Last week we lampooned the New York Times headline claim that proclaimed: don’t worry, the new Biden EV mandates are “not a ban on gas cars.” If you believe this, you probably also believe the Obama “Affordable Care Act” made health care more affordable.
In reality, Biden’s new federal mandates are a slightly slower roll-out of the California plan (which was greenlit by a Biden-granted waiver) with the out-years hidden:
This 100% number means that by 2035 ALL cars sold in the Golden State and the states that adopt its standards (Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington by our count so far) MUST be EVs. And if California and its followers mandate this, it becomes a de facto national mandate for manufacturers.
If you want a thorough takedown of the Biden rules, we recommend this analysis by our friend Marlo Lewis at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. In the meantime, now would be a good time to stockpile another couple of gas cars in your garage before the car police ban them entirely.
It's not just cars. The Biden administration in recent weeks has announced new stringent requirements for virtually the entire American transportation system to run on electric power. The goal is to eliminate the use of all fossil fuels.
As we noted last week, the EPA is poised to approve new rules for trains to go electric via another California mandate, and there are also plans to require that the long-haul trucking industry convert to electric battery operation.
There are no mandates on planes yet – but stick around.
The looney idea of battery-powered trucks is both a near-technological impossibility and a cost-burden nightmare for our trucking industry. A 10-ton, long-haul rig is going to carry cargo across the country powered by an enormous electric battery. Good luck with that.
All of this will add enormous new demands on the already-overburdened electric grid system. The mandates come at a time when, as the Wall Street Journal reports, electric power demand is expected to double over the next decade and production in the U.S. is already stretched to the limits. AI technologies will use four times more power than the Internet.
We are seeing more brown and blackouts across the country – with green California leading the way. California has been averaging 100 power outages a year.
Meanwhile, many of the very same radical green groups that want to use the grid to power transportation are also advising that it is time to abolish air conditioners, lawnmowers, and gas stoves. Are they also planning on abolishing lamps so that we have enough juice in the grid for trucks and cars?
We are up against a sinister de-growth ideology/religion. The endgame to all of these mandates is to literally and figuratively turn the lights out on the American economy.
3) Everyone Is Out To Undermine America's Tech Dominance – Including Biden
This headline from the Wall Street Journal last week says it all:
Actually, “scrutiny” is a euphemism for potential multi-billion-dollar lawsuits under Europe’s Digital Markets Act. The EU’s philosophy is: if you can’t beat the Americans, sue them.
These EU probes are an admission by the Germans, French, and Italians they can’t compete with American ingenuity, creativity, brainpower, and business acumen. There is no Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Sergey Brin in Europe.
Someone named Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s “competition czar” says Apple, Google, and Meta are “not in compliance” with the EU’s new rules. According to the Wall Street Journal, these tech titans must “present compliance plans to regulators, app developers, and RIVAL COMPANIES (emphasis added).” This is an obvious assault on these companies’ private property and patent rights.
Margrethe Vestager
Executive Vice-President of the European Commission EU fit for Digital Age and Commissioner for Competition
We aren’t surprised that foreigners are launching an attack on American tech supremacy. What is outrageous is that the Biden Administration (which should be defending the red, white, and blue) is piling on with similar bogus lawsuits against our OWN companies.
This would be about as un-American as forfeiting America’s energy dominance by not drilling here at home. Oh yeah. We’re doing that.
The victims here — among many — are the tens of millions of Americans who own trillions of dollars in stocks in these three of the Magnificent Seven.
Can anyone imagine the Chinese or the Japanese bringing lawsuits against their own most profitable companies?
As Trump would say: the rest of the world is laughing behind our backs. Perhaps Biden is tired of America winning.
Biden’s 2021 infrastructure plan, passed at the behest of unions and special interest businesses. The bill provided $7.5 billion to build 500,000 public chargers for electric vehicles by 2030. So far, they have built a grand total of seven chargers. In other words, the Biden team has delivered on less than half a percent of the promised infrastructure.
That doesn’t exactly sound like a version of Trump’s Operation Warp Speed.
The death of former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman marks the end of a line of influential Senate Democrats — Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, and John Breaux of Louisiana — who could often be counted to pursue needed bipartisan economic reforms.
Our friend Cesar Conda — former chief domestic policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney — points out Lieberman’s value to the pro-growth movement.
Lieberman once told the late columnist Bob Novak:
"To me, it makes common sense that if one of the things you're trying to do is move capital into the economy, to hook up with innovative new ideas to create new industries and jobs, if you give people a lower tax rate to pay when their investments pay off and they sell those stocks, then you're going to help the economy."
Lieberman also strongly supported school choice, though he had to backtrack for the few months he was Al Gore’s VP running mate in 2000. In 2009, he threatened to filibuster Obamacare unless senators agreed to remove the provision for a public-option insurance plan. They did.
Senate Democrats are now a “donut caucus.” They have no middle.
