By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow
By The Daily Caller
Democrats have inserted numerous provisions and subsidy programs into their $3.5 trillion budget that would benefit green energy companies and speed the transition to renewables.
The Build Back Better Act would invest an estimated $295 billion of taxpayer money into a variety of clean energy programs in what would amount to the most sweeping climate effort passed by Congress, according to a House Committee on Energy and Commerce report. That price tag doesn’t factor in the other costly measures approved by the House Ways and Means, Agriculture, Natural Resources, Oversight and Transportation committees last month.
“This bill is crammed with green welfare subsidies, specifically for corporations and the wealthy,” House Ways and Means Ranking Member Kevin Brady told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.
“They are extending and creating a whole host of green energy tax credits such as electric transmission property, zero emissions facilities and clean hydrogen,” the Texas Republican continued. “These are no longer merely tax credits, which count against the taxes you owe. These are direct pay. In effect, they’re government checks from Washington.”
The credits Brady referenced would incentivize the development of new transmission lines delivering renewable energy nationwide, reward facilities that produce zero or net negative carbon emissions and offset major costs associated with producing clean hydrogen power. But these subsidies represent a small portion of the giveaways packed into the legislation.
Overall, the bill includes major aspects of the Green New Deal, the behemoth climate legislation first proposed by progressive lawmakers in 2019. The Green New Deal has an estimated price tag of nearly $93 trillion and would cost American families as much as $65,300 per year.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks during a rally about climate change issues near the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 13. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Democrats’ budget would include a credit worth as much as $12,500 for consumers who purchase a new electric vehicle, $2,500 for electric motorcycles purchase and even $1,500 for electric bicycles, according to Myron Ebell, the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Roughly $13.5 billion would be invested in building new electric vehicle infrastructure nationwide.
President Joe Biden recently set a goal for 50% of all vehicles purchased in 2030 to be electric. In addition, his administration said the U.S. would cut emissions 50% by 2030, have 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
“The whole thing is ridiculous,” Ebell told the DCNF. “It would be laughable except it’s not laughable because it’s going to have tremendously negative economic consequences. We can’t meet any of these targets, but in trying to do so we can do a huge amount of economic damage.” (RELATED: Experts Slam Biden’s Plan To Build Government-Funded Wind Farms)
The budget is a key cog in the president’s aggressive climate agenda and crusade against global warming which his administration has labeled a “crisis” multiple times since he took office. Days into his presidency, Biden nixed the Keystone XL pipeline permit, opened the door for sweeping regulation on fossil fuel producers and banned new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, but each executive action was met with a fierce response from states.
Since then, the president hasn’t just railed against fossil fuels, instead actively promoting renewable energy technology. His administration said Wednesday it would build seven wind farms nationwide that would have the capacity to provide enough energy to power 10 million homes by 2030.
President Joe Biden speaks as he tours the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Arvada, Colorado, on Sept. 14. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
“These technologies aren’t science fiction,” Biden remarked after a Sept. 14 tour of a National Renewable Energy Laboratory facility in Colorado. “They’re ready to be installed across the country right now.”
The Build Back Better Act would additionally implement a production tax credit for wind, solar and geothermal energy, according to Ebell. There is also an investment tax credit in the bill that would benefit developers of energy storage devices.
Perhaps chief among the climate policies found in the Build Back Better Act is the $150 billion Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP). The program, which is the centerpiece of the bill’s climate agenda, would incentivize energy companies to produce fewer emissions through a series of grants and fees.
“The CEPP is a repackaged version of a number of green energy proposals that have been made both recently and over the years to — we used to say nudge — now it’s much more of a heavy push towards utilities generating at least 85% clean energy,” American Institute for Economic Research senior faculty Ryan Yonk told the DCNF.
If an energy supplier increases their clean output by 4% compared to the previous year, it would be eligible for a sizable grant under the CEPP, according to the Energy and Commerce Committee. Companies that don’t increase clean energy by that amount will be punished with a large fine payable to the Department of Energy.
The program mandates that companies use grants to make energy more affordable for consumers. It also prohibits them from passing program costs to consumers, but fails to outline how it would ensure price increases aren’t tied to CEPP fines.
CEPP, though, continues to face opposition from Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who could be the deciding vote for the budget, Politico reported. Manchin reportedly wants to gut much of the program and include a broader definition of “clean energy.”
However, when asked in September about whether he would sign a budget bill with fewer climate provisions, Biden said he was “for more climate measures.” (RELATED: ‘We’re Off Track’: Here’s How Republicans Plan To Move The Needle On Climate Change)
“It’s not based on science. It’s not based on an overall strategic plan. It’s a lot of feel good stuff,” Republican Utah Rep. John Curtis, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus, told the DCNF when asked about the budget. “What are we trying to accomplish? What’s the goal? Nobody’s articulated that.”
He noted, for example, that the U.S. falls far short of the grid capacity to handle the number of electric vehicle charging stations the budget would fund. The budget hasn’t received the support of a single elected Republican, not even Curtis, who has backed many climate policies.
The bill also fails to acknowledge the shortfalls of such a rapid transition to renewable energy, Yonk said. Many projects, such as wind and solar, are still not profitable decades after investment began pouring into renewables.
In 2020, just 12% of the energy consumed by Americans came from renewables, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Solar and wind, which account for a large fraction of renewable energy produced, are nature-dependent and can be unreliable.
While producers often tout the energy capacity of solar and wind, they produce less than half of that capacity on average, EIA data showed. A rapid shift to renewables in Europe was a catalyst in the ongoing energy crisis that has seen oil, gas and coal prices skyrocket, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Renewables require large battery storage facilities to overcome some of the problems posed by their intermittent nature, but the U.S. has a total storage power capacity of almost 2 gigawatts, according to an EIA report in August. By comparison, the U.S. consumed about 3.8 million gigawatts per hour last year.
“We really don’t know what an energy market could look like because we subsidize and regulate all the different pieces of it,” Yonk told the DCNF. “We’ve taken what could be determined by individuals making their own choices and substituted it with a political solution where the values of those who lobby — whether they be on the green side or the energy production side — are what actually determines where we get things from.”
“As a result, we get things like the production tax credit or the investment tax credit that says, ‘okay, if you do these narrow list of things, we will provide a subsidy,’” he continued.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
COLUMN BY
Energy and environmental reporter. Follow Thomas on Twitter.
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EDITORS NOTE: This The Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
By John Eidson
As reported in the FrontPageMag article “Red China Tried To Go Green, Now It’s Going Dark,” the U.S. is currently experiencing widespread supply chain disruptions caused in part by China’s disastrous renewable energy collapse, which has led to a severely crippled economy brought on by widespread power blackouts.
Democrats tout green energy as a “clean” and “renewable” source of electricity. They also say that producing green energy has minimal impact on the environment (that’s a flat-out lie). For those who have been led to believe that green energy is “clean,” I strongly urge them to watch Michael Moore’s jaw-dropping documentary, “Planet of the Humans.”
The 2019 feature length film exposes the Democratic Party’s push for subsidized wind and solar energy for what it is: a brazen environmental hoax that causes eye-popping harm to the environment, while funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to Al Gore and other inside investors in government-backed green energy projects.
Please take the time to watch two movie trailers of Moore’s film, here and here, and then please watch the entire documentary with your family, especially if you have children or grandchildren who’ve been brainwashed with renewable energy propaganda.
China is not the only country that got slammed by the green energy hoax.
A 2012 article trumpeting the alleged success of Australia’s green energy subsidies includes an image of a kangaroo back-dropped by a sun-drenched sky. The image was used to conjure the happy thought illusion of a future filled with a limitless supply of cheap and clean renewable energy. You can see that image here.
Three years later, in 2015, the Daily Signal published an article titled “In Australia, the Green Energy Fantasy Has Collapsed.” Excerpt:
“Following in the footsteps of Germany, Spain and Italy, Australia is the latest country to veer away from the duplicitous path of green energy mandates, taxes and subsidies. Earlier this month, Reuters reported the collapse of the wind power market in Australia, causing the country’s Labor government to pull the plug on state subsidies for the renewable energy industry. Without those subsidies, investor interest evaporates.”
While renewable energy was falling flat on its face Down Under, a procession of doomed-to-fail green energy projects were launched in the U.S., where billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies funded wind and solar start-ups by politically connected allies of the Obama administration.
To gain support for what turned out to be a long trail of failed renewable energy projects, President Obama repeatedly assured American voters that the projects would not only save the planet, but would also produce an abundance of high-paying green energy jobs, the same thing that was told to voters in Australia.
Voters in Spain were given the same assurance. But in the birthplace of corrida de toros, government assurances that subsidized renewable energy projects would create an economic boom for the ages turned out to be a big load of green jobs bull.
According to a 2009 study at Madrid’s Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, promises of a green jobs bonanza proved to be pie in the sky. The study, conducted by Professor Gabriel Calzada, found that for every green job created, Spain lost 2.2 jobs in other sectors of the economy.
The result? Unable to remain globally competitive, Spanish manufacturers moved in droves to other countries, taking with them many of their most talented employees. With the beleaguered nation’s economy in shambles from having been saddled with stratospheric carbon taxes, unemployment soared to 26% in 2013, forcing Spain to put its green energy bull out to pasture.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised voters he would lead the devastated Covid economy to an epic comeback by “Building Back Better.” How? By creating an endless stream of green energy jobs, the same bogus promise President Obama made.
