Tag Archive for: climate activism

Going Full Orwell: Harris-Walz Equate Fighting ‘Climate Change’ With ‘Freedom’

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Shh. A moment of ‘climate silence’ being observed on live TV – Morano on Fox & Friends on Harris-Walz ‘climate silence’ & pushing climate solutions as ‘freedom’

Harris Goes Full Orwell! 

NYT: Harris’s New Strategy: Equate Fighting Climate Change With ‘Freedom’ – Framing As ‘Patriotism’ – ‘A novel way of framing climate change’

New York Times – Aug. 23, 2024: Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned climate change just once in her speech before the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, wrapping it into her larger campaign theme of freedom. … Ms. Harris declared that along with reproductive choice “many other fundamental freedoms are at stake” in the November election. Those include “the freedom to breathe clean air, and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis,” she said. …

Via Study.com’s Analysis of George Orwell’s 1984 & the meaning of ‘Freedom is Slavery:  “The slogan coined by Big Brother goes on to explain that freedom is slavery…Big Brother justifies this confusion by saying that someone who is free under the typical conception, able to operate according to their own will, is ultimately unsuccessful. Rather, true freedom is serving the state, which allows one to operate with more freedom than they ever would have had if they went out into the world on their own.”

Marc Morano: This is this is the biggest con I’ve seen in modern politics. Kamala Harris in 2019 was the co-sponsor of The Green New Deal — the AOC original Green New Deal, and as you mentioned, Harris cast a breaking vote in 2022 for the Inflation Reduction Act. Climate is supposed to be an existential threat. Climate is supposed to be in crisis —  an emergency. The Biden-Harris Administration was talking openly — as The Washington Post and Associated Press reported — declaring a National Climate emergency — and all of a sudden, summer of 2024, everything went silent. And why is that? Because according to the Washington Post, the New York Times, they have found in focus groups, they have found in polling, they have found this across the board — that there’s just no concern over climate change in America. It’s dropped even in these polls by the mainstream media, out of the top 20 issues, it’s not even in the top half, and so what’s happened is they’ve just moved on, and they’re framing it now, according to the New York Times, as an issue of ‘freedom’ —  climate ‘solutions’ will bring ‘freedom.’ This is after they talked about banning gas-powered cars, restricting meat eating, banning gas stoves and thermostat controls, and CNN promoting ‘carbon passports’ for travel. But now they’ve just gone silent on this existential threat of the 21st century. We’re being conned.

Partial Transcript: 

Rachel Campos-Duffy: Even the Washington Post has taken notice, saying the split-screen approach suggests that Democrats see talking about the environment as a lose-lose proposition. Here to discuss is Climate Depot publisher Marc Morano. Marc, it is really interesting she cast the deciding vote on the Big Green New Deal, or some call it a scam, and she should be bragging about it, and no one’s talking about this issue. Why, what’s happened?

Marc Morano: This is this is the biggest con I’ve seen in modern politics. Kamala Harris in 2019 was the co-sponsor of The Green New Deal — the AOC original Green New Deal, and as you mentioned, Harris cast a breaking vote in 2022 for the Inflation Reduction Act. Climate is supposed to be an existential threat. Climate is supposed to be in crisis —  an emergency. The Biden-Harris Administration was talking openly — as The Washington Post and Associated Press reported — declaring a National Climate emergency — and all of a sudden, summer of 2024, everything went silent. And why is that? Because according to the Washington Post, the New York Times, they have found in focus groups, they have found in polling, they have found this across the board — that there’s just no concern over climate change in America. It’s dropped even in these polls by the mainstream media, out of the top 20 issues, it’s not even in the top half, and so what’s happened is they’ve just moved on, and they’re framing it now, according to the New York Times, as an issue of ‘freedom’ —  climate ‘solutions’ will bring ‘freedom.’ This is after they talked about banning gas-powered cars, restricting meat eating, banning gas stoves and thermostat controls, and CNN promoting ‘carbon passports’ for travel. But now they’ve just gone silent on this existential threat of the 21st century. We’re being conned.

Morano: This is a huge opening for Trump. They need to ridicule what Harris has said and done. Remember, she was the one who said climate change was the root cause of immigration on the southern border, and she actually went down to investigate. They can’t let her get away with this.

Gov. Tim Walls, by the way, is the exact same way. He was actually —  going back a decade — trying the same tactic of avoiding climate change by telling Minnesotans to support then Pres. Obama’s climate bills because ‘we would all be rich from it’ — they’re all emphasizing this fake government-supported green jobs so-called, and they’re getting labor unions involved and the ideas we’re going to subsidize through trillions of dollars. Remember, the Inflation Reduction Act was only a couple hundred billion dollars, but now the latest estimates are without Congressional authorization of spending of over $1 trillion and rising. So this money is being pumped in. That’s how they’re trying to sell climate change now,  as some kind of cash scam for people to get rich off of.  No longer do we face the tipping point 12 years or the existential threat. They know the public’s not buying that scientific claptrap.

