Biden Federal Government Goes Full Suicide Bomber Against America

May 14, 2023/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

From his first days in office, President Biden has promised — threatened — to activate the administrative state at every level to address and solve the “climate crisis.” In the orthodoxy of the Biden/Democrat climate cult, this is to be accomplished by reducing U.S. carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

Now, even if you believe that a little more CO2 in the atmosphere is some kind of a problem (it isn’t), there is nothing that the United States can do to have any meaningful impact on that situation, given that countries with populations a large multiple of ours (China, India, Africa) are building coal-fired power plants as fast as they can. Even if we closed our economy entirely and reduced ourselves to eating grass and bugs, the effect on the climate would be zilch.

Meanwhile we have waited through the first two plus years of Bidenism to find out exactly what punishments the administrative state has in mind for us for our sins of prosperity and enjoyment of life. In the last few weeks, we have learned at least part of the answer, in the form of a series of gigantic new regulatory proposals emanating from EPA and other agencies. The answer is, the federal government will become a suicide bomber seeking to blow up and destroy the American economy and the well-being of the American people.

Here are three major regulatory initiatives from the past few weeks, each one supposedly somehow addressing this “climate crisis” thing:

• On April 12, EPA released its proposed rule titled “Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light- Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles.” This rule essentially makes it impossible for automobile manufacturers to produce anything but fully-electric vehicles within a few years.

• On May 5, the Department of Energy released proposed new “efficiency” standards for dishwashers.

• And then on May 8, EPA released the mother of all regulations, with the endless title “New Source Performance Standards for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from New, Modified, and Reconstructed Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; Emission Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Existing Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; and Repeal of the Affordable Clean Energy Rule.” This is the long-awaited regulation that seeks a complete transformation of the electricity-generation sector of the economy, toward something that has never been demonstrated to work and whose cost is without doubt a large multiple of the system we now have.

I previously covered the new vehicle rule, really an EV mandate, in this post on May 5. True to form of regulators who treat their subjects with contempt, the rule never explicitly states that the cars we now use are henceforth to be banned. Rather, it is some 262 pages of impenetrable text, which has buried somewhere deep inside a formula (82 g/mile CO2 emissions) that only an industry professional would know effectively bans internal combustion vehicles. All manufacturers are to be forced to comply, irrespective of whether they can do so profitably.

What is the probability that the new EV mandate will put all large U.S. and European automakers out of business in favor of Chinese competitors who have an advantage in the EV segment? The regulators neither know nor care. From Engineering & Technology, May 9:

According to insurers Allianz Trade, China’s decision to invest heavily in EV production over the last 15 years has made it the global leader in this sector. . . . Chinese brands have seen their global market shares climb from less than 40 per cent in 2020 to close to 50 per cent in 2022. This is heavily bolstered by an 80 per cent market share in their densely-populated home country.

In the world of dishwashers, we already have dishwashers that don’t work very well. The reason is regulator-imposed restrictions on use of energy and water. Today, due to these restriction, dishwashers run for more than two hours, and still don’t get the dishes very clean unless you pre-wash them by hand. Well, with the new Energy Department rule, it’s about to get a lot worse. From the WSJ, May 12:

The proposal requires manufacturers to slash water use by a third, limiting machines to 3.2 gallons per cycle, down from the current federal limit of five gallons. New appliances must simultaneously cut estimated annual energy usage by nearly 30%.

And then there is the new power plant rule. This one is 682 pages. Again, it never explicitly says that fossil fuel power plants are banned; it’s just that the emissions standards that they set cannot be met by any fossil fuel plant. The WSJ on May 11 calls the rule a “death sentence” for fossil fuel power plants.

Supposedly the fossil fuel plants can continue to operate if they adopt some means to capture the carbon emissions from their exhaust. I have previously described this idea of carbon capture as a “war against the second law of thermodynamics.” Trying to capture CO2 from power plant emissions requires energy, and the higher the percentage of the emissions you want to capture, the more energy it takes. If you insist on capturing all of the emissions and somehow storing them permanently, it’s going to take more energy than the power plant produces. There has been endless talk about carbon capture for more than a decade, and there is almost nothing in the way of functional carbon capture systems, because as they capture enough carbon to be meaningful, their cost soars out of control.