Biden’s campaign website boldly stated that he would “make the largest investment in history in American innovation, including research to unlock and deploy new zero-carbon technologies for the future, and create stable, well-paying jobs across the U.S.”
Translation: Open wide, gullible Americans. You’re being fed a heaping plate of green jobs bull.
To trick voters to acquiesce to the knee buckling carbon taxes called for in the Green New Deal, President Biden is using the same renewable energy scam described in Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans.” Please be sure to watch the film and share it with your friends and family. Seeing it will forever change the way low information voters look at renewable energy.
Global movements that demand trillions of dollars in new taxes should be judged by the credibility of their most outspoken advocates. In the environmental arena, no one is more outspoken than Al Gore.
Few insiders have personally profited from the renewable energy scam more than the former vice president. When he left office in 2001, his net worth was estimated at $1 million to $2 million. Since then, his wealth has skyrocketed to $300 million. If the New Green Deal legislation he supports is enacted, he stands to become a billionaire.
Much of his enviable fortune has come as an inside investor in renewable energy projects that went belly-up, but not before politically connected insiders made off with millions, leaving hardworking U.S. taxpayers stuck with the bill.
Like all wealthy eco-preachers, the Elmer Gantry of Renewable Energy uses his immense wealth to indulge in lavish living. When asked by Rep. Marsha Blackburn during his 2009 testimony before Congress whether he personally profits from his advocacy of global warming, Pastor Al professed a vow of poverty: “Every penny I have made I have put into a non-profit deal, the Alliance for Climate Protection, to spread awareness of why we have to take on this challenge. And Congresswoman, if you believe the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is out of greed, you do not know me.” If you’ve never seen the tense encounter, you do not want to miss it:
Turned out Rep. Blackburn knows him quite well. As the proud owner of a gargantuan green energy fortune, Pastor Al looked her squarely in the eye and denied making even a penny of profit. If every penny he makes goes into a non-profit deal, how did he end up with $300 million? The same way his alter ego pilfered money from the Lord: by concealing his true stripes.
©John Edison. All rights reserved.
By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
On Jan. 24, 2017, PBS aired a two-hour special on Rachel Carson, the mother of the environmental movement. Although the program crossed the line from biography to hagiography, in Carson’s case, the unbridled praise was well deserved – with one exception.
Rachel Carson was an American hero. In the early 1960s, she was the first to warn that a pesticide called DDT could accumulate in the environment, the first to show that it could harm fish, birds, and other wildlife, the first to warn that its overuse would render it ineffective, and the first to predict that more natural means of pest control – like bacteria that killed mosquito larvae – should be used instead.
Unfortunately, the PBS documentary neglected to mention that in her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, Carson had made one critical mistake – and it cost millions of people their lives.
On Nov. 1, 1941, Rachel Carson published her first book, Under the Sea-Wind. Although written for adults, the book had a child-like sense of wonder. Under the Sea-Wind told the story of Silverbar, a sanderling that migrated from the Arctic Circle to Argentina; Scomber, a mackerel that traveled from New England to the Continental Shelf; and Anguilla, an American eel that journeyed to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. “There is poetry here,” wrote one reviewer.
On July 2, 1951, Carson published her second book, The Sea Around Us. Two months later, The Sea Around Us was #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, where it remained for 39 weeks: a record. When the dust settled, The Sea Around Us had sold more than 1.3 million copies, been translated into 32 languages, won the National Book Award, and been made into a movie. Editors of the country’s leading newspapers voted Rachel Carson “Woman of the Year.”
In October 1955, Carson published her third book, The Edge of the Sea, a tour guide for the casual adventurer. The New Yorker serialized it, critics praised it and the public loved it: more than 70,000 copies were sold as it rocketed to #4 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Today, most people under the age of 40 have probably never heard of Rachel Carson. But in the early 1960s, almost every American knew her name.
On Sept. 27, 1962, Rachel Carson changed her tone. Her next book, Silent Spring, which she called her “poison book,” was an angry, no-holds-barred polemic against pesticides: especially DDT.
The first chapter of Silent Spring, titled “A Fable for Tomorrow,” was almost biblical, appealing to our sense that we had sinned against our Creator. “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change… the cattle and sheep sickened and died… streams were lifeless… everywhere there was the shadow of death.”
Birds, especially, had fallen victim to this strange evil. In a town that had once “throbbed with scores of bird voices there was now no sound, only silence.” A silent spring. Birds weren’t alone in their suffering. According to Carson, children suffered sudden death, aplastic anemia, birth defects, liver disease, chromosomal abnormalities, and leukemia – all caused by DDT. And women suffered infertility and uterine cancer.
Carson made it clear that she wasn’t talking about something that might happen – she was talking about something that had happened. Our war against nature had become a war against ourselves.
In May 1963, Rachel Carson appeared before the Department of Commerce and asked for a “Pesticide Commission” to regulate the untethered use of DDT. Ten years later, Carson’s “Pesticide Commission” became the Environmental Protection Agency, which immediately banned DDT. Following America’s lead, support for international use of DDT quickly dried up.
Although DDT soon became synonymous with poison, the pesticide was an effective weapon in the fight against an infection that has killed – and continues to kill – more people than any other: malaria.
By 1960, due largely to DDT, malaria had been eliminated from 11 countries, including the United States. As malaria rates went down, life expectancies went up; as did crop production, land values, and relative wealth.
Probably no country benefited from DDT more than Nepal, where spraying began in 1960. At the time, more than two million Nepalese, mostly children, suffered from malaria. By 1968, the number was reduced to 2,500; and life expectancy increased from 28 to 42 years.
After DDT was banned, malaria reemerged across the globe:
Since the mid-1970s, when DDT was eliminated from global eradication efforts, tens of millions of people have died from malaria unnecessarily: most have been children less than five years old. While it was reasonable to have banned DDT for agricultural use, it was unreasonable to have eliminated it from public health use.
Environmentalists have argued that when it came to DDT, it was pick your poison. If DDT was banned, more people would die from malaria. But if DDT wasn’t banned, people would suffer and die from a variety of other diseases, not the least of which was cancer. However, studies in Europe, Canada, and the United States have since shown that DDT didn’t cause the human diseases Carson had claimed.
Indeed, the only type of cancer that had increased in the United States during the DDT era was lung cancer, which was caused by cigarette smoking. DDT was arguably one of the safer insect repellents ever invented – far safer than many of the pesticides that have taken its place.
Carson’s supporters argued that, had she lived longer, she would never have promoted a ban on DDT for the control of malaria. Indeed, in Silent Spring, Carson wrote, “It is not my contention that chemical pesticides never be used.” But it was her contention that DDT caused leukemia, liver disease, birth defects, premature births, and a whole range of chronic illnesses.
An influential author can’t, on the one hand, claim that DDT causes leukemia (which, in 1962, was a death sentence) and then, on the other hand, expect that anything less than that a total ban of the chemical would result.
In 2006, the World Health Organization reinstated DDT as part of its effort to eradicate malaria. But not before millions of people had died needlessly from the disease.
Reprinted from The Daily Beast.
COLUMN BY
Paul A. Offit is a professor of pediatrics and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He is the author of Pandora’s Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong (National Geographic Press, April 2017).
EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
By H. Sterling Burnett
A Google news search today of the term “climate change” turns up dozens of stories carried by the mainstream media claiming a study from the World Bank shows climate change could force more than 200 million people to migrate within the borders of their own countries from farms to cities. Like previous predictions made about climate change forced immigration, this is wrong. The claims are based on simulations from flawed computer models. Real-world data paints a quite different story, showing crop production is increasing.
The Associated Press, The Hill, NBC News, Reuters, and Voice of America, were among the dozens of mainstream media outlets and news services publicizing a new report from the World Bank, titled “Groundswell.”
“Climate change is a powerful driver of internal migration because of its impacts on people’s livelihoods and loss of livability in highly exposed locations,” writes the World Bank. “[C]limate change, an increasingly potent driver of migration, could force 216 million people across six world regions to move within their countries by 2050.”
The main driver of internal migration, according to the World Bank, is that climate change will make farming increasingly difficult, forcing millions of people, mostly in agrarian developing countries, off their farms and into cities unprepared to handle the influx.
Had the media outlets hyping the Groundswell report bothered to examine existing data, they would have found the World Bank’s claims were unfounded. The World Bank’s immigration projections are based solely on computer models which the U.N. has recently admitted are flawed.
For example, CBS News’ coverage of the World Bank report highlights the purported likely internal migration of tens of millions of people within Algeria, Bangladesh, and Tunisia as a result of climate change.
Wheat and barley are the two most important crops in Algeria and Tunisia. Between 2000 and 2019, a period the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has referred to as the warmest two decades on record, crop production data from the United Nation Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show:
Wheat production in Algeria increased by more than 409 percent and barley production increased by more than 909 percent.
Wheat production in Tunisia increased by more than 71 percent and barley production increased by more than 289 percent.
Rice is Bangladesh’s top crop by a large margin. Between 2000 and 2019, FAO data show rice production in Bangladesh increased by more than 45 percent, setting new production records 13 of the past 19 years.
What’s true of Algeria, Bangladesh, and Tunisia is true for every region studied by the World Bank. As explained in Climate at a Glance: Crop Production, almost every nation on Earth is benefiting from steadily increasing crop yields as the Earth modestly warms. And as documented by the United Nations, the number of climate-related disasters has been declining this century.
