As a result, fossil fuel-dependent states and communities face the prospect of budget shortfalls and lower employment for the next several years. As researchers who study energy from economic, cultural and public policy perspectives, we believe that it is time for these states to develop long-term plans to diversify their economies and help ensure just and equitable transitions.
The idea of a just transition emerged from North American labor law, and has become part of international discussions about making societies more environmentally sustainable. It centers on protecting workers’ rights and livelihoods as they move out of declining industries.
In our view, just transition programs likely are the best way for these states to build more sustainable and diverse economic bases, reducing their reliance on fossil fuel production as a revenue source. To support secure, family-sustaining jobs as global fossil reliance declines, they will need to create new, lower-carbon economies.
From boom to bust
Fossil fuels enrich producing states through multiple revenue streams. They include taxes and royalties tied to the value of production; sales taxes on hydrocarbons; use taxes on equipment; and income taxes on industry employees’ wages.
Texas earns the most of any state from energy production, generating US$16.3 billion in fiscal year 2019, which was 7% of the state’s revenue. The states that are most reliant on energy are Alaska, where it accounted for 70% of state revenues ($1.1 billion) in fiscal 2019; Wyoming, where energy and other minerals yielded 52% of state revenues ($2.2 billion) in FY2017; and North Dakota, which reaped 45% of its revenues ($1.6 billion) from energy production in fiscal 2017.
Production declines and workforce reductions can have major economic impacts in fossil fuel states. For example, Wyoming is forecasting that it will have 29% less money in its General Fund than it previously expected in fiscal years 2021-22. Alaska is projecting an estimated 18% budget deficit in fiscal 2021.
Even assuming that oil and gas production recovers from FY2020-2021 lows, these states expect to be forced to close the funding gap for the next several years.
Reduced economic activity related to the COVID-19 pandemic has changed energy demand and supply patterns in 2020 and increased uncertainty about near-term prices.EIA
Cultural and political roadblocks
Wyoming illustrates the challenges that a changing energy landscape posse for energy states. In the near term, the state is forecasting a 54% decline in taxes related to fossil fuels owed it in fiscal 2021-22 compared to the previous year. According to data that we obtained from the U.S. Department of Energy, estimated coal production in April-June of 2020 was down nearly 45% from the prior five-year average, reflecting national trends.
More structurally, experts and coal producers have acknowledged that thermal coal – the type used to make electricity – is in permanent decline. State officials have sounded the alarm about an industry “under siege,” while seeking ways to keep coal production afloat.
Meanwhile, studies show that Wyoming residents receive from the state up to 10 times the value in services that they pay in taxes, thanks largely to fossil fuel-related taxes. These trends clearly can’t continue in parallel: As coal revenues fall, state spending will have to contract.
But as the state considers its future, cultural and political factors influence public views as much as economics. Wyoming’s longstanding ethos of rugged individualism makes residents reluctant to accept outside economic assistance. Its coal industry workers have long taken pride in their role in providing a source of electricity throughout the United States.
Wyoming residents grapple with the shutdown of two coal mines in 2019.
What just transitions require to succeed
Just transition programs typically focus on promoting economic development, attracting investment to stimulate entrepreneurship and retraining workers. They often provide income support to bridge the period between jobs.
State and local leaders may seek to promote specific industries that reflect larger policy goals – for example, wooing solar companies to promote decarbonization. A number of current economic development policy proposals take this approach, including Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan. However, we believe new businesses are best developed at the community level so that they incorporate local intellectual capital, worker skills and natural resources, and get more political buy-in from the communities.
There are several examples of successful just transition programs. One is Project QUEST in San Antonio, which highlights the benefits of “local contextualization” and has helped workers transition from manufacturing to health care, information technology and other trades.
The province of Alberta, Canada, achieved considerable buy-in from labor unions and electricity companies as it accelerated its retirement of coal power, in part by leveraging its natural gas resources and working with local labor unions. And the New Economy program, promoted by the nonprofit organization Appalachian Voices, is amplifying residents’ ideas for new economic initiatives to offset job losses and shrinking coal tax revenues. This kind of participatory approach to economic diversification is critical for securing community support and generating novel ideas for economic development.