Morano: 2030 was AOC’s climate tipping point deadline, and the clock is ticking, but usually, when it expires, they cross it out and put a new date.

Rachel Campos-Duffy: Tick-tock, tick-tock. Thank you, Marc. So great to have you on.

Morano: Thank you, Rachel. Appreciate it.

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NYT: ‘Harris Goes Light on Climate Policy. Green Leaders Are OK With That’ – ‘If she takes a strong position on climate…it will make her look too progressive’

Harris-Walz push ‘climate silence’! WaPo: ‘Why Democrats are so quiet about climate change right now’ –

Dem ‘Party leaders appear to have calculated that climate silence is the safest strategy’ as ‘most voters rank other issues as more important’

‘Third Rail’: Here’s Why Team Kamala Isn’t Peddling The Typical Dem Climate Panic This Election – Morano: ‘No one is buying their ‘climate emergency’ claptrap anymore’

Shhhh. Despite climate silence, Harris Planning ‘Bold Action’ on Climate Change, Adviser Says

Kamala Harris Barely Mentioned Climate at the DNC

Harris, Walz frame climate change in context of ‘freedom’ as only ‘glancing references to climate’ made by Harris & Walz – ‘Climate was muted’

Watch: Interior Sec. Deb Haaland says Kamala Harris will ‘fight climate change’ in speech to DNC

Climate is missing from climate groups’ $55 million ad splurge! – Part of new ‘strategy from Democrats & allies’ –

Ads ‘don’t mention climate change or global warming’

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Harris’ VP Pick Walz Has Pushed Green Energy Mandates More Aggressive Than Gavin Newsom’s – ‘Walz signed over 40 climate-related initiatives into law’

©2024. Marc Morano from Climate Depot. All rights reserved.

‘Third Rail’: Here’s Why Team Kamala Isn’t Peddling The Typical Dem Climate Panic This Election

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Vice President Kamala Harris has been tight-lipped about her record on climate change while major green groups continue to support her anyways — a dynamic that political pundits and energy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation is no accident.

Harris — who called climate change an “existential threat” in 2019 —  previously probed major oil corporations as California’s attorney general and co-sponsored the Green New Deal as a senator, but she has mostly avoided climate change and green energy on the campaign trail, framing the issues in terms of economics, jobs and investment when she does bring up the subject. That many major eco-activist groups are still supporting her indicates that Harris is trying to broaden her appeal to more moderate voters in order to win the election and subsequently govern as a climate hardliner once in office, energy experts and political strategists told the DCNF.

“The Democrats have figured out that the apocalyptic vibe isn’t really likely to bring people along for this particular ride,” Mike McKenna, a GOP strategist with extensive energy sector experience, told the DCNF. “So, they have obviously made a command decision to focus only on the carrots and ignore anything that looks like a stick.”

Harris and her running mate, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have campaigned on climate issues in passing, but eco-activist leaders are generally unconcerned about the lack of focus on the issue, according to The New York Times. Walz did not address climate change during his Wednesday night speech at the Democratic National Convention , sticking primarily to his background as a rural American.

Even after the Harris campaign walked back her previous support for a fracking ban, a slew of environmental organizations opposed to fracking endorsed her candidacy. The campaign’s apparent strategy of not focusing much on climate change “suggests that Democrats see talking about the environment as a lose-lose proposition” in this election cycle, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

“They know what she’s going to do. There’s no upside to talking about climate,” Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute, told the DCNF. “Keep in mind, I believe it was in July of 2022, The New York Times ran a poll reporting that only 1% of voters prioritize climate. So it’s a loser issue … And they can’t afford to lose Pennsylvania. So, they don’t want to talk about climate, because when you talk about climate, then you have to talk about fracking, and then they’re going to have to talk about how she wants to stop fracking, regardless of what she says.”

Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who has pursued one of the most aggressive state-level climate agendas in the U.S. in his tenure as governor, recently told the NYT that he doesn’t think Harris needs to leverage her climate record on the campaign trail.

“I am not concerned,” Inslee told the NYT. “I am totally confident that when she is in a position to effect positive change, she will.”

Moreover, the political wings of three green groups — the League of Conservation Voters, Climate Power and the Environmental Defense Fund — are spending $55 million on swing state advertisements to boost Harris, but the first three ads released do not actually address climate change. The ads back into the subject of green energy and pitch Harris’ record on the issue as centered on protecting ordinary Americans from greedy corporations and promoting “advanced manufacturing and clean energy” as a means of helping the middle class.

This approach is different than the one Harris used during her first run for the presidency in the 2020 cycle, in which Harris attempted to outflank many of her Democratic opponents from the left by endorsing policies like carbon taxes, changes to dietary guidelines to decrease red meat consumption and a ban on plastic straws to complement a fracking ban.

Eco-activists and climate-focused voters “definitely believe she will go left, left, left on climate and energy,” Scott Jennings, a political strategist and on-air pundit for CNN, told the DCNF. “Of course they do. Her 2020 campaign agenda is what they are banking on. And I assume she will deliver for them if she wins.”