It is a shame the mainstream media seems to have swallowed the World Bank’s bogus climate-induced migration claims hook, line, and sinker. Journalists should be more skeptical, especially since international agencies have made similar false predictions repeatedly in the past two decades only to have their prognostications prove untrue. For example, as detailed in Climate at a Glance: Climate Refugees, in 1989, a senior U.N. environmental official claimed, “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” Also, in 2005, the U.N. claimed, “Rising sea levels…will create up to 50 million environmental refugees by the end of the decade.”
Neither of these predictions, both based entirely on computer model projections, came true. The latter projection became such an embarrassment for the U.N. it tried to “disappear” the claim.
Climate change may provide an impetus for migration from farms to cities, but for good reasons, not bad. As crop yields improve, fewer people are needed on farms to raise crops. As nutrition improves and incomes increase, the history of development in developed countries shows, increasing numbers of people demand greater access to education and over time migrate to cities to take non-farm-related industrial, commercial, and white-collar jobs.
Surely the World Bank and the mainstream media can’t disapprove of economic development and the poor in developing countries raising themselves out of poverty previously so intractable that generation after generation of people are farm laborers out of necessity rather than choice.
*****
This article was published on September 13, 2021, in Climate Realism and is reproduced with permission from the Heartland Institute.
By Neland Nobel
That elections have consequences is certainly more than a slogan. It could not be more true when it comes to this pick for this agency. Democrats have confirmed a bona fide Eco-Terrorist to run the Bureau of Land Management that supervises much of our public lands and those that use them. This will have grave consequences for the western part of the United States and Arizona in particular.
As a younger woman, she wrote letters in favor of those accused of tree spiking and was prominent in environmental organizations in Montana.
The vote below tells you the consequences of electing two Democrats from Arizona. While both like to pretend the tack to the center, this vote seems like a clear slap in the face to rural Arizona and to common sense. Notice that both Sinema and Kelly voted for this nominee. Another “moderate” Joe Manchin did as well. The final vote was 50-45.
As much as we admire the spunk Senator Sinema is currently displaying, as well as Senator Manchin on budget matters, it just goes to show that when the ideological chips are down, Democrats will vote for Democrat nominees. We are also gravely concerned they will not hold on budget matters and will accept a huge increase in spending, maybe not as huge as currently proposed.
Conservatives need to concentrate their political efforts on voting out Mark Kelly in the next election cycle.
As Senator Barraso from Wyoming put it, “Senate Democrats just voted to confirm Tracy Stone-Manning to lead @BLMNational. She colluded with eco-terrorists. She stone-walled a criminal investigation for years. She lied to the Senate. And she still holds radically dangerous views.”
“The BLM director in Alaska is our landlord, and I don’t want an ecoterrorist as my state’s landlord,” Alaska Republican Dan Sullivan said.
The nomination had been stalled in committee with a 10-10 split but Democrats had the power to bring it to the floor and with their majority, pushed the nomination through.
Alabama:
Shelby (R-AL), Nay
Tuberville (R-AL), Not Voting
Alaska:
Murkowski (R-AK), Nay
Sullivan (R-AK), Nay
Arizona:
Kelly (D-AZ), Yea
Sinema (D-AZ), Yea
Arkansas:
Boozman (R-AR), Nay
Cotton (R-AR), Nay
California:
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Padilla (D-CA), Yea
Colorado:
Bennet (D-CO), Yea
Hickenlooper (D-CO), Yea
Connecticut:
Blumenthal (D-CT), Yea
Murphy (D-CT), Yea
Delaware:
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Coons (D-DE), Yea
Florida:
Rubio (R-FL), Nay
Scott (R-FL), Nay
Georgia:
Ossoff (D-GA), Yea
Warnock (D-GA), Yea
Hawaii:
Hirono (D-HI), Yea
Schatz (D-HI), Yea
Idaho:
Crapo (R-ID), Nay
Risch (R-ID), Nay
Illinois:
Duckworth (D-IL), Yea
Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Indiana:
Braun (R-IN), Nay
Young (R-IN), Nay
Iowa:
Ernst (R-IA), Nay
Grassley (R-IA), Nay
Kansas:
Marshall (R-KS), Nay
Moran (R-KS), Not Voting
Kentucky:
McConnell (R-KY), Nay
Paul (R-KY), Not Voting
Louisiana:
Cassidy (R-LA), Nay
Kennedy (R-LA), Nay
Maine:
Collins (R-ME), Nay
King (I-ME), Yea
Maryland:
Cardin (D-MD), Yea
Van Hollen (D-MD), Yea
Massachusetts:
Markey (D-MA), Yea
Warren (D-MA), Yea
Michigan:
Peters (D-MI), Yea
Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
Minnesota:
Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Smith (D-MN), Yea
Mississippi:
Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Nay
Wicker (R-MS), Nay
Missouri:
Blunt (R-MO), Nay
Hawley (R-MO), Nay
Montana:
Daines (R-MT), Nay
Tester (D-MT), Yea
Nebraska:
Fischer (R-NE), Nay
Sasse (R-NE), Nay
Nevada:
Cortez Masto (D-NV), Yea
Rosen (D-NV), Yea
New Hampshire:
Hassan (D-NH), Yea
Shaheen (D-NH), Yea
New Jersey:
Booker (D-NJ), Yea
Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
New Mexico:
Heinrich (D-NM), Yea
Lujan (D-NM), Yea
New York:
Gillibrand (D-NY), Yea
Schumer (D-NY), Yea
North Carolina:
Burr (R-NC), Nay
Tillis (R-NC), Nay
North Dakota:
Cramer (R-ND), Nay
Hoeven (R-ND), Nay
Ohio:
Brown (D-OH), Yea
Portman (R-OH), Nay
Oklahoma:
Inhofe (R-OK), Nay
Lankford (R-OK), Nay
Oregon:
Merkley (D-OR), Yea
Wyden (D-OR), Yea
Pennsylvania:
Casey (D-PA), Yea
Toomey (R-PA), Nay
Rhode Island:
Reed (D-RI), Yea
Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea
South Carolina:
Graham (R-SC), Nay
Scott (R-SC), Nay
South Dakota:
Rounds (R-SD), Nay
Thune (R-SD), Nay
Tennessee:
Blackburn (R-TN), Not Voting
Hagerty (R-TN), Nay
Texas:
Cornyn (R-TX), Not Voting
Cruz (R-TX), Nay
Utah:
Lee (R-UT), Nay
Romney (R-UT), Nay
Vermont:
Leahy (D-VT), Yea
Sanders (I-VT), Yea
Virginia:
Kaine (D-VA), Yea
Warner (D-VA), Yea
Washington:
Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea
West Virginia:
Capito (R-WV), Nay
Manchin (D-WV), Yea
Wisconsin:
Baldwin (D-WI), Yea
Johnson (R-WI), Nay
Wyoming:
Barrasso (R-WY), Nay
Lummis (R-WY), Nay
By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow
The Left is notorious for burying information beneath thousands of pages to hide the truth behind climate change. The recent 4,000-page AR6 Climate report from the UN’s IPCC is a case in point.
Wouldn’t it be nice to get the straight facts without having to sort through countless hours or pages of alarmist spin?
Well, look no further. CFACT’s new YouTube series the “Morano Minute” lays out climate facts and analysis while it pokes fun at the hypocrisy and lies of the Green Left – all in just one minute!
Hosted by CFACT’s own Marc Morano, editor of Climate Depot, the series is already making waves.
Recent segments cover how Virginians are fighting against a new climate law destined to make Virginia more like California’s failed energy grid. Other videos eviscerate the media’s attempt to blame the disastrous fall of Afghanistan on climate change, poke fun at environmentalists’ “climate religion,” and lay bare the hypocrisy of climate alarmists using the armadillo as a mascot for both warming today and cooling back in the 1970’s.
Are you itching for truth in a world where there’s nothing but political spin?
Watch the Morano Minute, share with a friend, and let’s debunk the lies of the Green Left together!
RELATED VIDEO: Peter Temple On Climate Change The Big Picture
EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column and video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
When I first learned of a plan to create a National Heritage Area (NHA) in NW Florida, I learned it would supposedly create economic development through historic and cultural tourism and would showcase our historic sites. That didn’t sound concerning. Then I discovered that it would encompass 14 counties, be funded through your hard earned tax dollars, be operated by a non-elected, non-government entity and be associated with the National Park Service. That is when alarm bells went off.
National Heritage Areas are pork-barrel programs with the very real potential of impacting the private property rights of those landowners located within the NHA boundaries.
Most people that I’ve talked to know nothing about National Heritage Areas, or have even heard of a NHA. That is including people who live in existing NHAs
According to the National Park Service (NPS), “National Heritage Areas (NHAs) are designated by Congress as places where natural, cultural, and historic resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally important landscape….NPS partners with, provides technical assistance, and distributes matching federal funds from Congress to NHA entities. NPS does not assume ownership of land inside heritage areas or impose land use controls” National Park Service website.
The first NHA was established in 1984. There are currently 55 National Heritage Areas scattered throughout the country. Each NHA receives up to $700,000 per NHA per year of your hard earned federal tax dollars via the National Park Service. Their enabling legislation claims there is a “sunset” where they are self sustaining financially and do not require your taxpayer dollars.
