ALFA Notes

Midnight Regs That Are Best Kept Asleep

In the final days of the Biden administration, agencies are working overtime to implement last minute regulations, and this week was book-ended with two rules that would weaken America energy and tech leadership.

On Monday, Biden moved to “ban new offshore oil and gas drilling along most of the U.S. coastline … consist[ing] of 625 million acres within the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Bering Sea.”

President Trump has said that he would reverse this ban as part of his administration’s goal to meet our country’s increasing energy demand — which is largely driven by our technological advancements.

Today, the Commerce department is expected to announce sweeping restrictions on American companies selling AI chips overseas. The Biden administration’s rush to impose these policies and regs on the incoming Trump administration not only runs counter to the message sent from the American people in November, but the haste in which they are doing so will prove counterproductive.

While the stated goal of preventing precious American technology from falling into the hands of our adversaries such as the Chinese Communist Party is right, this midnight rule would unintentionally bolster the very adversaries it seeks to restrain.

The AI chip market is among the most sought-after in the world — and fortunately, American companies are the ones setting the pace. Yet, by taking American products off the playing field, the U.S. risks ceding tech leadership to foreign competitors, especially those backed by the Chinese government. As the old saying goes, “when one door closes, another opens.”

Reporting from the New York Times also suggests a secondary motive for this rule is to keep datacenter development here in the U.S. The Times reports, “U.S. officials say data centers are also important sources of new economic activity for American communities. They want to encourage companies to build as many data centers as possible in the United States rather than in regions like the Middle East, which is offering money to attract tech firms.”

This, too, is a worthy goal. But making it harder to produce American energy, as this week’s order and many other previous policies have done, will hold back datacenter development.

Taken together, these rules are the latest sampling of a disjointed policy approach for American technology dominance — something ALFA will be working to fix.

The Burning Truth About California's Leadership Failure

As Los Angeles faces its most devastating wildfire crisis in history, with over 100,000 evacuated, critical infrastructure at risk, neighborhoods destroyed, and lives lost, we're seeing in real-time how regulatory paralysis and environmental extremism can cripple a state's ability to protect its citizens.

The current catastrophe was predictable and preventable. California has systematically dismantled its resource security and forest management capability. The result? A severe lack of water and energy during critical emergency operations and bone-dry forestland primed for disaster.

For years, the California Republican delegation in Congress has been working to build more water storage and delivery to communities in Central and Southern California. Recall California had one of it wettest winters just a few years ago. Losing that water to the ocean is preposterous.

California is not just a place, it’s a symbol of America’s pioneering spirit. That is what makes this fire such a tragedy: a state that is on the leading edge of so much has been diluted by decades of broken leadership.

Over the coming days and weeks we’ll learn more about what happened, what could have been done, and what to do next. Until then, God Bless California.