Will there be any functional replacement for the fossil fuel plants by the time they are forced out of business? This rule doesn’t trouble itself with such matters. That’s for the low status people to figure out. Over here at EPA, we are much too important for that. Our job is to save the planet.

So the regulatory onslaught continues. We are told to expect yet more such regulations, notably in the area of home appliances, in the near future.

Put it all together, and the term “war against the economy” no longer does justice to what is going on. This is a full-blown attack by suicide bombers. They are so crazed with the righteousness of their cause that they couldn’t care less about the destruction and devastation they might cause to the innocent people around them, let alone even about their own death. Who ever thought our federal government would get into such a role?

Europeans war against food ignores water pollution

By Duggan Flanakin May 15th, 2023 14 Comments @ CFACT 

According to the World Health Organization, 31 million Europeans have no access to public sanitation and 48 million do not have piped water at home. At least 300,000 Europeans follow San Francisco’s practice of defecating openly – but in the countryside rather on public streets. But just as in the United States, water quality has taken a back seat to “climate change.”

On another front, the European Commission has adopted a “Sustainable EU Food System,” an initiative that intends to set agricultural policies for European farmers from the top down – by bureaucrats most of whom have never plowed a field. The Czech-based Society for Animals commented that a mandatory sustainable food system framework must cover areas related to the environment, climate, water, air, soil, the impact on farmed animals for food – as well as trade, transport, economic instruments, and strict food import rules.No farmers need apply.

Meanwhile, in once-prosperous Europe, the European Environmental Bureau reported in 2021 that over a fifth of all Europeans were at risk of falling into poverty or social exclusion because food is seen as a commodity and not a human right. Only bureaucrats can save Europe, they add. No farmers need be consulted.

The EEB declared that “it is absurd to expect that simply giving people information about the nutrition or sustainability credentials of food and relying on them (the people) to make the ‘right’ choice” is no match for the evils in the “food environment” manufactured by market forces. Only if policymakers “step up to their role as defenders of the public good,” using “all policy instruments at their disposal,” is there hope that European eating habits will be conformeed to the bureaucrats’ demands.

Chief among the bureaucratic “solutions” is the claim that “Europe has a moral responsibility to reduce the land and resources needed for our own food consumption.” The reason? We, they tell us, are living “in a world where fertile land is dwindling due to climate change and environmental degradation and global population is increasing.”

Curiously, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported in 2021 that the global value generated by agriculture, forestry, and fishing grew by 73 percent in real terms between 2000 and 2019, and total production of primary crops grew by 53 percent during the same period. Agriculture, they noted, employs 27 percent of the global workforce. [Real world fact: Increased levels of carbon dioxide over the past three decades have caused an 11 percent increase in green foliage over the globe’s arid regions.]

Part of this grand scheme has already been playing out in the Netherlands, where the government in 2022 announced a plan to buy up and close down up to 3,000 farms “near environmentally sensitive areas” to comply with European Union nature preservation rules. Specifically, agriculture is responsible for about half of nitrogen emissions that are alleged to be causing the disappearance of native species.

The European People’s Party stood up for the farmers, calling agriculture a “strategic sector” that delivers food security in Europe and beyond and plays a crucial role for the vitality and economies of rural communities.

The EPP set its sights against the proposed Nature Restoration law, noting that the implementation of existing nature legislation has led to bureaucratic nightmares and planning deadlocks that have endangered rural economic viability, food security, renewable energy production, and crucial infrastructure. Such laws, said the EPP, are a direct assault on property rights, and taking 10 percent of farmland out of production would be extremely irresponsible.

In March, to the chagrin of the planners, the farmer-citizen movement (BBB), created in 2019 in the wake of widespread farmer protests (tractors blocking highways, for example), won 15 seats in the Dutch Senate with almost 20 percent of the vote. The BBB’s aim is to fight the government plan to force farmers off their lands, reduce livestock and crop production – that is, to protect their livelihoods from the foibles of urban disrespect for those who feed them.

The battle is on in Europe for the future of farming – and in a world dominated by urban politics, farmers and other rural residents whose livelihoods for centuries have been intertwined with those of farmers are viewed as just “not with it.” After all, urbanites today eat heavily processed foods and are being introduced to such delicacies as artificial meat and crickets.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Biden Administration is continuing his former boss’ war on agriculture. According to a “study” funded by a $10 million grant back in the Obama years, fine particulates (dust and soot emissions) from farm operations are killing 17,000 Americans annually. Poppycock, says the Union of Concerned Scientists, citing other studies claiming fine particulates kill between 100,000 and 200,000 people a year. Back in 2011 EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson claimed fine particulates were responsible for a fifth of all U.S. deaths.