So far, none of the 55 NHAs have become self-sustaining and instead are a perpetual drain on the federal budget, with the older NHAs receiving reauthorization for more years-worth of our tax dollars. Watch the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands testimony of June 15, 2021. See the Congressmen as well as the Dept. of the Interior/National Park Service representative and others talk of a looming “crisis” where 30 of the 55 NHAs sunset on 9/30/2021 and they all desperately need re-authorization into the future to obtain more of your taxpayer dollars. They are supposed to be self sustaining but they are NOT.
Add to that the fact that the National Park Service is over $18 Billion (with a B!) behind in repairs and maintenance of the park system. The alliance of NHAs has a chart on their web site bemoaning that the federal government has only provided them with 33% of the promised funding. So, they promise communities money, but the NHA doesn’t receive it, so what makes you think the community gets it?
In the testimony, they said, “we are a great bargain! You gave us $20 million last year and we earned over $80 million in matching funds.” We are to believe they are bringing in more money than Congress is giving them yet they want more of your tax money. Something does not add up. If that is true, they are self sustaining and do not need federal – meaning your wallet – support.
Currently before the 117th Congress is HR1316/S 1942, a bill to standardize National Heritage Areas and create the National Heritage Areas System that will now include National Trails, National Rivers and all the other cats and dog programs under the NPS. This will expand this program and, of course, require more of your federal tax dollars.
We must urge Representatives Rutherford, Cammack, Waltz, Diaz-Balart, Bilirakis, Steube, Salazar, Scott, Mast, Gaetz and Dunn as well Senators Scott and Rubio to vote NO on HR1316/S1942 and any other NHA legislation. It is up to us to tell them to reject National Heritage Areas.
The Great Setup!
Typically, NHA enabling documents contain language that, according to proponents, is designed to protect private property rights by allowing property owners to refrain from participating in any planned project or activity within the heritage areas, not requiring any owner to permit public access to property and not altering any existing land use regulation, approved land use plan, or other regulatory authority.
In practice however, local government officials can be and are pressured by the NHA management entity to pass zoning laws and regulations not otherwise needed in order to support the NHA management plan. This is known as regulatory taking. In regulatory taking, you still own the property and pay taxes on it, but you aren’t reimbursed for any loss of use or value through restrictive zoning and ordinances passed by local and county governments to support the NHA management plan.
“National heritage areas are preservation zones where land use and property rights can be restricted. They give the National Park Service and preservation interest groups (many with histories of hostility toward property rights) substantial influence by giving them the authority to create land use “management plans” and then the authority to disburse federal money to local governments to promote their plans.” National Center for Public Policy Research, 2007 letter sent to congressional leaders and pertinent committee members.
So, whether by design or not, NHAs are the Great Setup for government to impose new infringements on your personal property rights.
So you may wonder if and where negative impacts have occurred in conjunction with National Heritage Areas. If you ask the National Park Service they will tell you there have been no negative impacts or complaints. But it’s not true. Here are just a few of the examples I’ve found.
In their own words!
“Since NHA management plans are approved by the Secretary of the Interior, the approval is considered a Federal action and, therefore, federal environmental laws including NEPA and other laws, such as Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), must be followed.”
Examples of NHA impact
“In Wheeling, the legislature designated the downtown area as a National Heritage Area in October 2000 when it passed the Wheeling National Heritage Act (WNHAA). This act created the Wheeling National Heritage Area Corporation (WNHAC) to manage and redevelop the area. In 2002, The WHNAC proposed to convert 90 percent of downtown Wheeling into a ‘Victorian-themed outlet mall.’ This plan would have condemned properties and transferred them from their present owners to private retail businesses chosen by City officials (Berliner 2003). Fortunately, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled the financing of the plan unconstitutional in May 2003.” Unleashing Capitalism: Why Prosperity Stops at the West Virginia Border and How to Fix It, Russell S. Sobel, Ph.D. Editor, Chapter 7, Edward J. López, Carrie B. Kerekes, George D. Johnson.
“When Augusta Canal NHA was undergoing initial approval, the National Park Service urged the House Resources Committee to withhold federal funds from Augusta Canal until a commitment was shown by those overseeing the creation of the NHA to implement stricter zoning laws and even create a state park.” Great National Land Grab, Peyton Knight, 2003
(Former) Deputy Director of the National Park Service, Donald Murphy, testified before the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks that one of the things the Park Service does when administering National Heritage Areas is survey land that would be suitable for future National Parks or National Park expansions. National Heritage Areas, The Land Grab Continues, Tom DeWeese, October 2012
“My county literally tried to ban cattle fencing in the middle of cowboy country. They zoned everything outside of the city as a park, at the same time they tried to join an existing NHA neighboring us.” Angel Cushing, via email, 8/19/2021, Lyon County, KS.
Folks, we have a National Property Rights Crisis. Here is a summary of reasons to be very concerned about NHAs:
Here is my bottom line: In my opinion, I do not trust the Congress or the NPS to operate this program in a manner that protects our private property rights in the long term. We have a National Property Rights Crisis. I don’t want any more National Heritage Areas.
NHAs are established via a federal law. Typically, one or more US House Members and one or more US Senators in the Proposed NHA will sponsor bills creating a NHA. If passed, it goes to the President where it is signed into law. The key is to stop NHA legislation before it reaches Congress. We must convince House Members and Senators that there is widespread public opposition to any NHA. We must not only convince them not to sponsor a bill but to reject co-sponsoring or voting for any NHA bill. Right now, there are efforts in Florida to create the Nation’s Oldest Port NHA in the area around St Augustine. Congressman Rutherford of Jacksonville has introduced H.R. 2107, the Nation’s Oldest Port National Heritage Area Act. Co-Sponsors (Rs): Cammack, Waltz, Diaz-Balart, Bilirakis, Steube, Salazar, Scott, Mast, Gaetz, Dunn. Tell them all to vote NO on any bill authorizing or funding a National Heritage Area.
Sign our “Stop FL Panhandle Maritime National Heritage Area” petition. (This site hosts multiple petitions so please make sure to find ours) Visit: https://www.petitions.net/stop_panhandle_nha
Visit our web site: www.StopNHA.com and Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/StopNHA
Don’t underestimate word of mouth. Talk to everyone you know about this important topic. They can contact us via the facebook page to arrange meetings with interested citizens. Have them demand Congressmen oppose this.
Contact Information for US House Members from Florida and US Senators from Florida
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The Lower 48 states of the US cover four time zones. The sun sets in California about 3 hours after the sun sets in New York. One must wonder if the folks running the government in Washington DC are aware of this. President Joe Biden’s plan for a climate-friendly electric grid depends on his administration’s ability to construct thousands of miles of power lines to bring energy from the wind and the sun across the nation.
This is intended to meet the Democrats’ goal of eliminating the power sector’s carbon dioxide emissions. Their purpose is to save the world from predictions made by mathematical equations saying the Earth might warm a few degrees ending life as we know it.
New transmission lines will be required to carry wind and solar power across the country to replace electricity previously supplied from coal and natural gas. As the sun sets in New York and their wind calms, California may be able to keep Manhattan’s lights on for a few more hours before all goes dark. There are however other major problems.
Eric Wolfe writing at politico.com [1] pointed out the tremendous local opposition encountered constantly to high-voltage transmission lines. Efforts by power companies to build these long-range transmission lines have failed repeatedly in recent decades. They become mired in legal and political fights from the opposition of states and communities along the projects’ paths.
In fact, Wolf’s article failed to point out that all sources of energy and all means of transmission/transportation of energy are regularly opposed by people who call themselves environmentalists. It would appear they yearn for life in the mid-nineteenth-century when heating was with wood, air conditioning nonexistent and transportation was by horse.
Nuclear energy has long been stifled by opposition based on unsubstantiated fear and there is a war against all fossil fuels because of global warming said to stem from the odorless, colorless, life-giving gas CO2.
Let me remind all readers, we are not just talking about fuel for Transportation but the capacity to create Electricity, cook our food, heat and cool our homes, manufacture everything, fertilize agriculture, create most products and provide sanitation. Mark Mathis at Clear Energy alliance.com is campaigning to end the use of the term fossil fuel and replace it with the acronym TECHMAPS which holds the initials of each of the most important things for which we use petroleum products.
Industrial wind machines are opposed by neighbors on the grounds of deep vibrating sound, shadow flicker, and ugliness. Solar panels that spread out over huge tracts of land render the land unsuitable for farming.
To make hydropower useful, you have to have a large flow of water, a big change in elevation, and a huge lake to store the water. The lake floods huge areas, much to the consternation of environmentalists. To grow energy crops, such as corn for ethanol, requires water, fertilizer, and pesticides, all annoying to the average environmentalist.
We all know that pipelines for carrying oil or natural gas meet opposition wherever they are proposed. The most notable one is the Keystone pipeline, which after years of struggle has been canceled by the brain trust in Washington. Yet railroad tank cars and tanker trucks which are far more dangerous than pipelines, also regularly meet opposition.
Transmitting electricity from place to place requires cables. The greater the distance the power must be transmitted, the higher the transmission voltage has to be. The more the sources are spread out, the greater becomes the web of transmission lines, and the greater the number of lawsuits brought by environmentalists.
