The Biden administration has announced in recent weeks new stringent emissions requirements for virtually the entire American transportation system.
The Environmental Protection Agency will mandate by the year 2035 that virtually every car made and sold in America must be an EV. No more gas cars. The New York Times comically declared that motorists don’t have to worry because this “is not a ban on gasoline-powered vehicles.” Sure it isn’t.
Today less than 2% of cars use the electric power grid for fuel. So soon we will see 50 times more demand for electricity from autos.
Then the EPA announced new rules for trains in California to go electric — even as the Association of American Railroads has declared the mandate infeasible.
But wait. The climate change lobby is just getting started. There is now a new scheme to mandate that the long-haul trucking industry convert to electric battery operation from diesel fuel.
This is a technological and financial nightmare for our trucking industry. A 10-ton long-haul truck is going to carry cargo across the country on an electric battery? Really?
Planes haven’t been mandated by the climate lobby to stop using fossil fuels. But stick around.
Even if the technology existed to meet these mandates, this added strain on the electric grid system comes at a time when power production is already in short supply. The Wall Street Journal reports that power demands are expected to double over the next decade due to artificial intelligence and other technologies that use multiple times more energy than does the internet.
It also comes at a time when the Left has insisted that more than a dozen coal and gas plants need to be shuttered. Nuclear plants continue to get shuttered, too. Locally, greens also have started a movement to stop transmission lines and pipelines from being built.
What is the likely outcome of vastly expanding electric power demand at the same time the Biden administration is reducing supply? An energy calamity. Prices could as much as double. In California, which is at the forefront of the go-green movement, residents pay electric bills 29% higher than the U.S. average.
California is also second in the nation in power outages, with 221 from 2019 to 2023, according to Payless Power. This leaves schools, hospitals and millions of homes without electricity.
Some of the more honest green groups concede that a power shortage is coming as a result of their radical “decarbonization” agenda. Their solution is rationing energy. The government will tell you how much power you can use and when you can use it. There is also a move afoot to conserve energy by abolishing air conditioners and “nonessential” air travel — as well as gas stoves and power lawnmowers.
Energy is the master resource. Everything we have is derivative of cheap and reliable energy. The more energy a country uses, the richer it is. If you want to disrupt a nation’s progress, take away its energy sources.
This is usually a tactic that nations use against their enemies when they are at war. We are foolishly and self-destructively turning the lights off on ourselves.
Stephen Moore is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a senior economic advisor to Donald Trump. His latest book is: “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.”
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Let;s switch Air Force 2 and Air Force 2 to electric.
If anyone believes that this new rule is not a ban on gas-powered vehicles, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d love to sell you.
These same people who want to force everyone to drive electric vehicles are the same ones who protest the building of more generating plants. They don’t want the generating plant to burn coal, they are against nuclear power. The only thing left is either hydroelectric (during what many consider a nationwide drought), or natural gas. But we discover the natural gas while drilling for oil and that is something else they are against. So, they will want to stick everyone in one of their 15-minute cities where everything they think we need or want will be a 15 minute walk away or via some sort of concentrated mass transit. Well, what will the mass transit run on? Solar and wind power are not turning into the life saving panacea they were hoping for. In short, these people are insane!
Abusers such as Joe Biden are very selective in choosing their targets. They often treat some folks very well so that it’s harder to believe those targeted victims when they come forward to expose the abuser.
I feel like I’m living in a George Orwell novel where the government is attempting to take control of our lives. The silent majority must stand up and say “NO MORE.”
And a lot of people will die because of this idiocy. Or just maybe that is part of the overall agenda between climate control/environmentalists and elitists’ aim for total control.
It is not legal for the government to mandate what the American public must buy. Period. When are folks going to wake up. Every car dealer I know, each a major guy in his brand, has said the same thing, unsolicited: “EV’s will not work.” There is insufficient capacity in the grid to support these vehicles, even if they wait until 2050. The vehicles are an environmental nightmare to build; cannot be repaired; are more expensive to drive than gas powered vehicles, lose more than half their value upon being driven out of the dealers’ lots, and are heavy, burning up the tires very fast and are super dangerous if they catch fire. Wake up, America! It is time to change this government, top to bottom.
This EV crap is such a huge mistake!! They pollute more than gas engines and the environmentalists and democrats have lied to Americans to further their personal agenda and make a lot of money for themselves!! This action affects every person in America and we aren’t given a choice!! Democrats want us to put all of our eggs in one electric basket and one big hit to the grid, no one has anything – no car, no fridge, no stove, no freezer, no lawn mower, no water pumps, no toilet…….
So when are the lawsuits going to be filed about these new destructive rules?
Nobody is even considering the potential global starvation and death that will occur if the power grid is somehow taken out by solar flare, EMP, or loss of solar output due to a geological atmospheric catastrophe such as happened in the not too distant past from volcanic explosions. No energy is death. And, what do we do with the over 400 million vehicles on the roads today? Waste!
Hopefully the idiot won’t be in office after this next election. No way would I ever buy and EV….1..they are NOT dependable….2..they are way too expensive for most people, ….3.. the batteries cost as much as my last car. Biden can shove his EV’s where the sun don’t shine.
Big mistake shutting down our fossil fuel and nuclear plants.
Why do I feel like I’m living a chapter from “Atlas Shrugged”? Not WHO but WHERE the f- is John Galt? Knowing Biden, held without bail in some black-op prison.
Really good for the auto restoration shops. We will have a lot of 30, 40, and 50 year old cars on the road. We will look like Cuba did before the communists completely destroyed the economy.
A long-haul trucker normally carries a 48,000 lb. payload on a regular a-train. Out West, where maxi loads are the norm, a typical b-train payload is 65,000 lbs. If these trucks go electric, their payloads will be cut in half along with their range. What do you think this will do to the cost of freight? Truckers get paid by the mile or hundred weight. They’re not taking a pay cut!
Let the liberals pay for excess cost pay for higher cost of electric fiasco
What we will need is a wood burning steam car.
Since they cannot actually ban gas cars we are going to end up like Cuba. You will end up seeing a lot of really old gas cars on the road that people are maintaining because they can’t replace them.
Global starvation and death is the goal! Only the elite/chosen deserve to live.
The EPA needs to go away. Along with a lot of other agencies and politicians in DC and around the country. Sure wish the people voting in states would wake up and get rid of the anti-American democrats (and even RINO’s)
This is insanity and evil. This cannot be allowed.
I wonder how far an Abrams M1 tank can go on battery power. I wonder if the enemy will wait while our soldiers have to recharge the batteries. As Forrest Gump says, “Stupid is as stupid does”. The radical progressives are the stupidest people on earth!
The checks and balances have been negated and we are no longer a nation ruled by law but controlled by rules and regulations of unelected bureaucrats. I feel like my government is like some kind of shell game and the pea has disappeared.
Let’s be honest, how much longer can we keep pumping fuel out of the ground before the well runs dry? Biden is on of the biggest polluters there is with flying around.