When talking about the relationship between radical climate activism and big-government socialism, I equate the two — meaning that the Biden administration’s radical climate policies have made use of the big-government regulatory state to implement their insane war against fossil fuels. Steve Forbes has called it “modern socialism” through the regulatory state.  

Now, the recent Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA may put a big dent in the Biden regulatory state, because major, economy-wide decisions cannot be accomplished through executive orders or regulators without clear statutory legislation from Congress, according to the court. 

Part of the insanity of the Biden regulatory war against fossil fuels — with resulting sky-rocketing energy prices, the breakdown of the electricity grid, the shrinking baseload power, reliance on unreliable renewables, near $5 gas prices, and all the rest — is that this not the only regulatory war the Bidens have been waging.   

Their regulatory interference with the free-market economy and business is unparalleled. According to a recent economic report based on statistics from TheRightFacts, the Biden administration has implemented more major regulations — those with at least $100 million in annual economic impact — in its first year than under any president in American history.  

President Biden has issued 69 such regulations, compared to 52 under President Obama and only 22 under President Trump. In 2021 alone, federal agencies finalized rules that entail $201 billion in net regulatory costs. That’s three times those added in Mr. Obama’s first year, and nearly 40 times more than in Mr. Trump’s first year.  

Economists estimate that federal regulations now impose an economic cost of $2 trillion each year. These regulations could subtract almost one full percentage point from our GDP a year. 

This should give everyone a pretty good flavor of Mr. Biden’s war against business in general, not just fossil fuels.  

His Federal Trade Commission is going after big oil, his agriculture department is going after meatpackers, his Federal Maritime Commission is going after large shipping companies, and the FTC, again, is going after big retailers — and they have all come up with nothing.

No price gouging. No monopolization. No nothing. 

In fact, remember all those evil gas station owners deliberately keeping prices too high? Well, I guess they just relented, because gas prices fell 50 cents and the Bidens jumped ship from blaming President Putin and are now crowing about the half-dollar drop in gasoline prices. Whoops: They forgot to praise the gas station owners for the big price drop. It’s a terrible oversight.  

Now, we’re told President Biden tomorrow is going to launch another executive order regulatory war against big oil. We’ll see what he comes up with. But the Supremes just told him: “You can’t do that anymore.” Maybe he doesn’t know about that decision? 

What I will say is that the Biden regulatory state has clogged the arteries of our dynamic, free-market economy. We need to stop big-government socialism. We’re gonna need blood thinners in order to re-oxygenate the blood vessels of our economy. 

We can do this. We can restore economic freedom. The cavalry is coming.  

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.