Blackmon [00:21:29] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:21:29] Okay. This is about. Power. Control. This is about rewarding political and financial backers. This is not. This is. There’s more going on here, right? Like you don’t you know, just assume that, you know, whatever a politician says is is is actually like true. Right.

David Blackmon [00:21:54] That’s right. We you better we all know.

Tom Pyle [00:21:57] We all know. Thanks to Will Rogers. We all know this by now. This is. Yes, this is in. This is a very sophisticated organizational. The way to organize the values and the goals of the progressive sort of socialist sort of ideology and manifesto.

Tom Pyle [00:22:17] I’m just going to be blunt about it. It is a way to redistribute wealth while not. Saying that that’s what they’re doing because. That never works. Right.

David Blackmon [00:22:31] Right. Yeah.

Tom Pyle [00:22:33] This is about taking money from us. Out of our pockets, our taxpayer dollars, and giving it to backers, financial, political supporters.

Tom Pyle [00:22:44] And the other thing about the Inflation Reduction Act, for example, is just two weeks ago, I think the administration just announced hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to a group on the ground, environmental activists. Right.

David Blackmon [00:23:03] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:23:03] O be able to utilize to support this agenda. So we call it walk around money. Right.

David Blackmon [00:23:11] What we used to call it. And so, you know.

Tom Pyle [00:23:13] So let’s let’s not kid ourselves because. Going from a hydrocarbon based energy system, enhanced economic system, to a minerals based energy system. An economic system is not better for the environment.

Tom Pyle [00:23:29] It’s not going to do the all the magical things that they say that they that they think it’s going to do. Just getting out of our car is not going to save the world. Right.

Tom Pyle [00:23:38] All of these energy sources have benefits and trade offs. All of them. And right now and this is another report that the institute put out, I love your list, your viewers, to get a link to it. We did a study called the Environmental Quality Index.

Tom Pyle [00:23:57] It’s based on a ha on Harvard data, but then we weighted it towards production. So the Harvard data is who does the cleanest, who produces the the most oil and who produces oil and gas the cleanest. And there might have been a couple of countries that actually, based on their MIT metrics, does it cleaner? Maybe two or three, like a Norway or something?

David Blackmon [00:24:20] Oh, yeah, maybe Norway.

Tom Pyle [00:24:21] When you take into account production. Blow away. We blow away the world we are that we do it better. Nobody does it better. Yeah. Was that Carly Simon or something?

David Blackmon [00:24:33] It was.

Tom Pyle [00:24:34] Nobody does it better than we do. And so we can do it all. We can have lower emissions, which we’ve proven. Right. The numbers are there. The United States just recently signed the, quote unquote, most historic climate change game changing piece of legislation in history. Just last year.

David Blackmon [00:24:56] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:24:57] Well, from 2005 until today, we reduced our emissions more than all of the European countries were wagging their finger at us to do better combined. And that’s because of fracking. So we can do it better. We can do it cleaner, we can do it safer. And by the way, we shouldn’t take the choice away from us. Our government should not be limiting our choices.

David Blackmon [00:25:26] That’s what the whole effort to regulate gas stoves out of existence amounts to, right? I mean, there’s no real reason to do that in terms of. Well. They they made up stuff.

David Blackmon [00:25:37] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:25:38] They extrapolated from bogus studies or like they took an example of an extreme, small, tiny little flat somewhere in Europe and said, look at all the emissions from this gas stove. Right. Not taking into account the vast differences in our, you know, life.

Tom Pyle [00:25:54] But then again, it goes back to that point is they don’t like us in big houses, in suburbs with land and freedom. I don’t understand it. It’s good. If they don’t want it, then fine. But don’t tell me how to live my life, man. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:26:09] Well, but you’re right. It all comes down to control of people who live in in harsh circumstances and without mobility are a lot easier to control.

David Blackmon [00:26:19] Well, let me tell you, I think that we just in church last Sunday, the visiting priest was from Nigeria. And they still have whole places in Africa where people have to go, miles, for their water.

David Blackmon [00:26:38] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:26:40] Right. They have no electricity. They would die for a coal plant. It’s all relative. You know, we have to let people have access to the things that make our lives that reduced that that lengthen our lives, make us healthier, make us safer. All that good stuff. So I know I’m digressing a little, but.

David Blackmon [00:27:02] No, but you’re right. I mean, there’s two and a half billion people on Earth that don’t have running water or electricity. Reliable electricity. You know, and that’s that’s something that in the United States, our generation, starting with our generation, has no has no frame of reference for because it was in my grandparents generation was really the last to live in homes, mainly in homes without plumbing and electricity and. Mm hmm.

David Blackmon [00:27:33] And so in the United States, we we don’t have a frame of reference for that. But yet more than 2 billion people in the rest of the world, it’s their daily lives. And, you know, to think that they’re going to solve all that with windmills and solar panels is lunacy. I mean, it’s simple energy. It’s a type of insanity that I think is a result of a great deal of disinformation and active brainwashing efforts.

Tom Pyle [00:28:04] Sure. Sure. You know, much like well, let me say something about the gas ban thing, the gas stove ban. When the administration floated that out, I was actually very pleasantly surprised at the response.

David Blackmon [00:28:19] Yeah.

Tom Pyle [00:28:21] Because it was the kind of one of those tangible things, right, when you hear about. All these rules and regulations that we’ve been harping about. For the most part, most people don’t feel it like immediately because. It’s slowly. It’s like that frog in the water, although I think that’s like, you know, not real.