In both Europe and the U.S., the eagerness of urban “intellectuals” (bureaucrats) to attack farmers and rural residents has increased as globalist institutions have grown in wealth and power. Concentrated power is easier for the very wealthy to influence, and just as with the pharmaceutical industry’s vaccine gambits surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, the rules government creates always seem to benefit the rich at the expense of the common people.

There is little profit to the wealthy in replacing aging water and wastewater and sewer lines, cleaning rivers and streams of accumulated pollution, or even providing running water to those in isolated communities. To the bureaucrat, there is nothing sexy about enabling the hoi polloi to enjoy water recreation in cleaned up lakes and streams. The regulations they impose on farmers and rural areas do not affect their lives.

In Europe and America – and in developing nations as well – people who live on and from the land are fighting to protect their homes and families from the “wisdom” of urban elites. This is, ultimately, the great battle of our day. [Note: AIs require neither food nor water for sustenance.]

Author

• Duggan Flanakin

  Duggan Flanakin is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. A former Senior Fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Mr. Flanakin authored definitive works on the creation of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and on environmental education in Texas. A brief history of his multifaceted career appears in his book, "Infinite Galaxies: Poems from the Dugout."

Comments to EPA on the proposed mercury and air toxics (MATS) rule

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.   May 14th, 2023 36 Comments @ CFACT

My name is Bonner Cohen, and I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the agency’s proposed MATS rulemaking on behalf of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).

I will confine my remarks to one key aspect of the proposal. This is the first time EPA has updated its MATS standards since 2012. Those standards, which were part of the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) were subsequently overturned in a landmark Supreme Court Case, Michigan v. EPA. In its decision, the Supreme Court faulted the agency for proposing a rule in which EPA’s estimate of the costs far exceeded the agency’s estimate of the benefits. The benefits were put at $4-6 million a year while the costs were pegged at as high as $9.6 billion a year. Noting this enormous difference in its decision to overturn the 2012 rule, the court said “[n]o regulation is ‘appropriate’ if it does significantly more harm than good.”

Now, 11 years later, EPA is putting forward another MATS rulemaking, only this time the agency has not offered any estimate of the direct benefits of its proposal. Instead, the agency cites Section 112 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), which deals with Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) for its statutory authority for the MATS rule, but fails to provide a HAPs-related justification for its rulemaking.

This is an end-run around the law. Congress passed Section 112 to deal specifically with HAPs. EPA is now using Section 112 to address non-HAPs issues. Instead, the agency cites alleged ancillary benefits, such as PM2.5 ancillary benefits, to justify the rule. Whereas is the 2012 rule, EPA did identify a small amount of mercury emissions reduction to justify its action, in the current rulemaking proposal, it did not identify a single dollar of direct benefits from reducing mercury emissions from power plants.

As such, today’s proposal is on even shakier legal ground that the 2012 MATS rulemaking the Supreme Court struck down.

The agency’s current rulemaking faces the near certainty of a court challenge, one that is likely to end the same way as EPA’s ill-fated 2012 proposal. Playing it fast and loose with the Clean Air Act is not sound environmental policy.

Thank you very much.

Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph. D.

Senior Analyst

Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow

Author

• Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

  Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT, where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments. Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Busines Daily, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Epoch Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers around the country. He has been interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, NBC News, NPR, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, N24 (German-language news network), and scores of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. Dr. Cohen has addressed conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh. He has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.

How to Make Your Murder Matter

By Daniel Greenfield May 15, 2023 @ Sultan Knish Blog 

If you want your murder to matter, you need to be shot, not stabbed. How much coverage did the four University of Idaho students stabbed to death in their apartment last year get? Even though theirs was the first murder in Moscow, Idaho in 7 years, you probably didn’t hear about it.

Mass stabbings don’t have the same sexy cachet as mass shootings. Unlike the UK, no one responds to mass stabbings by proposing to ban chef’s knives. (Yet.)

But not all guns are equal.

If you really want people to notice your murder, you had better arrange to be shot by an AR-15 or some mean-looking gun that Democrats want to ban as a “weapon of war”. Handguns are used in 78% of mass shootings. Like the kind that happen every weekend all over Chicago. And you don’t want to be just another statistic among the “15 shot over a bloody Sunday afternoon”.

