By Steve BermanDemocrats are showing the abortion card, but they’re playing a much bigger one. Sure, Arizona had a law on the books since 1864 that bans all abortions, and Democrats are losing their minds over it. A few women couldn’t dispose of their unborn children in Texas, and liberals are getting out their “Handmaid’s Tale” cosplay outfits. Where’s Abortion Barbie when you need her? Oh, right, she’s with Planned Parenthood in a posh lobbying job.
While all this Sturm und Drang is going on, Democrats are doing their more pernicious work 2,500 miles away from Phoenix. I’m talking Hawaii, and I’m talking oil.
“What?” you say. Hawaii produces exactly zero barrels of oil, and has zero barrels of oil reserves. One hundred percent of Hawaii’s oil comes in on tankers, with a tiny refinery in Honolulu. But Honolulu is suing Sunoco because oil production–everywhere else on earth–harms the city due to greenhouse gas production, they claim. And Hawaii’s supreme court, made up of four Democrats and one Republican, ruled that the case can move forward.
The legal ground on which this case is built is about as stable as a mountain cabin on the slopes of Kīlauea. Basically, it holds that cities and states can sue oil companies because oil causes global warming. It doesn’t matter if the cities or states actually produce oil, or have refinery facilities. Or if the oil companies in question drill for oil in the U.S. or anywhere in the world. Basically, the “climate nuisance” lawfare strategy is a backdoor way to hobble the oil industry and put money into the pockets of Democrat would-be kings and tsars, who will hand it over to groups like Greenpeace or the corrupt Sierra Club.
Back in the heyday of the green mafia under Barack Obama, the EPA forced companies to pay greenmail to these climate warriors. In office, Donald Trump dismantled that business plan. But instead of accepting defeat, Democrats took their battle to the place where they’ve had near-permanent hegemony: big cities and true-blue states. It doesn’t get much truer blue than Hawaii.
Sunoco has requested a petition for certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court, in the past has refused to take some cases, such as the one by Boulder, Colorado against ExxonMobil and Suncor last year. If Honolulu’s case is successful, look for every big Democrat-run city in America to join in the cash-grab designed to kill Big Oil.
But let’s talk about Hawaii. Oahu in particular has a big homeless problem. People are living on the beaches and the cops clean them out almost daily. But those people aren’t skid-row bums from Los Angeles, or migrants coming up from Mexico. No, those people can’t get a ticket to Honolulu. The homeless in Hawaii are Hawaiians, many of them natives who had property for decades. How did this happen, you ask.
Well here’s how it goes. Property in paradise is scarce. People with money, like Oprah Winfrey or billionaire Larry Ellison, have property. Big developers, like Disney (Aulani resort) or other builders, buy out locals, who frequently take the cash. Those who don’t, find their properties worth millions, but can’t pay the taxes. Even owners who own their property outright have to take mortgages to pay the taxes on their now-expensive villas. The other thing that’s scarce in Hawaii is jobs, particularly good-paying jobs. It’s easy to get a job as a busboy or dishwasher, but not easy to work as a stock broker in Honolulu.
So these Hawaiians who owned family property found themselves taxed out of the market, and not able to earn enough to afford the property they own. And the government put liens on the property when the mortgage defaulted, and then the people who lived in those homes found themselves on the beach. The State of Hawaii is more than happy to give those homeless people tickets to the mainland, as long as they have family to stay with. Getting off the island is harder than getting over the border from Mexico, to be honest.
But the would-be emperors and barons of Hawaii–Democrats–have no problem extracting greenmail from oil companies halfway across the world. That’s how it works when you’re trying to win an election, and planning how to eliminate personal cars and destroy the way of life for everyone who doesn’t live in a concrete jungle.
It’s all a head fake, a lie. They tell us that America is producing more oil than ever. That’s true. We pump nearly 13 million barrels per day. But refinery production capacity is stagnant, and in fact has fallen, since 1970. It’s stuck at around 18 million barrels, which includes the 8.5 million barrels we import every day. The fact is, if we can’t drill it, pump it, and refine it, we’re not energy independent.
Suing the oil companies, while forcing auto manufacturers to build EVs they don’t want to build, without growth in the EV market for people to buy them, is insanity. But Democrats aren’t insane, unless you mean insane over getting more power.
Don’t fall for the trap. Democrats want to make 2024 about abortion, because abortion is an easy issue for them to build emotional responses. Republicans want it to be about the border, because nobody is doing anything to fix that problem.
But the real issue is oil, and the real action is in Hawaii, far from the bicoastal big city media, and therefore out of mind for most of the country. Just like the Democrats want it to be.
Follow Steve on Twitter @stevengberman.
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