These programs are likely to require significant financial investment. Wyoming, North Dakota and Oklahoma don’t have a lot of debt, so they could borrow large sums to pay for these programs.
Alaska, Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming and North Dakota also have substantial sovereign wealth funds – state-owned accounts, funded with revenues from natural resource extraction. These funds could help fill the gap, but only if politicians can withstand pressure to use the money in more popular ways, such as Alaska’s annual payouts to state residents from oil revenues.
A chance for more sustainable communities
Fossil fuel states’ windfalls from energy development and their free-market cultures can make it hard for residents to accept their dependence on industry taxation and vulnerability to industry downturns. Solutions that involve increased taxing and spending are likely to face stiff political headwinds, even if sovereign wealth funds offer help.
The choices that states make as they navigate a rapidly changing energy landscape will have major implications for their workers and communities. Just transitions will require significant, focused investment, committed institutions and deep community engagement. While these processes aren’t likely to be easy, they offer the chance to build sustainable and environmentally friendly economies that can help these states thrive in the future.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
We’ve added 60% to national debt since 2018. Germany - a country with major economic woes - added ‘just’ 32%.
Maybe it will never matter. Maybe MMT is real. Maybe we just cancel or inflate it out. Maybe career real estate borrowers or career politicians aren’t the answer.
I have no idea. Only time will tell. But it’s going to be fascinating to watch it play out.
He is right: it will be fascinating, and the latest budget deficit data simply confirmed that the day of reckoning will come very soon, certainly sooner than the two years that One River's Eric Peters predicted this weekend for the coming "US debt sustainability crisis."
According to the US Treasury, in February, the US collected $271 billion in various tax receipts, and spent $567 billion, more than double what it collected.
The two charts below show the divergence in US tax receipts which have flatlined (on a trailing 6M basis) since the covid pandemic in 2020 (with occasional stimmy-driven surges)...
... and spending which is about 50% higher compared to where it was in 2020.
The end result is that in February, the budget deficit rose to $296.3 billion, up 12.9% from a year prior, and the second highest February deficit on record.
And the punchline: on a cumulative basis, the budget deficit in fiscal 2024 which began on October 1, 2023 is now $828 billion, the second largest cumulative deficit through February on record, surpassed only by the peak covid year of 2021.
But wait there's more: because in a world where the US is spending more than twice what it is collecting, the endgame is clear: debt collapse, and while it won't be tomorrow, or the week after, it is coming... and it's also why the US is now selling $1 trillion in debt every 100 days just to keep operating (and absorbing all those millions of illegal immigrants who will keep voting democrat to preserve the socialist system of the US, so beloved by the Soros clan).
... having already surpassed total US defense spending and soon to surpass total health spending and, finally all social security spending, the largest spending category of all, which means that US debt will now rise exponentially higher until the inevitable moment when the US dollar loses its reserve status and it all comes crashing down.
We conclude with another observation by CNBC's Brian Sullivan, who quotes an email by a DC strategist...
.. which lays out the proposed Biden budget as follows:
The budget deficit will growth another $16 TRILLION over next 10 years. Thats *with* the proposed massive tax hikes.
Without them the deficit will grow $19 trillion.
That's why you will hear the "deficit is being reduced by $3 trillion" over the decade.
No family budget or business could exist with this kind of math.
Of course, in the long run, neither can the US... and since neither party will ever cut the spending which everyone by now is so addicted to, the best anyone can do is start planning for the endgame.
Former Project Veritas & O’Keefe Media Group operative and Pfizer formulation analyst scientist Justin Leslie revealed previously unpublished recordings showing Pfizer’s top vaccine researchers discussing major concerns surrounding COVID-19 vaccines. Leslie delivered these recordings to Veritas in late 2021, but they were never published:
Principal scientist at Pfizer, Kanwall Gill in 2021:
“We had no idea how it’s going to look like. MRNA vaccines have been there for 50 years, but nothing went to clinical trial because MRNA have been known to have side effects.”