Handguns don’t count. If you want your murder to matter, don’t get stabbed or shot with a pistol. Remind the shooter that if he doesn’t invest in an AR-15, he won’t make the evening news.

If you are about to be shot by an AR-15, congratulations, you’ve almost hit the lottery. Your brutal murder will be reported on CNN. Paid activists will brandish your photo for a week or so at gun control rallies. If you’re really lucky, Biden or Kamala might even call your family. But there are still a few things you can do to improve your brand and maximize your murder recognition.

Be a minority. Even if you’re not technically a minority, it’s never too late to discover some long-lost Indian heritage or to decide that you’re non-binary in the 3 seconds before the (hopefully) AR-15 rounds impact you. Also you can rapidly convert to Islam by quickly mouthing three times the sacred Islamic shahada, “Muhamad fi halat ‘shikker’ w’Allah ‘fressing’ fi ‘ayaam aljumueat fi TGI Fridays”. If you or the bullet are in a hurry, just skip to the last words.

Those 3 seconds can make all the difference between your murder being a mere “crime” and a much more serious “hate crime”.

Aside from making the national news as a non-binary 1/256th Muslim Cherokee murdered by an AR-15, your murderer might actually be punished, instead of released with an apology by a Soros DA. While murders, like most crimes, have been practically legalized, hate crimes (except when committed by minorities against white people, Asians or Jews) are a very serious matter. Murders are just a body hitting the floor, but hate implies politically incorrect views which, unlike crimes, are still actually punished by social media cancellation and lifelong unemployment.

If you’ve done everything right to get the most out of your murder, you are a transgender Muslim woman fighting for abortion rights after illegally crossing the border being shot by an AR-15.

But wait, that may not be good enough. If you really want your murder to matter to the only people who matter, the media and their party which is bent on banning guns except when they’re being used by licensed Planned Parenthood clinicians to clinically shoot babies in the womb eight months after a hookup turned out not to be true love, your killer must be white.

Since ‘whiteness’ is a kind of free-floating miasma that can infect anyone at any time, like being concerned about crime and graphic pornography in schools, or voting Republican, there’s some wiggle room about whether your killer is really white. Skin color isn’t nearly as important as the intangibles. Even if your shooter is black, Latino or Asian (he won’t be, but diversity is important even in mass shooters and the Biden administration is working hard to recruit some Korean-Americans willing to shoot up a mall), it’s possible that he could still be white.

Consider this “whiteness chart” from the Smithsonian Museum of African American History which, drawing on the best scientific practices of the researchers of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, identified certain negative characteristics of “whiteness” such as individualism, the nuclear family and rational thinking.

Ask your shooter if he believes that “hard work is the key to success” and if he understands “cause and effect relationships” (he probably doesn’t).

Inquire if he’s a monotheist or follows “rigid time schedules”. Does he always want to “win” or “do something” about a situation? Does he like “steak and potatoes”. If he answered in the affirmative to any of those questions, congratulations, your killer is white. Even if he’s black.

Because black and white is not a ‘black-and-white’ issue and some black people are white and some white people are black. Especially in Portland. Also any Latino shooting at you with an AR-15 is almost certainly white. But to secure your entry to woke heaven, recite the shahada three times backward while announcing that you feel like a woman and can’t wait to teach kindergarteners about your sexual identity no matter how much their parents may disapprove.

The bad news is you’re dead, but the good news is your murder mattered.

In a nation with skyrocketing murder rates (not to mention the rates of more minor matters like felony assault or battery which are usually pled down to misdemeanors with the perpetrators moved to a diversion program and asked to occasionally show up in court in exchange for Broadway tickets), it does no good to be murdered if your murder doesn’t stand out.

If you’re going to be murdered, you don’t just want to be another statistic. And the next best thing to suffering a drug overdose while being knelt on by a white Minneapolis police officer or passing on while being restrained from attacking a woman in a subway is being killed in a mass shooting which meets all the right racial and gun control policy criteria of the Democratic Party.

In a nobler world, perhaps every man, woman or non-binary transgender Muslim Cherokee’s death should matter, but politics is the art of the possible, and these days it’s our only art. Books are being rewritten, films are being recut, and people are being canceled for not meeting political standards. The value of human life, like everything else, must pass a political test.

