By Gabe Firment

In a press conference last week President Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Climate, elitist swamp dweller John Kerry, advised that American workers in the oil and gas industry who “are seeing an end to their livelihoods” due to some of Biden’s absurd executive orders should “go to work to make the solar panels”. The condescending tone and patronizing disdain for the common man spewing from Kerry’s lips immediately reminded me of Pharaoh’s command in Exodus chapter 5 for the Israelites to make bricks without straw in response to Moses’ message from God that Pharaoh “let my people go”. The president’s executive order halting new oil and gas leases on federal lands and his revocation of the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline sent a clear message that this administration has declared war on the industry that has been the economic lifeblood of our state for many decades.

Industry experts project that Biden’s ban on federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico alone could cost Louisiana 48,000 jobs and nearly $100 million in tax revenue. It is obvious that President Biden has embraced the radical environmentalism of AOC, Bernie Sanders, and the Far Left who have openly called for the end of fossil fuels as an energy source and implemented policies to achieve that end. The new administration’s policies could not come at a worse time for the industry which was already struggling with low oil prices and the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 crisis.

I am concerned that in District 22 LaSalle and Red River parishes will be especially hard hit by the Marxist economic policies of the Biden administration who seek to destroy the oil and gas industry in the name of “environmental justice” and climate change. The success of the oil and gas industry is critical to the prosperity of LaSalle and Red River parishes, as well as to rest of District 22 and the entire state of Louisiana. As your state representative, I will continue to support policies that will help this important industry survive and thrive, including ending legacy lawsuits and lowering the nation’s highest severance tax.        

The fight for energy independence and economic freedom will not be easy. Unlike the ancient Israelites we will have no heavenly manna to sustain us as we wander through the wilderness of socialism and executive authoritarianism for the next four years.  Pharaoh Joe has released his own set of 40 plagues couched as executive orders that fund abortion, force our children to accept a radical transgender agenda, open the floodgates for illegal immigrants, and kill high-paying jobs in the energy sector. However bleak the situation may appear now, hope in a free and prosperous future remains. Although no present day Moses has appeared to lead a free people to the Promised Land, our faith lies in the same Sovereign God who provided a pillar of fire and cloud to guide His people through the wilderness. If we stand strong there will soon come a day when we cross the symbolic Jordan and see the Jerichoan walls of socialism, media bias, censorship, and identity politics torn down and the American dream restored.

---