The "Big Beautiful Bill" Is Good for U.S. Energy Independence and National Security

America has returned to policies that advance our energy independence – and not a moment too soon.

Among other important accomplishments, the newly signed One Big Beautiful Bill Act has ended federal subsidies for costly, inefficient solar and wind power and paves the way for America to better exploit our untapped oil and gas resources.

This development will advance American prosperity and security and will no doubt disappoint adversaries like Russia and China who benefited from the Biden Administration’s self-defeating green energy policies.

Maintaining America’s hard-won energy independence isn’t just crucial to our economic growth – it’s also critical to maintaining our global position in an era of intense competition.

Radical environmentalists are naturally seething. As much as they tried to pretend otherwise, their top-down policies limiting America’s exploitation of fossil fuels did nothing to advance their declared goal of tackling climate change; instead, it gave authoritarian states with terrible records of environmental stewardship a critical advantage over the U.S., while driving up costs for Americans already suffering from the Left’s inflationary policies.

Unfortunately, environmental zealots don’t seem to understand or care about the harm this would do to America. Much like the anti-nuke campaigns of the Cold War era, these groups often inadvertently – but sometimes deliberately – embrace policies that serve the interests of America’s enemies. (Unsurprisingly, there is evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has funneled money into American environmentalist groups that embrace a radical green agenda).

Making the United States more dependent on renewable energy would make the U.S. electricity grid less reliable and threaten the nation’s economy. Generating electricity solely through renewables makes electric grids more prone to collapse and requires incredibly expensive upgrades to energy infrastructure that leads to higher electricity prices for consumers.

The International Energy Agency found that for every 10% increase in the portion of electricity generated by renewables, costs go up by more than 4 cents per kilowatt hour. As a result, countries like Germany pay more than 2.5 times the average electricity rate than the United States and over four times higher than China.

When countries like China or Russia can generate electricity more cheaply than their democratic rivals, they gain an important economic advantage. China’s coal consumption reached record highs last year, and its buildout of new coal power plants reached the highest level of construction in the last 10 years. Russia is the world’s second-largest exporter of natural gas and holds natural gas reserves that rival the U.S.

Since these countries are not accountable to their own people, they lack any incentive to abide by environmental legal protections. In fact, the largest carbon emitter in the world is China: In 2020, China’s emissions exceeded those of all other developed nations combined.

As China and Russia continue to develop their fossil fuel resources, the United States must do the same. We must balance responsible stewardship of our natural environment with energy policies rooted in realism, not ideology.

Abandoning domestic oil and gas production would not reduce global emissions; it would only hand a strategic advantage to powers that have no interest in protecting the environment – and every interest in making America poorer and weaker.