Pro-crime progressives have decided that murder must meet the values of diversity,inclusion and equity. In medicine, that means some patients get prioritized in triage or the vaccine line based on their race. In the criminal justice system, killing some people is okay while killing others is wrong. As the great progressive Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvilli once steelily put it, “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” And then he proved his point.

In a society where the murder rate is racing inflation to the right side of history, you may be murdered before you starve to death on green government soy gruel, but at least you’ll go out knowing that the better sorts of people who still fly jets and cook on gas stoves think your death matters. All it takes is making sure you’re murdered in the politically correct way. At least until the actual political purges begin and politically correct murders take on a whole other meaning.

For now, take comfort. You too can be a martyr of the state. And even if you never parade around in George Floyd’s golden coffin, for a moment the mindless avatars of the state, Joe Biden, CNN and your son’s elementary school teacher, will smile down and usher you into progressive heaven where you feast on a slightly better quality of soy while listening to NPR.

Above all else, you will have the privilege of knowing that your death made a political difference. And isn’t that what life is all about?

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.Thank you for reading.

Death of the EV dream, er, nightmare

By Duggan Flanakin May 13th, 2023 78 Comments @ CFACT

Now that the American Dream has been turned into a nightmare in part by overspending that has led to the highest interest rates in the 21 st Century, it is high time to admit that, as Melanie Mcdonagh writes in The Telegraph , the electric vehicle dream, too, “has turned into a nightmare.”

Mcdonagh, who admits she does not drive, points out many problems, among them the horrific impact when a heavy, quiet-running electric vehicle hits an unsuspecting pedestrian or a cyclist. She also notes that some of these “vehicles” are collecting data on route history and road speed that governments (and corporations) can use for remote surveillance (and marketing gimmickry). Another problem is that the much heavier EVs could collapse bridges and force lengthy detours.

Mcdonagh, however, has barely scratched the surface of the mess created by the hipster culture that believes everything sacred must be sacrificed before the god of carbon (dioxide) reduction. It turns out that manufacturing electric vehicles has to date been a bad investment for automakers, despite all the subsidies.

Ford Motor Co. says it will lose $3 billion on EV sales this year, after losing $900 million in 2021 and $2.1 billion in 2022, when the company sold 96,000 units. Price drops by Ford and Tesla (and doubtless other companies) are not coming because the vehicles are cheaper to manufacture but because demand has slowed despite the new Biden subsidies. As Robert Bryce points out, Ford in the first quarter of this year lost $66,446 on every EV it sold.

One reason for the huge losses is the increasing price of battery materials, reflected in the 7 percent increase in the volume-weighted average for lithium-ion battery packs from 2021 to 2022. The Biden subsidies are supposed to offset such costs, just as the Biden build in America plan (in Michigan, at least, by Chinese companies) has no chance of diminishing China’s huge lead in EV battery and vehicle production.

Senator John Kennedy (R, LA) recently asked, “If electric cars are so swell. why does government have to pay people to drive them?”

A new J.D. Power report points to a number of reasons that American consumers are sticking with internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. While the highest objections to EVs are high prices and lack of public charging infrastructure, vehicle range, charging times, and the threat of grid disruptions that render EVs useless are also deterrents. Other concerns are fires, power surges that lead to accidents, towing capacity and range, and performance in bad weather.

Even a third of Gen Z shoppers, who have been bombarded with pro-EV propaganda for most of their lives, admit they are unlikely to buy one.

It is obvious that the EV boom, such as it is, has been powered nearly entirely by heavy subsidies and marketing hype initiated by bureaucrats and politicians, most of whom have no background in auto sales or any service industries. Their M.O. is bribery and thuggery (forcing people into unwanted choices through market manipulation). Automakers are beginning to balk at these techniques, if only because they see their customer base shrinking once people cannot buy the vehicles they have used for decades.

While Ford and other companies are now boasting of the towing capacity of their EVs, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. >MotorBiscuit last month reported that the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T can be souped up to tow 10,000 pounds, far short of the gasoline-powered F-150, but with an average range of only 88 miles. That hardly works for multiple tows in a day or for towing a trailer to a campsite 100 or more miles from home.

Imagine putting your family into the truck, hitching up the Airstream, and driving out to the mountains for a weekend at the lake. Finding a charging station where you don’t have to unhitch the trailer to get to the plug-in is a huge challenge, and you have to do this multiple times on a 300-mile trip. With a maximum 90-mile range, you need to recharge every 60 or 70 miles, taking 30 minutes or more for each recharge. You lose an entire day each way. So practical.

Far worse, though, are the risks and challenges to tow truck drivers with an EV that has stopped running. Not only are the vehicles heavy, they are dead weight, locked in park, and potentially suspect to spontaneous fires that ordinary extinguishers cannot put out. A 2021 National Transportation Safety Board report notes that “the energy

remaining in a damaged high-voltage lithium-ion battery, known as stranded energy, poses a risk of electric shock and creates the potential for thermal runaway that can result in battery reignition and fire.”

Of course, the bean counters with their glorious visions for an all-electric future (replete with blackouts, price increases, and other tricks to keep the majority of people off the roads entirely) do not take into consideration ANY of the real reasons people drive cars and trucks. Their ONLY consideration appears to be the imaginary reduction in carbon dioxide emissions their computer models insist can only happen by inconveniencing “the little people.”

But should those “little people” elect leaders who will end the inflationary subsidies and dictatorial mandates (including those that ban gas appliances, cripple the performance of dishwashers and HVAC units, etc.), the automakers who have heavily invested in EVs will adjust to real market conditions and continue improving long-cherished technologies.

In today’s increasingly top-down world, Mcdonagh points out that “you can’t even discuss the problems with electric cars without getting jumped on.” That is already beginning to change, especially in a freedom-loving America that has had a century-long love affair with the open road.

>Meanwhile, lurking in the shadows is an option that could both reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide and keep ICE vehicles on the road. Hydrogen-based synthetic e-fuels may be expensive today, but they can power ICE vehicles today and tomorrow without sacrificing a nation to the whims of China’s maniacal leadership.

Author

• Duggan Flanakin

  Duggan Flanakin is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. A former Senior Fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Mr. Flanakin authored definitive works on the creation of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and on environmental education in Texas. A brief history of his multifaceted career appears in his book, "Infinite Galaxies: Poems from the Dugout."

EPA proposes emissions standards that could kill coal, and cripple gas OFFICIAL EPA RELEASE

By CFACT Ed May 11th, 2023 44 Comments @ CFACT

As China and India build coal plants as fast as their economies will go, the Biden Administration released plans to require carbon capture using unaffordable technology that does not really exist.  Will this carbon power grab survive judicial review?  Read EPA’s full press release:

EPA Proposes New Carbon Pollution Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants to Tackle the Climate Crisis and Protect Public Health

New proposed standards for coal and new natural gas fired power plants would avoid more than 600 million metric tons of CO2 pollution, while also preventing 300,000 asthma attacks and 1,300 premature deaths in 2030 alone

May 11, 2023

Contact Information

EPA Press Office (press@epa.gov)

WASHINGTON  – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new carbon pollution standards for coal and natural gas-fired power plants that will protect public health, reduce harmful pollutants and deliver up to $85 billion in climate and public health benefits over the next two decades.

The proposal for coal and new natural gas power plants would avoid up to 617 million metric tons of total carbon dioxide (CO₂) through 2042, which is equivalent to reducing the annual emissions of 137 million passenger vehicles, roughly half the cars in the United States. Through 2042, EPA estimates the net climate and health benefits of the standards on new gas and existing coal-fired power plants are up to $85 billion.

The proposals would also result in cutting tens of thousands of tons of particulate matter (PM2.5), sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide, harmful air pollutants that are known to endanger people’s health, especially in communities that for too long have disproportionally shouldered the burden of high pollution and environmental injustice. In 2030 alone, the proposed standards would prevent:

• approximately 1,300 premature deaths;
• more than 800 hospital and emergency room visits;
• more than 300,000 cases of asthma attacks;
• 38,000 school absence days;
• 66,000 lost workdays.

“By proposing new standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants, EPA is delivering on its mission to reduce harmful pollution that threatens people’s health and wellbeing,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “EPA’s proposal relies on proven, readily available technologies to limit carbon pollution and seizes the momentum already underway in the power sector to move toward a cleaner future. Alongside historic investment taking place across America in clean energy manufacturing and deployment, these proposals will help deliver tremendous benefits to the American people—cutting climate pollution and other harmful pollutants, protecting people’s health, and driving American innovation.”