Featured in Leslie’s footage is Kanwal Gill, a principal scientist at Pfizer. Gill was weary of MRNA technology given its long research history yet lack of approved commercial products. She called the vaccines “sneaky,” suggesting latent side effects could emerge in time.
Gill goes on to illustrate how the vaccine formulation process was dramatically rushed under the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization and adds that profit incentives likely played a role:
Pfizer's principal scientist in 2021:
“It takes 10 year for a vaccine to come out. It takes years of observations... we are doing everything at the same time."
"It’s going to affect my heart, and I’m going to die. And nobody’s talking about that."
Leslie recorded another colleague, Pfizer’s pharmaceutical formulation scientist Ramin Darvari, who raised the since-validated concern that repeat booster intake could damage the cardiovascular system:
Pfizer's pharmaceutical formulation scientist, Ramin Darvari, in 2021:
“They’re engineering it specifically for me to take the next one, so increasing my consumption."
“It’s going to affect my heart, and I’m going to die. And nobody’s talking about that.”
None of these claims will be shocking to hear in 2024, but it is telling that high-level Pfizer researchers were discussing these topics in private while the company assured the public of “no serious safety concerns” upon the jab’s release:
Vaccine for Children is a Different Formulation
Leslie sent me a little-known FDA-Pfizer conference — a 7-hour Zoom meeting published in tandem with the approval of the vaccine for 5 – 11 year-olds — during which Pfizer’s vice presidents of vaccine research and development, Nicholas Warne and William Gruber, discussed a last-minute change to the vaccine’s “buffer” — from “PBS” to “Tris” — to improve its shelf life. For about 30 seconds of these 7 hours, Gruber acknowledged that the new formula was NOT the one used in clinical trials (emphasis mine):
“The studies were done using the same volume… but contained the PBS buffer. We obviously had extensive consultations with the FDA and it was determined that the clinical studies were not required because, again, the LNP and the MRNA are the same and the behavior — in terms of reactogenicity and efficacy — are expected to be the same.”
According to Leslie, the tweaked “buffer” dramatically changed the temperature needed for storage: “Before they changed this last step of the formulation, the formula was to be kept at -80 degrees Celsius. After they changed the last step, we kept them at 2 to 8 degrees celsius,” Leslie told me.
The claims are backed up in the referenced video presentation:
I’m no vaccinologist but an 80-degree temperature delta — and a 5x shelf-life in a warmer climate — seems like a significant change that might warrant clinical trials before commercial release.
Despite this information technically being public, there has been virtually no media scrutiny or even coverage — and in fact, most were told the vaccine for children was the same formula but just a smaller dose — which is perhaps due to a combination of the information being buried within a 7-hour jargon-filled presentation and our media being totally dysfunctional.
Bohemian Grove?
Leslie’s 2-hour long documentary on his experience at both Pfizer and O’Keefe’s companies concludes on an interesting note: James O’Keefe attended an outing at the Bohemian Grove.
Leslie offers this photo of James’ Bohemian Grove “GATE” slip as evidence, left on his work desk atop a copy of his book, “American Muckraker”:
My thoughts on the Bohemian Grove: my good friend’s dad was its general manager for several decades. From what I have gathered through that connection, the Bohemian Grove is not some version of the Illuminati, at least not in the institutional sense.
Do powerful elites hangout there? Absolutely. Do they discuss their plans for the world while hanging out there? I’m sure it has happened. Do they have a weird ritual with a giant owl? Yep, Alex Jones showed that to the world.
My perspective is based on conversations with my friend and my belief that his father is not lying to him. I could be wrong and am open to evidence — like if boxer Ryan Garcia decides to produce evidence regarding his rape claims — and I do find it a bit strange the club would invite O’Keefe who is notorious for covertly filming, but Occam’s razor would lead me to believe the club is — as it was under my friend’s dad — run by boomer conservatives the extent of whose politics include disliking wokeness, immigration, and Biden (common subjects of O’Keefe’s work).