Environmentalist nannies tell us to turn down the thermostat, eat raw vegetables, stop eating food that came from distant places, drive less, take the stairs instead of the elevator, and so forth.
In other words, the battle against power lines is just another skirmish in the larger war against energy production, transport and use. It is a fair bet that 80% of the environmental road blockers are democrats but don’t expect them to back down for President Biden’s master plan for using only wind and sun to run our country.
The hypothetical wind/solar grid (ignore its impossibility) that is being promoted is not—repeat, not—a source of electricity. Like any utility’s grid, “the grid” merely delivers electricity from where it is generated to where it is used by virtue of transmission lines. Some might require a million volts of direct current (dc), for noon solar power to be delivered from Arizona to New York, Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta.
The real problem, however, is that even on this grid, every source of energy must be able to provide power all the time, because the requirement for every grid is 99.9% reliability. When the current on the grid is lowered a tiny amount of automatic circuit breakers shut down throughout the system and in a very few minutes the entire system shuts down to save itself. Catastrophic destruction occurs throughout the system and weeks are required to put the grid back in operation. February in Texas this year escaped that situation only by about 5 minutes as they cut off power to enough companies and locations to get back in balance.
Regardless of these incontrovertible facts, Wolff quoted from Biden’s recent address to Congress:
“My American Jobs Plan will put hundreds of thousands of people to work — hundred [sic] of thousands of people to work — line workers, electricians, and laborers — laying thousands of miles of transmission lines; building a modern, resilient, and fully clean grid,” he said.
Ideally, the utilities and the grid would have very few employees, because everybody on the payroll costs consumers money. The purpose of utilities is to provide the highest quality, most reliable electricity at the lowest cost, not to have the most employees. Providing electrical power is a service, not a make-work project.
And what, precisely, is unclean about the present grid? We can hardly wait to see the “modern” wires.
Even a bigger problem is that building long transmission lines has always been hampered by what developers call the “three P’s”: planning, permitting, and paying for it. “These long-haul transmission lines take eight to 10 years to build,” said Lauren Azar, a transmission expert and former DOE adviser and Wisconsin state commissioner. “And we as a nation don’t even have the right planning processes right now to identify the right transmission that is needed.” Simply put, while you will continue to see large groups of wind turbines and solar collectors proliferate across our nation on your tax dollar, they will never make up a significant portion of our nation’s energy utilization no matter who is in the White House.
*****
This article was published on September 30, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from CFACT, The Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow.
The world and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are proposing banishment of fossil fuels and are focused on reducing emissions from fossil fuels at any costs, but a safety net of having a viable replacement should be in place before we jump off that cliff.
Banning oil imports, fracking, and ceasing oil production to focus on the symbolic renewable energy as the fossil fuels replacement is fooling ourselves as that “clean energy” is only electricity generated from breezes and sunshine.
Before the healthy and wealthy countries abandon all crude oil fracking and exploration that will eliminate the supply chain to refineries and put an end to that manufacturing sector, we should have a safety net to live without the crude oil fuels and derivatives that are manufactured from that energy source. Without any clones to access everything we get from crude oil; the termination of its use could be the greatest threat to civilization.
The more than 6,000 products including asphalt roofing, asphalt roads, fertilizers, and all the products in hospitals that come from the derivatives manufactured from crude oil are more important than the various fuels to the world to operate planes, trucks, militaries, construction equipment, merchant ships, cruise ships, and automobiles.
Electricity alone can recharge your iPhones and EV batteries, but wind turbines and solar panels cannot manufacture the derivatives that are needed to make the parts of those iPhones and Tesla’s and the components in solar panels, wind turbines, and automobiles.
Reliance on intermittent electricity from breezes and sunshine is unfathomable as electricity by itself is unable to support the prolific growth rates of the military, airlines, cruise ships, supertankers, container shipping, trucking infrastructures, and the medical industry that is already about 90 percent dependent for the products from petroleum, to meet the demands of the exploding world population.
Only healthy and wealthy countries like the USA, Germany, Australia, and the UK can subsidize electricity generation from breezes and sunshine, and then, its only intermittent electricity at best. The 80 percent of the 8 billion on earth living on less than $10 a day cannot subsidize themselves out of a paper bag.
Those poorer countries must rely on affordable and abundant coal for reliable electricity, while residents in the healthy and wealthier countries pay dearly for those subsidies with some of the highest costs for electricity in the world.
Before the healthier and wealthier countries cease all oil production, they need to focus on an answer to what safety parachute exists to replace what we get from crude oil.
Energy is more than electricity from breezes and sunshine. Electricity by itself cannot provide the thousands of products from petroleum that are essential to our medical industry, transportation infrastructure, our electricity generation, our cooling, heating, manufacturing, and agriculture—indeed, virtually every aspect of our daily lives and lifestyles. Nor can electricity alone, support the military, airlines, cruise ships, supertankers, container shipping, and trucking infrastructures.
The greatest threat to civilization would be from the elimination of crude oil as that commodity is manufactured into the oil derivatives and transportation fuels that can bring the poor out of poverty and are the reasons, we have healthy and wealthy developed countries. Going cold turkey to electricity from breezes and sunshine is not the wisest move without a safety net to rely upon that can support worldwide lifestyles and economies as we now know it.
*****
This article was published on September 22, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from CFACT, The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.
Prince-in-name-only Harry Windsor and his wife Meghan Markle really, really care about the planet and climate change.
We know this because they often tell us.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (who reside eight time zones away from their monarchical fiefdom) now grace the cover of the latest issue of Time magazine for being among the “100 Most Influential People.”
This, after last July when they received an environmental “award” from the group, Population Matters, for stopping at two children, which is further evidence they care.
As the familiar expression goes, talk is cheap.
The fact that Harry and Meghan live in a 9-bedroom, 16-bathroom mansion in the Montecito enclave of Santa Barbara, California, drive a Cadillac Escalade SUV, and still use private jet travel evidently are beside the point. They made the choice of stopping at two children so as to not add to their family’s long-term carbon footprint. This begs the question, why does a family of four need triple the number of bedrooms? Would not, say, five bedrooms be enough to obviate bunkbeds and host visitors?
Their extravagant home looks like an upgrade from their royal digs when they lived in London as newlyweds, at the Frogmore Cottage. Though their Montecito pad has one fewer bedroom, it appears to have more appurtenances.
The upshot is that you can be awarded as an influencer for having only two children ostensibly to help the planet, even as you amass square footage and consume energy sufficient to support a Cub Scout pack.
In reality, Harry’s and Meghan’s actions reveal they care as much about the climate as they do about their privacy – meaning, not at all.
This couple, who uncannily fits the definition of critical mass narcissism, interviewed with that famous media personality, the one and only Oprah Winfrey, where they were assured a series of softball questions and millions of viewers (they got both). During this televised spectacle, they played the victim and trashed the British royal family.
They are not done. Harry is working on a tell-all memoir for mega-bucks that will plunge the knife deeper into his family, revealing more dirty laundry. This is one of the ways he earns a living; after all, it’s expensive to maintain a mansion, use private jets and play polo – all while preening concern about the planet’s sustainability.
This current issue of Time magazine, that once-great media organ that has long since jumped the shark, has a dolled-up cover photo of Ms. Markle standing prominently with her quasi Prince dutifully in his place behind her. The article describes them this way:
“Springing into action is not the easy choice for a young duke and duchess who have been blessed through birth and talent, and burned by fame. It would be much safer to enjoy their good fortune and stay silent… That’s not what Harry and Meghan do, or who they are. They turn compassion into boots on the ground through their Archewell Foundation. They give voice to the voiceless through media production.”
This reads like a parody, written by their friend, Jose Andres. If he was not paid handsomely by Harry and Meghan for such propagandistic drivel, he should have been because he earned it.
If these two poster-children for narcissism and excess were serious, principled people, they would eschew such recurring vanity, go about their business and, in Harry’s case, renounce his title of Prince and whatever ancillary royal titles remain.
If Harry and Meghan were sober-minded and committed, they also would live more modestly and set a better personal example for environmental stewardship. Two years ago the radical group, Friends of the Earth, requested that Meghan “consider less carbon-intensive modes of travel.”
Not a chance.
Incessantly carping about climate change while consuming exponentially more energy than an average family to air-condition a 15,000-square foot mansion and much more does not make for ideal spokespersons for the cause.
If the climate cottage industry writ large was serious, and the “climate emergency” or “climate crisis” was really about a healthy environment and saving Earth, it would not be spearheaded by indulgent, wealthy hypocrites like the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, former Vice President Al Gore, Jane Fonda, Leo DiCaprio, Bill Gates, et. al.
All of this reminds us that the climate change agenda is not, and has never been, about the environment and preserving the planet. It is about a political agenda of power and control; about governing society to subjugate the masses while the elite class preserves and enjoys their possessions and virtue signals to the rest of us in order to feel good about themselves.
That arrangement of elites controlling societies has largely prevailed throughout history, from ancient to feudal times; and through communist and dictatorial nations in modern times.
The United States as a mostly free society has largely deviated from that historical condition. Climate change politics threatens to remove such American exceptionalism – if we allow such. Pushing back includes calling out craven influencers like Harry and Meghan who obtain publicity for all the wrong reasons.
*****
This article was published on September 20, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from CFACT, The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.
The U.S Forest Service announced the cancellation of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI), prompting criticism from Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and U.S. Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema.
