The transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, is in the news for flying private jets all around the world. Personally, I don’t have a problem with private jets, but Mr. Buttigieg is a rabid climate guy, so you would think he’d have a big problem flying around in all of these carbon-emitting private jets.
You’ll remember he was the guy who drove from the transportation department building for presidential meetings in his big SUV, but then he’d stop just outside the security gate, jump out of the truck, and bring out his bicycle.
Then, for the reporters to see, he would ride a half a block down West Exec Road to get to the side entrance of the White House. Very climate conscious.
Anyway, a government watchdog group called Americans for Public Trust has filed a federal lawsuit against the FAA because the agency is stonewalling on releasing records detailing Mr. Buttigieg’s use of government private jets under the Freedom of Information Act.
Earlier, Fox News Digital reported that Mr. Buttigieg took at least 18 flights using taxpayer-funded private jets — but he isn’t talking now and neither is the FAA. Kinda dirty pool, don’t ya think?
By the way, Mr. Buttigieg’s predecessor, Elaine Chao, was criticized because she used private planes on seven occasions in 2017, but at least she fessed up with the number of trips and the cost, about $94,000. And then she stopped doing it. So clearly my friend Elaine Chao has a lot more character than the current occupant of that particular office.
Still on the subject of radical left climate change, the Buttigieg story is not nearly as much fun as President Biden, who was speaking last night in front of the League of Conservation Voters at Washington, D.C. He said a bunch of wonderful things as per usual. First up, he described climate change as “the only truly existential threat. It’s the existential threat if we don’t meet the requirements that we’re looking at, we’re in real trouble.”
I don’t think so, Mr. President. In fact, after watching you work overtime to try to throw your primary presidential opponent, President Trump, in jail — something that’s never been done in American history — I kinda think you’re the biggest existential threat we face. But I digress.
Also, Mr. Biden took the usual left-wing refrain and blamed America for the alleged climate problem: “The United States, we cleared all our land. We did all the things that … make things more easy for us to make money. Not a bad thing at the time. No one really fully understood. But we are the major emitters in the world and have an obligation to help those countries.”
This is a total untruth. America is not the cause of alleged climate issues; actually, America is the solution. With the cleanest-burning oil and natural gas along with renewables, America reduced its carbon emissions between 2010 and 2020 by more than the U.K., Germany, and France. At the same time Communist China was increasing its carbon dioxide emissions, by about 1.8 million tons, while India increased by about 800 million tons, and the Saudis by about 100 million.
So, this blame America business is another one of Mr. Biden’s bottomless Pinocchio untruths, which of course he gets away with because the friendly press never calls him on it.
Finally, Mr. Biden unveiled a very interesting proposal that no one’s ever heard about before last night. He said: “We have plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way to the Indian Ocean.”
Wow. That there is one ambitious project. In fact, Governor DeSantis’s War Room tweeted out the word “ambitious” along with a map. Give Mr. DeSantis a big hat tip.
This railroad would cover something like 8,000 miles, according to the Google maps. So we tried to figure out what it would cost. Here’s one way to do it.
We looked at the Channel Tunnel between Dover, England, and Calais, France, which is 23.5 miles long and cost about $21 billion.
So Biden’s 8,000-mile Pacific-Indian Ocean railroad would be about 340 times the length of the Chunnel, and that would come to something like $7 trillion.
Now this is not the last word in these calculations. Think of it as the first step. You can do your own math to your satisfaction, but I don’t know where that $7 trillion is going to come from, considering Mr. Biden is already bankrupting the U.S. government with his $5 trillion two-year spending spree that has delivered a 16 percent increase in the CPI.
Make that 33 percent for energy prices and a 20 percent hike in grocery prices.
Also, lord knows how much carbon would be released into the world’s atmosphere by building a railroad under the Pacific, over into China, and then back under the Indian Ocean. It boggles the mind, just the mere thought of it.
Mr. Biden himself is really the existential threat. Just saying.
From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.
Larry Kudlow was the Director of the National Economic Council under President Trump from 2018-2021. His Fox Business show "Kudlow" airs at 4 p.m &. and his radio show airs on 770 ABC from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