Therefore, I don’t find O’Keefe’s visit to the club indicative that he is some sort of Operation Mockingbird asset as Leslie tries to depict (however Mockingbird is a 100% legitimate conspiracy). I have also met James several times and even came close to joining OMG. While I disagreed with James on the significance of many of his stories — finding some to be overhyped and showy — I never doubted his conviction in them.
As for why Leslie’s story was squashed… all my sources told me it was to avoid jail time for Veritas executives.
Feel free to watch Leslie’s full documentary here and decide for yourself.
Fun fact — Justin Leslie was also the operative behind this mega-viral Project Veritas story where Pfizer’s director of R&D claimed the company was privately mutating COVID-19 behind closed doors:
BREAKING: @Pfizer Exploring "Mutating" COVID-19 Virus For New Vaccines
"Don't tell anyone this...There is a risk...have to be very controlled to make sure this virus you mutate doesn't create something...the way that the virus started in Wuhan, to be honest."#DirectedEvolutionpic.twitter.com/xaRvlD5qTo
“[…] our findings support the hypothesis that the intrauterine environment, particularly essential and non-essential metals, affect epigenetic aging biomarkers across the life course.”
Credit: 2024 Bozack et al.
“[…] our findings support the hypothesis that the intrauterine environment, particularly essential and non-essential metals, affect epigenetic aging biomarkers across the life course.”
BUFFALO, NY- March 12, 2024 – A new research paper was published inAging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as “Aging (Albany NY)” and “Aging-US” by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 4, entitled, “Associations of prenatal one-carbon metabolism nutrients and metals with epigenetic aging biomarkers at birth and in childhood in a US cohort.”
Epigenetic gestational age acceleration (EGAA) at birth and epigenetic age acceleration (EAA) in childhood may be biomarkers of the intrauterine environment. In this new study, researchers Anne K. Bozack, Sheryl L. Rifas-Shiman, Andrea A. Baccarelli, Robert O. Wright, Diane R. Gold, Emily Oken, Marie-France Hivert, and Andres Cardenas from Stanford University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Columbia University, and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai investigated the extent to which first-trimester folate, B12, 5 essential and 7 non-essential metals in maternal circulation are associated with EGAA and EAA in early life.
“[…] we hypothesized that OCM [one-carbon metabolism] nutrients and essential metals would be positively associated with EGAA and non-essential metals would be negatively associated with EGAA. We also investigated nonlinear associations and associations with mixtures of micronutrients and metals.”
Bohlin EGAA and Horvath pan-tissue and skin and blood EAA were calculated using DNA methylation measured in cord blood (N=351) and mid-childhood blood (N=326; median age = 7.7 years) in the Project Viva pre-birth cohort. A one standard deviation increase in individual essential metals (copper, manganese, and zinc) was associated with 0.94-1.2 weeks lower Horvath EAA at birth, and patterns of exposures identified by exploratory factor analysis suggested that a common source of essential metals was associated with Horvath EAA. The researchers also observed evidence of nonlinear associations of zinc with Bohlin EGAA, magnesium and lead with Horvath EAA, and cesium with skin and blood EAA at birth. Overall, associations at birth did not persist in mid-childhood; however, arsenic was associated with greater EAA at birth and in childhood.
“Prenatal metals, including essential metals and arsenic, are associated with epigenetic aging in early life, which might be associated with future health.”
Read the full paper: DOI:https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205602
Corresponding Author: Andres Cardenas
Corresponding Email:andres.cardenas@stanford.edu
Keywords: epigenetic age acceleration, metals, folate, B12, prenatal exposures
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About Aging:
Launched in 2009, Aging publishes papers of general interest and biological significance in all fields of aging research and age-related diseases, including cancer—and now, with a special focus on COVID-19 vulnerability as an age-dependent syndrome. Topics in Aging go beyond traditional gerontology, including, but not limited to, cellular and molecular biology, human age-related diseases, pathology in model organisms, signal transduction pathways (e.g., p53, sirtuins, and PI-3K/AKT/mTOR, among others), and approaches to modulating these signaling pathways.
Please visit our website at www.Aging-US.com and connect with us:
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