Consistent with EPA’s traditional approach to establishing pollution standards under the Clean Air Act, the proposed limits and guidelines would require ambitious reductions in carbon pollution based on proven and cost-effective control technologies that can be applied directly to power plants. They also provide owners and operators of power plants with ample lead time and substantial compliance flexibilities, allowing power companies and grid operators to make sound long-term planning and investment decisions, and supporting the power sector’s ability to continue delivering reliable and affordable electricity. EPA’s analysis found that power companies can implement the standards with a negligible impact on electricity prices, well within the range of historical fluctuations.

Together with other recent EPA actions to address health-harming pollution from the power sector, today’s proposed rule delivers on the Administration’s commitment to reduce pollution from the power sector while providing long-term regulatory certainty and operational flexibility. In addition, EPA and the Department of Energy recently signed a memorandum of understanding to support grid reliability and resiliency at every stage as the agency advances efforts to reduce pollution, protect public health, and deliver environmental and economic benefits for all.

President Biden’s policy agenda has already kicked off a clean energy and manufacturing boom across the country and is adding momentum for technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) and clean hydrogen. Today, thanks to this progress, the power sector has a broad set of tools to deploy clean, affordable energy, take advantage of ready-to-go advanced pollution reduction technologies, create and retain good-paying union jobs, and reduce energy costs for families and businesses. EPA took account of this significant technologic and economic progress in developing the proposed rule and anticipates that power companies will take advantage of these tools, and trends, when determining how to most cost-effectively meet the proposed standards and emission guidelines.

The technology-based standards EPA is proposing include:

• Strengthening the current New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for newly built fossil fuel-fired stationary combustion turbines (generally natural gas-fired)
• Establishing emission guidelines for states to follow in limiting carbon pollution from existing fossil fuel-fired steam generating EGUs (including coal, oil and natural gas-fired units)
• Establishing emission guidelines for large, frequently used existing fossil fuel-fired stationary combustion turbines (generally natural gas-fired)

Based on a separate analysis, EPA is projecting the proposed standards for existing gas-fired plants and the third phase of the NSPS could achieve up to 407 million metric tons of CO2 emission reductions. As EPA works to finalize the rulemaking, the agency will complete additional advanced modeling, aligning methodologies across the rulemaking and considering real-world scenarios within the power sector to best understand how components of the rule impact each other.

As required by section 111 of the Clean Air Act, these proposed standards and emission guidelines reflect the best system of emission reduction (BSER) that has been demonstrated to improve the emissions performance of the sources, taking into account costs, energy requirements, and other factors. In developing these proposed carbon pollution standards, EPA considered a range of technologies including CCS, utilizing low-GHG hydrogen, and adopting highly efficient generation technologies.

Installation of controls such as CCS for coal and gas plants, and low-GHG hydrogen co-firing for gas plants are more cost-effective for power plants that operate at greater capacity, more frequently, or over longer time periods. The proposed standards and guidelines take this into account by establishing standards for different subcategories of power plants according to unit characteristics such as their capacity, their intended length of operation, and/or their frequency of operation.

The proposal requires that states, in developing plans for existing sources, undertake meaningful engagement with affected stakeholders, including communities disproportionately burdened by pollution and climate change impacts, as well the energy communities and workers who have powered our nation for generations. President Biden’s Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization has identified historic resources for energy communities to invest in infrastructure, deploy new technologies that can help clean up the electric power sector, support energy workers and spur long-term economic revitalization.

EPA also conducted an environmental justice analysis, which shows these proposals would, play a significant role in reducing greenhouse gas pollution, helping avoid the worst impacts of climate change, which is already having a disproportionate impact on underserved and overburdened communities.  EPA’s proposal also follows guidance from the Council on Environmental Quality to ensure that the advancement of carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration technologies are done in a responsible manner that incorporates the input of communities and reflects the best available science. Consistent with this guidance, EPA will engage with communities and stakeholders on opportunities to ensure that deployment of carbon capture and sequestration under the proposal is done in a responsible manner.

The proposed standards build on the momentum already underway in the power sector to move toward a cleaner future. Since 2005, the power sector has reduced carbon dioxide emissions 36 percent while continuing to keep pace with growing energy demand. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act provides historic investments in pollution control technologies and clean energy, and together, will move the United States closer to ensuring a cleaner, healthier future for all communities.