“The Forest Service blindsided Arizonans with their decision to cancel the long-awaited 4FRI contract,” Kelly said in a press release. “This is unacceptable and is only going to further erode Arizonans’ trust in the Forest Service.”
The 4FRI initiative sought to clear brush from areas of northern Arizona that pose outsized forest fire risks. As more areas were to be thinned of the thick fire hazards, officials hoped to integrate wildfires into the risk management plan. The initiative was intended to treat millions of acres of forested land across the Coconino, Kaibab, Apache-Sitgreaves and Tonto National Forests in order to restore ponderosa pine ecosystems in northern Arizona and prevent wildfires.
Forest Service officials were expected to grant the contract for Phase 2 of the project in June to a private logging partner. However, in March, officials announced the number of acres to be treated, and last week, they canceled the contract solicitation for Phase 2.
“Overall, the government’s conclusion is that the requirements for meeting the restoration objectives…are not reasonably aligned to industry needs,” the Forest Service press release read. “In addition, significant financial and investment risks remain which ultimately represents a performance risk to the government.”
Ducey said he was frustrated by the government’s lack of action.
“Every Arizonan has an interest in keeping our forests healthy,” he said in a press release. “Clearly, we cannot and will not wait for the federal government to step up and do their part to protect our communities and address wildfire risks.
The governor referenced the AZ Health Forest Initiative legislation passed in March.
“This program utilizes Arizonans who are serving time to clear forests of debris – making our forests healthier and setting them up for post-release success,” he said.
In their joint press release, Kelly and Sinema said the cancellation will delay the thinning of northern and eastern Arizona forests, placing the state at further risk of forest fires.
“Today’s abrupt decision undermines years of work to protect Arizona communities from wildfires and flooding,” Sinema said. “This reversal comes at a particularly dangerous time for communities across Arizona, as wildfire season gets longer each year.”
She called the Forest Service to assure citizens that they will take action to protect Arizonans from wildfires.
“The federal mismanagement of our forests poses an ongoing risk,” Ducey said. “But Arizonans should know that we remain proactive in our pursuit of forest health and disaster prevention. We will continue to work with federal and community partners and safety personnel to protect people, pets and property.”
*****
This article was published on September 21, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The Center Square.
If there’s one thing the Left knows cold, it’s deception. From Vladimir Lenin to Saul Alinsky, leftists are unparalleled masters of the art of victory through hoodwinking: Defeating opponents by fooling them into false agreement.
Owning the battlefield in this war starts with controlling the language. We’ve seen this play out in the debate over abortion access, with pro-choice activists redefining “pro-life” to mean anything but the conviction that life begins at conception—and swindling unwitting Christians into their ranks.
Now it’s spreading to the debate over climate change, with environmental activists claiming there’s nothing “partisan” about their one-sided campaign to fundamentally transform America. Radicals, socialists, and authoritarians know that global warming offers them the best chance to weaponize Big Government and dictate where Americans live and work, what they drive, eat, and buy, and even what beliefs they’re allowed to hold—all through fear.
Truth-loving skeptics are all that stand in their way. So what better way to defeat them than by undermining the skeptics’ unity with false promises?
Meet the “eco-Right,” the collection of lobbying, litigation, and activist nonprofits that identify themselves as free market yet who have bought the Left’s argument that the Earth is getting dangerously hot and we’re to blame. Groups like ClearPath, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, and the Climate Leadership Council disagree over specific policies—some want a devastating carbon tax to reduce emissions, others want federal subsidies for expensive lithium batteries—but all want skeptical Republicans to compromise with uncompromising leftists on their global warming policies.
By doing so they threaten to undermine both affordable energy in America and the future of the conservative movement—which is why they’re often funded by the likes of George Soros as well as the Ford and Hewlett Foundations.
My colleagues and I at the Capital Research Center first broke the news on the secret liberal mega-donors bankrolling the eco-Right in order to rebrand radical environmentalism as “conservative.” Our new report, Rise of the Eco-Right, compiles years of research and investigative reporting to expose the funders, leadership, and lobbying of the eco-Right, exposing a web of overlapping boards and shared donors in service to a destructive and cynical agenda.
We’ve studied the professional Left for decades and are all too familiar with activists’ use of deception and misdirection to camouflage their agenda to the casual glance. Unlike Activism Inc., we believe that Americans should be free from fearmongering to listen to arguments from both sides and come to their own conclusions in the global warming debate. Rise of the Eco-Right aims to make it clear that climate-conscious conservatives cannot compromise with the Left because activists aren’t interested in anything less than a “green” socialist revolution.
Don’t take my word for it—that’s the crux of an open letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) signed by 263 activist groups in November 2019, urging Congress to pass the Green New Deal—arguably the most sweeping legislation ever proposed in America—to combat “increasing income/wealth inequality and rising white nationalism and neo-fascism” in America.
Today’s environmentalists are more interested in “environmental racism” and “restitution for Black and Indigenous farmers” than the environment, and they’re no longer hiding it behind the fig leaf of saving the planet from greenhouse gases.
Recall the explanation that Green New Deal author Saikat Chakrabarti’s gave to the Washington Post: “Do you guys think of [the Green New Deal] as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”
Here’s the bottom line: carbon taxes, “green” tech subsidies, and greenhouse gas pledges will never be enough for Big Green because the debate isn’t really about those things, but power. Activists know this, which is why they’ve abandoned these “market-friendly” proposals for the ultimate prize: the utopia of socialized medicine, federal jobs for everyone, slavery reparations, and more.
The eco-Right offers the Left a backdoor for the kind of statist policies that conservatives would never support—if they weren’t falsely labeled. It’s a siren’s song that promises free-market answers to climate change but will only result in tyranny. Conservatives, you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by listening to the eco-Right—so don’t give up the ship.
*****
This article was published on September 17, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from Capital Research Center.
Few things have been demonized by the liberal media as much as the process of hydraulic fracturing, aka “fracking,” for oil and natural gas.
To counter the Left’s misinformation on the subject, CFACT has produced a new video of our Conservation Nation YouTube series titled: Drilling into the Truth Behind Fracking. You can watch it here. CFACT’s own Gabriella Hoffman does an excellent job explaining the fracking process, dispelling misconceptions, and telling the story of those working in the field.
Fracking led to America’s world-leading CO2 emissions reductions of recent years (if that’s your thing) while also fueling our prior energy independence (until Biden came along, that is).
Fracking achieves the environmentalist’s goal of emissions reductions without heavy-handed growth of government while also fueling human prosperity. Of course, the Left would hate it.
Claims from radical greens that fracking harms health or contaminates ground water are completely unfounded. Fracking proved that technological innovation from the free market is the best solution to our energy future.
Tucked into the massive legislation are restored protections to bar drilling within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 1002 Area.
House Democrats are seeking to exploit the reconciliation process with a $3.5 trillion dollar package in pursuit of high-priority progressive programs. That wish list includes a litany of items on the left-wing green agenda, with protections against Arctic oil exploration at the top.
Tucked into the massive legislation last week by the House Natural Resources Committee are restored protections to bar drilling within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s (ANWR) 1002 Area, a nearly 1.6 million-acre patch along Alaska’s northern coast opened for oil and gas extraction in 2017.
“There isn’t a more clear example of congressional confusion than the current move by ‘wildlife-above-human-life’ extremists to ban oil and gas drilling in ANWR’s Coastal Plain,” said Rick Whitbeck, the Alaska state director for the energy nonprofit Power the Future. “They forget that Congress authorized and encouraged development in that exact area previously, and that banning future development puts the local indigenous people in peril of having to out-migrate from their village to find jobs to sustain their families.”
If passed, the package would likely seal the fate of drilling prospects in ANWR until Republicans reclaim both chambers of Congress and the White House to reverse course. The Biden administration, meanwhile, has continued to pull every lever to keep operations offline, from suspending oil and gas leases on federal lands to ordering new environmental reviews reassessing proposed projects.
The 1.6 million-acre stretch opened for exploration in 2017 amounts to less than 10 percent of the total refuge (which is roughly the size of South Carolina) off limits to development in northeast Alaska. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, somewhere between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil remain underneath the surface of the 1002 Area, which would make it one of the most productive oil fields in the country as gas prices reach seven-year highs.
The only tribe living within the proposed boundary for drilling, the Iñupiat, have lobbied Congress for decades to allow development projects to move forward. Radical environmentalists seeking to preserve the entire state — which constitutes nearly a fifth of the entire nation’s landmass — as an untouched museum they’d maybe like to visit one day, however, have successfully exploited the opposition of a rival tribe hundreds of miles south of the 1002 Area to cloak opposition under the moral righteousness of environmental justice.
“The Gwich’in Nation, living in Alaska and Canada and 9,000 strong, make their home on or near the migratory route of the Porcupine caribou herd, and have depended on this herd for their subsistence and culture for thousands of years,” wrote California Democrat Rep. Jared Huffman as he re-introduced legislation in February to permanently ban the Iñupiat from harvesting the resources in their own backyard.
A look into the Gwich’in tribe’s past, however, raises questions about its genuine opposition to drilling in the Arctic Refuge, which remains entirely outside the tribe’s territory.
In the early 1980s, the Gwich’in sought to lease every last inch of its Alaskan Venetie Reserve to oil companies seeking to drill what many thought would be lucrative underground reserves. After exploration turned up short of any prospects for profitable drilling, the Gwich’in became vehemently opposed to oil and gas development across the state and partnered with progressive interests in the campaign.
