The Democratic National Convention kicks off today, with President Joe Biden giving the keynote address tonight -- and it had WWL's Newell Normand wondering if the Democrats would get real.
"The Democrats will start to lay out, hopefully, their policy, where they will be on any number of issues. And it's going to be interesting to see how much of this is going to be the competition between comforting lies and unpleasant truths. And the reason I say that is when we go back and we look at what the Biden administration had promised, the Biden-Harris administration had promised, a lot of it is really not come to fruition," Newell said.
For instance, Newell said, when it comes to the development of green energy, not much has been produced outside of talk.
Danish wind developer Orsted announced that it was delaying construction on its revolutionary wind project off the coast of Rhode Island in Connecticut for a year. And this comes on the heels of about a year ago, the company scrapped three other projects over their commercial viability. They cited uncertainty in policies here in the United States, inflation, supply chains, interest rates, and a whole host of other issues.
Specifically, the project was meant to deliver renewable energy to thousands of homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island starting in 2025, but a soil sample at the site showed contamination was more significant than anticipated and will take much longer to clean up.
Now because the government has invested so much via tax breaks and more, they're waiving the requirement that if they abandon these projects, they have to bear the financial loss to remove the infrastructure that was put in.
"Remember the orphaned wells in the oil fields?" Newell asked. "We have orphaned wells throughout the marshes of the state of Louisiana. No one knows who actually owns these. They've been passed from one entity to another to another to another in many cases, sometimes to avoid the liability of the orphan. Well, that was front and center for Democrats for a long time in showing that the oil industry didn't really care about the environment at all. Now they're complicit with the wind industry. Because when they granted these leases, they were responsible for the orphaned wind turbines.
"The Bureau of Ocean and Emergency Management is now issuing waivers for the offshore wind projects, saying that this presents -- Hold on to your seat -- an unnecessary burden for the industry. Really? You put it there. You did the risk analysis, you did the investment. It doesn't work out. And now guess who has to pay? Yep. You got it. Democrats are fighting for the promise of America. The promise of America is if you fail, the government is going to bail you out. And that's what's going to happen here."
But will they discuss any of these policies at the Democratic National Convention? How about the border with Mexico, that continues to be in crisis?
Newell predicts all they'll offer is comforting lies.
"Keep lining up to go to the comforting line booth and see where it's going to get you. You know where it's going to get you -- With a much lighter wallet," Normand said.