Reporting and commentary / opinion by Mathew Carr

It’s a shocking mischaracterization of how the world works — of how the American economy operates.

The U.S House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary, chaired by Republican Jim Jordan, is ramping up its attacks on efforts to INCREASE competition in the energy industry. It’s doing this by claiming, crazily, that clean energy is some sort of cartel.

Actually, the complete opposite is true. The clean-energy shift means additional competition for fossil fuels from solar, wind, hydrogen, nuclear, batteries, heat pumps, hydro, etc.

It is the existing coal, oil and natural gas system that acts like a cartel.

OPEC has been eroding competition for decades. A thriving Russia in the face of unprecedented sanctions shows just how corrupt the markets are.

Dirty US companies are thriving because of the anticompetitive markets, too. Jordan and the other committee members must know this. Indeed, Jordan gets a little of his political funding from fossil-fuel related companies, including Koch Industries.

Here is the 21-page subpoena sent last week to “As You Sow”, which is seeking to shift the global and American economies to a more sustainable footing: The Committee sent similar letters to Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), Glass Lewis, Engine No.1, Trillium Asset Management, Arjuna Capital, and Aviva Investor Americas, according to As You Sow. (I’ve not checked this fact.)

Punishment for doing the right thing

What’s shocking to me is the audacity of the committee. It’s taking climate disinformation to a whole new level.

Gaslighting perpetrators blame the victim for the villain’s own behavior — and what’s even more sinister is to blame the victim of the SAME BEHAVIOR being perpetrated, if you can get away with it.

A beaten wife gets accused for telling untruths when the bullying husband knows she’s completely correct.

By pretending clean energy is the villain, Jordan is effectively blaming future generations of Americans (whose climate will be ruined) for the bad behavior deeply embedded in the current status-quo system, which is rigged because it limits choice by not taking account of the damage to the environment being done by it.

Voters around the world see you, Mr Jordan and Mr Trump. You are trying to limit choices –slow the transition away from a corrupt, dirty system. That’s the real antitrust.

You are threatened by rising levels of clean-energy output.

Yet, you should be afraid of the stickiness of the current anti-competitive market, which is not only highly polluting, but threatens most of what you love as you go about your daily business.

If you continue down this path, you’ll hand an advantage to your Democratic rivals in a few months’ time — providing a clear reason to steer away from a political party whose historical roots show it should WANT to conserve nature and the environment.

That’s what conservatives should be doing: making the markets work better to protect the things we all love.

Note—I’ve underestimated Mr Trump before and note this: