Commentary

Like me, you’ve got to be tired of hearing the Biden administration and its compliant media using every disaster – be it wildfire, tornado, or hurricane – to support their radical agenda of spending and regulating to alter climate change.

As I try to stay abreast of activities in this area, I have collected some interesting quotes and information I would like to share with you.  They go beyond Biden’s foolish claim: “When I think of climate change, I think jobs.”  More on that later.

If we weren’t funneling billions of dollars to reach an impossible goal, I wouldn’t waste your time, but you can no longer be apathetic on this issue, viewing it as just another government program.

It wasn’t enough for all Republicans to vote against the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).  The Democrat majority in the Senate passed it and authorized $738 billion for energy and climate change projects.

Keep in mind, the Biden administration is touting the act as “the most significant action Congress has taken on clean energy and climate change in the nation’s history.”  Considering the dearth of other substantive issues facing our country, I see that as a kind of back-handed compliment.

With the signing of the act, the White House announced that “with the stroke of his pen, the president redefined American leadership in confronting the existential threat of the climate crisis and set forth a new era of American innovation to lower consumer costs and drive the global clean energy economy forward.

In addition to funding the IRA, Biden has renewed our billion-dollar membership in the Paris Accord. 

Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, appearing before an audience of union workers in Las Vegas, celebrated President Biden’s signing of the IRA saying she wanted to speak about the “progress we’ve made in driving the climate benefits of the law.”

Even with my knowledge of the IRA, reading the transcript of her speech I continue to be stunned that our government is so singularly focused.  She cited three goals: tackling climate change, expanding economic opportunity and strengthening our economic resilience and energy security.

“Powered by the IRA,” Yellen said, “the president’s agenda has helped drive a massive boom that is touching every corner of the country.” Really?

Touting her visits to solar companies in North Carolina and Louisiana and an EV battery plant in Tennessee, she spoke of his commitment of over $500 billion in manufacturing and clean energy investments.  However, she failed to mention the bankruptcy of Protera, the electric bus manufacturer, the recipient of $10 million taxpayer dollars and some $200 million from investors, including George Soros.

While claiming that the overall labor force participation is now back in line with pre-pandemic trends, she continued to repeat the lie that the administration had created 13 million jobs.  Those were jobs that were lost during the pandemic.

Although she spoke about wage gains, we all know that they aren’t keeping up with inflation.

Forgetting the pride we once enjoyed of being energy independent, Yellen still refers to energy as “the lifeblood of our economy.” Speaking on the subject of energy resilience and the administration’s desire that we transition from fossil fuels to solar and wind, I was reminded of the $200 billion in the IRA to ramp up solar and wind power and the $40 billion for innovation leading to energy storage. 

By now, Americans know about the uncertainty of solar and wind – no sun, no wind, no energy –  yet Yellen refers to the “whims” of the old and gas industries, insisting that renewables will give us greater stability and predictability in our energy costs.  Ridiculous.

Clean energy is a whole of government goal within the administration.  Perhaps no group is more involved in shaping our transportation needs than the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Thanks to the recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Shocking Candor on Fuel Standards,” we learned – buried on page 56,342 of Volume 88 of the Federal Register – this concession: “Net benefits for passenger cars remain negative across alternatives.” In plain English, this means that mandating ever-more-stringent fuel economy for passenger cars will harm society.

Harm? It gets in the weeds, but it is estimated that the plan of increased standards by two percent each year will reduce private welfare by $5.8 billion over the life of the cars.

“Simply put,” the op-ed contends, “the bureaucrats have no real basis for claiming they make better choices than drivers and fleet managers.  They literally are making it up.”

As if that were not enough, on Page 5-39 of the document’s accompanying environmental assessment it estimates that the proposal would reduce average global temperatures by 0.0000 percent by 2060.

 “Our fuel economy regulations are incurably stupid,” writes Wall Street Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., “not because our leaders are stupid, because an inherited structure of regulation traps us in a stupid policy.”  I beg to differ.  If our leaders cannot see the inefficiencies in the café standard policy and do away with it, they are, in fact, stupid.  As are the auto manufacturers, who bow to government demands.

In Jenkins’ piece, he writes of retired auto executive Bob Lutz, who has suggested that the fuel economy nonsense be stopped, and a higher gas tax for those who prefer big gas guzzlers.  Let the market decide what the people want.

Conceding that Ford was losing too much money on electric vehicles, Jim Farley pointed to the need to derive more profit from gas-powered cars to cover the losses.

Speaking of the gas tax, Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is concerned about the taxes lost to EV owners who don’t pay at the pump.  The state lost $50 million in gas taxes in 2010 and 2020.  She has authorized a $5 million budget on a survey to gauge consumer attitudes about the concept of taxing drivers based on road mileage. 

You can imagine the problems that would arise in such as system, but Whitmer is obviously concerned about funds to fix potholes and general road resurfacing.

Meanwhile, your taxpayer dollars are funding billions of dollars for EV charging stations along U.S. roadways, whether you drive an EV or not.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 59 percent of Americans oppose bans on future sales of gas-powered cars like those established in California and New Jersey, set to take effect in 2035.

In conclusion, whether it be the bankruptcy of Portera, the excessive supplies of unsold EV’s on car lots, or the solar and wind projects, many delayed, going to foreign suppliers, business failures are inevitable, but our government’s Green New Deal will be responsible. Predictable results of our government’s force-fed EV transition are just beginning.

May God continue to bless the United States of America.