The caribou, meanwhile, remain unbothered by the oil and gas activity on the North Slope 60 miles southwest of the 1002 Area, with populations continuing to rise and decline with their natural cycle.
Matthew Rexford, the tribal administrator for the Iñupiat village of Kaktovik within the 1002 Area, labeled his own people “refugees on their own lands,” prohibited from accessing the lucrative resources under them even though they are located on a flat plain rarely even visited by Alaskans, let alone elites who can afford the high-dollar trip.
“We are frustrated that we are not being heard and the Iñupiat living in Kaktovik and elsewhere on the North Slope are an ‘inconvenient truth’ to an administration dead set on shutting down Arctic development,” Rexford told The Federalist.
In an August interview, Alaska Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy shared the tribe’s frustrations.
“If we were able to do what we wanted to do, we’d be one of the richest states by far,” Dunleavy told The Federalist.
*****
This article was published on September 18, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The Federalist.
Climate alarmism provides an excuse for increased taxation of fossil fuel companies, which inevitably shift this cost burden to the consumer.
Sports coaches preach having “no memory.” Meaning you have to forget your mistakes.
A football quarterback has to forget his last pass was an interception. Because he needs to think about his next pass.
Most, unfortunately, some of the least athletic people on the planet have taken this sports axiom to heart. And unlike in sports – they demand we don’t remember either.
Behold the Democrats – and their “imminent doom” climate change predictions.
It is quite possible there has never been a more error-prone business – than the climate alarmism prediction business.
Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions(Editor’s Note: You need to read this.)
As the article demonstrates, Big Media has long been doing its part. It has spent the last half-century jamming climate alarmism down our throats. Trying to have us forget about the last failed prediction – by immediately pivoting to the next failed prediction. No memory, remember?
A fun part of Big Media: They incessantly lie to us – and then poll us to see if the lies have taken. And then they lie about the poll results – when their lies haven’t taken.
But Big Media doesn’t have to conduct the poll themselves. They’ll happily lie in support of other Leftists polling and lying about it.
Progressive Pollster: 65 Percent of Likely Voters Would Back Polluters Tax
It’s a progressive pollster, so…
The progressive pollster and Big Media lyingly mash together two very different groups of respondents:
“A survey of likely voters found that 77 percent believe fossil fuel companies have “a lot” or “some” responsibility to address climate change, including 86 percent of Democratic respondents, 66 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of independents.
“When pollsters described a proposal to levy a $500 billion fee against major creators of emissions like Exxon, BP, Shell and Chevron, respondents “strongly” or “somewhat” supported such a measure, 65 percent to 25 percent. This included 83 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of independents in support.”
I have “a lot” of interest – and am “strongly” interested – in five million dollars. I have “some” interest – and am “somewhat” interested – in five dollars. Lumping these two groups together – is a lie. The actual breakout – reveals the hugeness of the lie.
43% of all voters say energy companies have “a lot” of responsibility. The rest (34%) say “some responsibility.” So in fact a strong majority of voters agree that fossil fuel companies bear no – or a little – responsibility for the fake premise that is “climate change.”
And the “a lot” alarmist number – is almost entirely made up Democrats. They’re at 62% – compared to 39% of independents and 24% of Republicans.
So the entire presentation of this poll – is a lie.
Of course, Big Media does nothing in a vacuum. Everything they do is in support of everything other Leftists-Democrats are doing.
And, of course, Leftists-Democrats never allow facts to get in the way of a good beating. “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” – no matter how fake and un-serious the “crisis.”
This fake story on a fake poll on real taxes imposed in the name of fake “climate change” – follows immediately on the heels of Democrats proposing real taxes in the name of fake “climate change.”
Why should a half-century of climate alarmism being very, very wrong – get in the way of Democrats really taxing the crap out of us in the name of climate alarmism? No memory, remember?
Senate Democrats to Introduce Measure Taxing Major Polluters:
“Senate Democrats are set to unveil legislation that would tax energy companies responsible for major greenhouse gas emissions to pay for the costs of climate disasters.”
Never mind the fact that NONE of the predicted climate disasters over fifty-plus years – have ever actually happened.
Never mind the fact that taxing real energy producers – means they will have to pass along the taxes to us…the real energy users.
So we will pay a lot more for energy – and the government will get a lot more of our money.
Which does nothing for the climate.
But does a lot for the government.
Of course, they’re hoping we’ll forget all of this.
*****
This article was published on September 15, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The Heartland Institute.
Welcome! We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.
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Ivermectin is effective for COVID-19 when used early. Analysis of 64 studies
Directories of US Physicians who may prescribe Ivermectin: here, here and here.
US Pharmacies that will fulfill an Ivermectin prescription: here and here.
I-MASK Early Outpatient Treatment for COVID-19
Short video: Joe Rogan and Ivermectin: Should COVID-19 Be Politicized?
Study: Ivermectin: a drug with indicated efficacy against COVID-19
Time for an Honest Dialogue about Treating COVID-19
India’s Ivermectin Blackout – Part III
India Announces State is COVID-19 Free Using Ivermectin
Ivermectin, ‘Noble Lies,’ and Whom Do We Trust?
Video: Indian Bar Association vs WHO
‘Get Sicker’: Anatomy Of A Failed Policy
Doctor Warns: Feds May Ration Monoclonal Antibodies
Pfizer is testing a drug to treat COVID-19 infections
Medical Boards’ Message to Physicians: Keep Quiet on Vaccine or Risk Loss of License
Nobel Prize Winner Reveals – COVID Vaccine is ‘Creating Variants’
COVID-19 vaccine boosters unnecessary, say FDA advisers resigning over issue
FDA panel deals massive blow to Pfizer’s COVID booster vaccine
Short video: Use common sense to do a COVID Data Comparison in 3 countries
Exclusive Summary: COVID-19 Vaccine Concerns
Red Cross warning: COVID-vaccinated humans are INELIGIBLE for donating plasma
CDC Reports of Injuries, Deaths After COVID Vaccines Hit New Highs
News Station’s Appeal For Stories About COVID Deaths Gets an Unexpected Response
Doctor reports a ‘20 times increase’ of cancer in vaccinated patients
Long-Term Dangers Of Experimental MRNA Shots
Study: Some effects of mRNA vaccine on immune system
Report: DNA/RNA Vaccines: “Can They Alter Our Own Genetic Codes”
Biden announces vaccine requirements, impacting tens of millions of Americans
Members of Congress and Their Staff Are Exempt From Biden’s Vaccine Mandate
The Totalitarian Roots of Vaccine Mandates
MD Report: COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates Are Now Pointless
NY Hospital stops delivering babies due to mandate resignations
Hospital staff must swear off Tylenol, Tums to get religious vaccine exemption
Video: How Are Forced Covid Vaccinations Different From The Mark Of The Beast?
NY Health Workers Get Federal Court Relief from Compulsory Covid Vaccines
NY Health Care Heroes File Lawsuit Against Shot Mandate
Judge refuses to temporarily block state’s COVID vaccine mandate
Biden’s Vaccine Mandates Must Be Opposed Through Every Legal Means Available
Republicans Threaten Lawsuits Against Biden Vaccine Mandate
Statistics and Research: Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) [Our World in Data]
Excellent: Six COVID-19 facts we’re in danger of forgetting
Open Letter from Healthcare Professionals
130+ UK Doctors: Failed COVID Policies Caused ‘Massive’ Harm
Every death caused by COVID-19 vaccines will be blamed on COVID-19
Public Health Scotland COVID-19 Statistical Report
Oregon Senators File Petition Calling for Investigation into CDC’s Willful Misconduct
Want to see what COVID strain you have? The government says no
New NIH Study: Analysis of the Effects of COVID-19 Mask Mandates
Report: Scientific Observations about the Medical Establishment’s Handling of COVID-19
How the Pandemic Is Changing the Norms of Science
A simple strategy for defeating the COVID narrative
Senator Paul says new Wuhan documents show Fauci lied
The biomedical security state is determined to reduce every human to a QR code
Gaslighting Ivermectin, vaccines and the pandemic for profit
Short video: Australian Police Bash and Pepper spray 70-year old woman
Energy Prices in Europe Hit Records After Wind Stops Blowing
We cannot afford to stop and start society based on the wind blowing
The High Cost of Wind, Solar and Battery Systems in North East US
UK electricity prices now most expensive in Europe (largely due to renewables)
Greenflation: Household bills to soar by more than £1,500 a year, analysts warn
Solar Project Sale Reveals Green Energy Sorcery
Report: Rise of the Eco-Right
Missouri’s largest wind farm isn’t running at night for fear of killing endangered bats
Wind industry faces its own green dilemma: landfills
EV Battery Fires Won’t Keep Pols from Putting You in Them
Wind turbine nuisance test case starts in Australian Supreme court
Oregon farmers allege violations at wind turbine project
Small Nuclear Reactors Will Power Our Future
China prepares to test thorium-fueled nuclear reactor
Nuclear Fusion: U.S. and China race to build world’s first commercial plant
Companies lying about going to 100% renewables
California’s Grid Operator Asks Feds To Burn More Fossil Fuels To Avert Blackouts
Australia rebuffs Biden, Boris and the UN; vows to keep mining coal
Oil and Gas Industry Targeted by Democrats Out to Destroy It
Video: Blue Hydrogen. The greatest fossil fuel scam in history?
Environmentalism as Religion: Unpacking the Congregation
World’s biggest battery sidelined after “overheating incident”
EV Battery Fires do not bode well for projected sales
The Major Problem With EVs No One Is Talking About
China Making Itself An Energy Superpower As Biden Cowers
Does China Really Believe in ‘Climate Change’?
Meteorologist: Media Writes “Climate Click-Bait” Stories Using Well-Known Formula
A recent Climate “fact-check” article makes multiple false and misleading claims
The Media Is Lying About Greenland and Climate Change
15 Years On, Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ has Proved to be Largely Inaccurate Tripe
COP26 And Carbon Imperialism: A Showdown Looming
The climate debate in 15 minutes
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Election-Integrity.info (10 major election reports by our team of experts, plus much more!)
Real Progress Is Not What Progressives Have in Mind
Dems make it impossible for Sen. Manchin to support H.R. 4
Manchin’s election bill would nationalize no-excuse absentee mail-in ballots
Dark money gives top Dem lawyer ‘nearly unlimited funding’ for election lawsuits
Short Video: What You Didn’t Know About Mail-In Ballots
Arizona Audit To Be Released Sept 24th
Maricopa County and AZ Senate reach agreement
Texas Gov. Abbott signs election integrity bill, SB1, into law
California’s Audit-Proof Scheme to Steal Elections
NY Democrats Set to Gerrymander the GOP Out of Existence in the State
Mesa County (CO) Report #1 with Forensic Examination and Analysis
Superior Short Video: Don’t Take The Bait
Short Video: What Radical Islam and the Woke Have In Common
Report: The $3.5T Spending Mistake
Clinton lawyer’s indictment reveals ‘bag of tricks’
We Are in a War for America’s Soul
Large Sections of the Border Wall Have Been REMOVED
NY Democrats Set to Gerrymander the GOP Out of Existence in the State
Virtue-Signaling Pastors On The Left And The Rapid Rise Of Communism
My University Sacrificed Ideas for Ideology — So Today I Quit
University Professor Resigns, says School is a ‘Social Justice Factory’
Why Free Community College Solves The Wrong Problem
Australians All Let Us Deplore
Scientific Pretense vs. Democracy
Short video: Science Of Persuasion
Report: The Facebook Files
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Copyright © 2021; Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (see WiseEnergy.org).
Editors’ Note: Progressives and the Green Industrial Complex are hell-bent on using your money (state subsidies) to force the public into “green energy” and particularly, electric cars. Instead of what occurred earlier at the turn of the 20th century when gasoline, kerosene, steam, and electric cars competed openly and fairly with each other, our elites want to cram their choices down our throats. But like every other decision, one must be aware of the trade-offs. One trade-off is that EV vehicles are not better for the environment. Another is the electrical grid is not prepared to support the widespread use of EVs. It appears that conversion to EVs favors China in many important ways. And now two other related issues: The problem of intense and toxic fires and much higher overall insurance cost. Before you get bribed into using an EV, perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the negative trade-offs. Could it be the central planners don’t know any more about the environment than they did about Afghanistan, crime, inflation, and Covid? When the market makes a choice, trade-offs cannot be ignored as they play a key role in cost and consumer choice. Consumers voluntarily make choices and producers voluntarily comply with their wishes. What works can be maintained and that which does not work fails in the voluntary marketplace. This allowance for failure guides the market to correct and cost-effective conclusions. When the government makes the choice, it is one size fits all, backed by state subsidies and coercion. And as for failure, if recent history proves anything, it is that our elites that run our institutions are never held accountable for anything they do.
After a Volkswagen Golf (not an electric vehicle) caught fire in the underground car park in Eku-Platz, Germany, the city’s civil engineering department closed the car park for five months. Damages (all eventually paid for by insurance) amounted to 195,000 euros. As a condition for the reopening, however, the insurance company forbade the use of the underground garage by hybrid and electric vehicles.
There were several reasons. Lithium batteries can only be cooled with extinguishing water and continue to burn for several days. The car park’s ceiling is not high enough to pull out burning vehicles with heavy equipment. This means that every other vehicle in the car park, as well as the entire building, remains at risk of a fire or explosion that could have disastrous results. Yet as the fire protection report admitted, nobody had even considered the magnitude of the fire risk from lithium-ion batteries prior to the Golf fire.
The fire risk from electric vehicles is not just a German parking garage problem. Nearly a year ago the National Transportation Safety Board acknowledged that at least half of the nation’s fire departments are not equipped to put out battery-powered car (EV) fires. The NTSB too agreed that lithium-ion batteries burn with extraordinary ferocity; battery fires also release emissions of extremely toxic fluoride gas.
Last November Reuters reported that worldwide acceptance of EVs, despite government mandates and subsidies, is being threatened by a global string of fires from overheated batteries. The article included a list of recalls by major auto manufacturers and what their investigations found.
Hyundai recalled at least 74,000 Kona EVs, after 16 of them caught fire over a 2-year period, to upgrade their battery management systems. Of the first 23,000, Hyundai found 800 vehicles with battery defects requiring replacement of modules said the have a significant risk of an electrical short circuit.
Ford Motor Co. recalled 20,500 European Kuga plug-in hybrid EVs and suspended sales. Ford offered to replace the entire battery pack, identifying the root cause as a battery cell contamination in its supplier’s production process. The setback delayed the U.S. debut of the Escape SUV.
BMW’s recall was limited to about 4,500 plug-in hybrid EVs, admitting that debris may have entered the battery cells during production, which could lead to short-circuiting and a “thermal event.” BMW also recallefficd 26,000 other plug-in hybrids over potential battery problems.
In response to a petition filed pursuant to a class action lawsuit, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration recently probed potential defects in certain Tesla vehicles that could result in non-crash fires. The plaintiffs claim that Tesla limited the battery range of older vehicles via a software update to avoid a costly recall to fix alleged defective batteries.
Capping the list is General Motors, which initially recalled nearly 70,000 Chevy Bolt EVs over fire risks, with the fix limiting battery charges (and thus mileage) to 90 percent capacity. The NHTSA has also investigated why three Bolts caught fire while parked. GM says the problem was traced to a torn anode tab and a folded separator, both of which could occur at the same time and create conditions that could lead to a short in affected cells.
In August, GM announced a second recall of 73,000 more Bolt EVs (every Bolt ever made) to replace new battery modules; the fix could cost GM $1.8 billion. Moreover, GM has decided to idle Bolt production “due to the impact of the global chip shortage.” Meanwhile, GM has recommended that Bolt owners park their vehicles outside and limit battery charges to 90 percent or lower, at least until replacement batteries are ready and service appointments are scheduled.
The problem with this mandate is obvious. Those whose in-home EV charging stations are in their garages cannot exactly park their EVs outside and charge the vehicle at the same time. The same goes for EV chargers now located in underground garages. Moreover, the fixes typically reduce battery charging by at least 10 percent, further shortening the vehicle’s range.
One supposes that some EV owners could just move their charging stations outside, but who leaves a vehicle out in winter cold or summer heat when they have a perfectly good garage? Yet who wants to risk burning down the house to avoid scraping the windshield or putting their tushes on a hot car seat?
Earlier this year Value Penguin reported that auto insurance for EVs is on average about 23 percent more expensive than for an equivalent internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle. This is despite the fact that the average EV is driven far fewer miles a year than ICE vehicles. In California, home to 40 percent of U.S. EVs, drivers average just 5,000 miles per year behind the EV’s steering wheel. For many, the EV is the second (or third) car. But will insurance companies also raise rates for EV owners with in-garage charging stations?
In the Golden State, embattled Governor Gavin Newsom a year ago issued an executive order that would ban the sale of ICE vehicles buy 2035, with enforcement left to state agencies. One problem with this mandate is that the California Air Resources Board may be able to implement rulemaking to ban ICE sales, but CARB has no authority over vehicle registration and no authority to set registration fees to make ICE vehicles more expensive.
President Joe Biden, too, has talked tough about a nationwide mandate for EVs, but he, too, may be in deep trouble with voters over a number of other issues. As more and more people learn that their EVs pose a fire risk by manufacturers telling them to park their EVs outside, it seems quite possible that voters will soon sour on any politician who mandates inconvenient outdoor charging to avoid the risk of setting their homes on fire.
*****
This article was published on September 10, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from CFACT, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.
The ability to constantly digitally track and record what we do exposes us to the potential for monstrous abuse.
Witness the use of “social credit” scores by the Chinese Communist Party to intimidate and control.
Now they’re rolling out new CO2 tracking credit cards. What could go wrong?
Marc Morano posted to Climate Depot that:
The new CO2 monitoring Mastercard called Doconomy debuted in order to enable “all users to track, measure and understand their impact by presenting their carbon footprint on every purchase.” The credit cards feature the slogan on them reading “DO. Everyday Climate Action” and have a personal pledge on the rear of the card boasting: “I am taking responsibility for every transaction I make to help protect the planet.” The Mastercards feature the UN “Global Climate Action” logo on them as well.
This CO2 tracking credit card is voluntary, yet every day we see a new push to replace voluntary choices with government mandates.
Could we all be subjected to digitally monitored CO2 limits the next time President Biden “loses patience” with us?
EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
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