Tom Pyle [00:28:41] But slowly and steadily, their electricity bills have been increasing, especially in areas where this stuff is in non-hybrid hyperdrive like California and, quite frankly, Texas. But when when you say, I want to ban this product that you use, rely on, enjoy that.

Tom Pyle [00:29:03] For example, if the power went out, you could still make some mac and cheese by boiling some water or stuff like that, right, in cold climates. Some people like gas stoves as the predominant source for for cooking.

David Blackmon [00:29:17] Yes,.

Tom Pyle [00:29:19] You take that or you threaten to take that away and people see it immediately. And that’s why I’m sounding the alarm on this car thing, because my fear is, is that the auto companies will just bow and continue to do the bidding of the government, the United States government.

Tom Pyle [00:29:39] Until we get it to a tipping point. Where they’re either going to go under because they can’t afford it, no one’s buying them or they’re too expensive or whatever. And then what happens is they cry back to the government for another bailout.

David Blackmon [00:29:54] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:29:55] So this cycle, you know, I’ve heard these I’ve even actually heard some of the car companies say that this proposal goes too far. Well, duh. You gave them all that wiggle room. You gave them, you know, no opposition. Up until now because the money kept rolling in.

Tom Pyle [00:30:16] And, you know, as long as you guys pay me, as long as you keep the subsidies going, the gravy train, we’ll play ball. And now they’re in a position where they’re like even Debbie Dingell. Who is, you know, the congresswoman from GM, John Dingell’s wife, who was a former GM lobbyist, said, quote,.

Tom Pyle [00:30:37] Everybody cares about global warming. Not sure that’s true. But but I’m hearing from too many people in this country, I mean, strong Democrats, that they can’t afford an electric vehicle. So it’s work and that’s why I’m driving. That’s why. Pardon the pun, but I’m driving this message. People need to know they’re common for your car.

David Blackmon [00:30:59] Yep. Just like the coming for the stove, you know, Kinda.

Tom Pyle [00:31:03] May not seem like it now. You may not see too many of these in your communities, but they’re coming for it. And the irony is, again, we talked about that, the cost differential. Well, a lot of the SUVs on the market for electric, for gas powered as it is on the market, are super expensive now. Right.

Tom Pyle [00:31:23] Well, the companies are putting a surcharge, a kind of a hidden surcharge on these cars to offset their losses in EV land. So the cost of new cars on the gas powered side are going up.

David Blackmon [00:31:37] Right.

Tom Pyle [00:31:39] I mentioned earlier the cost of used cars are going up. So the cost of all of this is going up. And again, the folks who like these policies aren’t impacted in the least because chances are they can afford it.

David Blackmon [00:31:54] Oh, yeah. We have it. It goes back to my point that I make too much probably as that is, we have the very worst possible class of people in our societies making these decisions for us because they’re not impact. I mean, Jennifer Granholm is not impacted by any of this. She’s going to get to keep her gas stove, which, by the way, she she produced a video clip of herself cooking on her own gas stove.

Tom Pyle [00:32:25] In her own home. Can I add to that? Yes, That was the Stacey Abrams.

David Blackmon [00:32:30] Yes.

Tom Pyle [00:32:31] Who ran for governor. She joined an environmental group. Again, going back to the point that this is about the organizational arm of the Democratic Party, then that advocates fiercely for banning gas stoves in her campaign commercials when she was running for governor. Her whole theme was sitting around the house cooking for her family on her big, beautiful gas stove.

David Blackmon [00:32:55] Very courteous, though. Right.

Tom Pyle [00:32:57] So I want her to issue a press release today saying I’m getting rid of my gas stove. You know who I want. What I want President Biden to do. I want him to announce today that he’s selling his Corvette or he’s donating his Corvette to charity. Sure.

David Blackmon [00:33:14] Sure.

Tom Pyle [00:33:15] Practice what you preach, pal. Live your values. Right. All right.

David Blackmon [00:33:22] But then, you know, I mean, none of that’s going to happen because these folks know they’re exempt from it. They they’re wealthy. They don’t. A higher electricity bill doesn’t impact them in any way.

David Blackmon [00:33:33] They probably have some foundation they can, you know, funnel all the bills to in any event. And it’s just, you know, you have all these people who suffer none of the impacts making the policies. And that’s just always a recipe for disaster, not just in energy, but but any walk of life. It just is. Yeah, it’s crazy.

Tom Pyle [00:33:55] Hey, man, we are okay, guys. But I agree. But in energy, it is. Magnified because it impacts everything. Yes, every energy is everything. It’s the input cost in our lives. Right. And when you increase the cost of energy. You make everything more expensive, and when you make it less reliable, you actually risk, you know, people. People’s lives are at risk.

David Blackmon [00:34:24] Yes, because, I mean, you can’t have food without energy.

Tom Pyle [00:34:28] Get the guy who gets.

David Blackmon [00:34:29] Into the supermarket. Right.

Tom Pyle [00:34:30] Let’s get it out. Get out of our energy business. Just get out.

David Blackmon [00:34:33] Exactly. Exactly. Man, it’s always a pleasure talking with you. We’re out of time. Let’s do this again much more quickly than we cycle back this time. All right. Sounds good. So much time went by. Yeah, man. Thanks a lot.

Tom Pyle [00:34:48] Yeah. Pleasure.

David Blackmon [00:34:49] All right. And thank you, everyone, for joining us. Thanks to the Sandstone Group for hosting the show and our extraordinary producer, Eric Parel. I’m David Blackmon, signing off for now.

 

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