EPA will take comment on these proposals for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. EPA will also hold a virtual public hearing and will make additional information available on the website. Registration for the public hearing will open after the proposal is published in the Federal Register.

The agency will also host virtual trainings to provide communities and Tribes with information about the proposal and about participating in the public comment process. Those trainings will be on June 6 and 7, and registration information is available on EPA’s website.

Emissions-free Electric Vehicles Are a Fantasy

Apr 21, 2023 By Diana Furchtgott-Roth @DFR_Economics Director, Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment

Key Takeaways

• Come 2032, if President Joe Biden has his way, most Americans who want new cars may have to buy electric vehicles.
• Research shows that electricity for battery-powered vehicles is coming from coal and natural gas rather than renewables.
• Until electricity can be generated by emissions-free power, battery-powered vehicles will generally increase, rather than reduce, emissions.

Come 2032, if President Joe Biden has his way, most Americans who want new cars may have to buy electric vehicles. While the administration insists that such a mandate will reduce climate change, the fact is, when adding up the emissions required to produce and power the batteries of electric vehicles, EVs can create more carbon emissions than gas-powered cars.

New proposed regulations on automobile emissions from the Environmental Protection Agency would require 60% of new car sales to be battery-powered electric vehicles by 2030 and 67% by 2032, compared to fewer than 6% in 2022.

The stated rationale: These cars produce fewer carbon emissions than cars with internal combustion engines, emissions contribute to global warming, and global warming poses a threat to the planet and mankind.

What the regulations don’t seem to take into account is that electric cars don’t have tailpipe emissions, but their batteries are charged using electricity. And much of electricity production—unless it’s from renewables, hydropower, or nuclear energy—still results in carbon emissions...........

Battery-powered electric vehicles might sound attractive when gasoline is over $3 per gallon. And electric Ford F-150 Lightning pickup trucks may be fun to drive, especially if you don’t need to tow anything, but these new purchases might not be reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving the planet.

A 2022 paper by Kelly Senecal of Convergent Science and other scientists compares greenhouse gas emissions from plug-in, battery-powered electric vehicles with emissions from hybrid vehicles, which combine internal combustion engines with small battery packs.

The conclusion: Pure plug-in battery-powered vehicles can create more emissions than hybrids and even more than some traditional internal combustion engine vehicles—whose fuel delivery, air delivery, and ignition systems have improved over the past 20 years, increasing overall vehicle gas mileage.

Here’s why............To Read More....

White House’s Expensive and Unrealistic Push for Electric Vehicles

Bidens Electric Vehicle Push Is Unplugged From Reality

By EJ Antoni @RealEJAntoni

Key Takeaways

• Mr. Biden is hellbent on freeing Americans from the imaginary captivity of their reliable, safe, flexible and economical gasoline- and diesel-fueled engines.
• The Biden administration repeatedly refers to EVs as zero-emission vehicles, as if the electricity powering them did not have emissions.
• The average EV costs $61,000, which is 24% more than the average conventional internal combustion engine vehicle—hardly “affordable.”

President Biden’s latest push for electric vehicles, or EVs, is reminiscent of a soliloquy by Don Quixote: short on facts, long on rhetoric, and filled with unrealistic expectations. Sadly, though, Mr. Biden’s policy mistakes are moving beyond fiction to a reality that confines consumers to cars that are unaffordable and unwanted.

Like Don Quixote tilting at harmless windmills he thinks are giants, Mr. Biden is attacking American energy and the auto industry for daring to use fossil fuels. And as Don Quixote went from quest to quest attempting to free imaginary prisoners, Mr. Biden is hellbent on freeing Americans from the imaginary captivity of their reliable, safe, flexible and economical gasoline- and diesel-fueled engines.

That disconnect from reality perfectly encapsulates Mr. Biden’s energy policy. His Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed such strict regulations for cars and trucks that effectively mean that 54% of new vehicles sold domestically must be EVs by 2030.

Even if Mr. Biden managed a 500% increase in EV sales by the end of the decade, he’d still fall woefully short of his goal. The only conceivable way to make half of new vehicle sales EVs by 2030 would be if Americans were so poor that they could afford very few new cars, and thus the small number of EVs could still amount to half of all new vehicles. That’s right out of Mao’s Great Leap Forward.............To Read More...