President Joe Biden also made climate a key aspect of his successful 2020 campaign, guaranteeing that he would end fossil fuels and calling former President Donald Trump a “climate arsonist” who was failing to protect Americans from the “ravages of climate change,” according to Inside Climate News. Nevertheless, Biden and his top officials still frequently drew the ire of hardline climate activists despite the administration pursuing what it describes as the “most ambitious climate agenda in history.”

Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to secure the 2022 passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate bill. While its price tag has ballooned from initial estimates and some contend that the bill has actually worsened inflation, the IRA unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars of private and public spending on green energy and manufacturing projects.

The Biden-Harris administration touts that investment as evidence that its domestic agenda is working.

“The climate activists in the Democrat Party have finally realized that no one is buying their ‘climate emergency’ claptrap anymore or their claims of 5, 10, or 20 years left to ‘save the planet.’ Instead, they are pedaling a barrage of silly economic claims that somehow pouring hundreds of billions and now trillions of dollars into government centrally planned projects,” Marc Morano, the publisher of Climate Depot, told the DCNF. “This new Democrat climate messaging, where they don’t mention climate, is part of the legacy of the Inflation Reduction Act, where local communities and certain states get unlimited federal funds poured into them via taxpayers to create a ‘green economy.’”

Len Foxwell, a Democratic strategist based in Maryland, said that the Harris campaign’s lack of attention to climate change and green energy issues is deliberate given her need to secure the support of a broad coalition if she is to win in November.

“First and foremost, Kamala Harris’ responsibility in this race is to win it. And to do so, she has to present her priorities in a way that resonates with those who are concerned about the economy and frustrated with their own financial situations. Specifically, she has to emphasize the opportunities that exist for better jobs, higher wages and long-term cost savings for the ratepayers,” Foxwell told the DCNF. “This is particularly imperative when discussing renewable energy investment, because the upfront costs tend to be considerable and the financial benefits to the middle class are largely speculative.”

As the Democratic candidate for the presidency, Harris “has to communicate her vision and values in a way that attracts the broadest possible coalition,” though it remains to be seen how she would actually govern if elected given uncertainty about the future balance of power in Congress, according to Foxwell. Harris and her team must take care to not propose policies that would increase the cost of living for middle class Americans, which would be “third rail” politics given how concerned people are about the economy, he added.

The Harris campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

Nick Pope

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Young adults losing the climate faith in the U.S. and only one third of voters think the IPCC experts are right

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Good news: despite 2023 being the hottest year since Homo Erectus, there was a 17% fall in the number of 18 to 34-year-olds who call “Climate change”  a very serious problem. Even though there were hottest-ever-headlines month after month, the punters lost the faith.

No one is cracking champagne because 50% of young adults still tell pollsters they think it is a “very serious problem”. But when all is said and done, at least half the generation that was drip-fed the dogma since kindergarten can not only see through the catastrophism but they are brave enough to tell a pollster that, too.

For the most part, after a few hot El Nino years, “climate fear” is back where it was in 2016 or so. Most people still want the government to solve the weather with someone else’s money. But where younger people were once much more enthusiastic about a Big Government fix than older people were, now that gap is almost closed. What was a 21% difference between those age groups is now only 2%. That’s a whopping fall in faith in the government to do something useful, or probably, a recognition that whatever the government does will cost too much.

Looks like young adults are learning to be cynical adults faster?

The Monmouth University group polled 804 people in late April:

Climate Change Concerns Dip:  Younger adults express less urgency than in prior polls

The percentage of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 who see climate change as a very serious problem has fallen by 17 points in the past three years (50%, down from 67% in 2021), compared with smaller declines among those who are 35 to 54 years old (44%, down from 48%) and those age 55 and older (44%, down from 54%).

Click here to the infographic: American Attitudes on Climate Change by Age.

But what does “a very serious problem” even mean?

Anyone can say, “It’s serious,” but only 1 in 6 people can even be bothered pretending to a pollster that climate change influences their vote:

A Monmouth poll released last month found only 15% of voters view climate change as a determinative issue in how they will vote in the 2024 presidential election, ranking far lower than inflation, immigration, and abortion.

People used to lie to pollsters and say they cared and it would affect their vote, but now most don’t even pretend. In 2019, in the UK, two-thirds of people agreed climate was the biggest issue facing humankind. The Guardian writers were sure that climate change would determine how most of the voters would vote, but the party promising to give them better weather lost in a landslide.

In 2015, when nearly half of US voters said climate was a “very serious problem”, other surveys showed only 3% ranked climate change as the most important issue.

If a twenty-something really believed the Antarctic ice cap was about to melt, wouldn’t it rate as a voting issue?

So let’s be clear, year after year, we see the same results. The voters don’t want to spend money on climate change and won’t change their vote, but the politicians act as though their career depends upon it, and the public is “demanding action”.

After years of surveys like this, we know the politicians know the voters don’t care, but they go and force climate action on the voters anyway. Who are they really working for? Their donors? The people who give them “jobs” after they leave office, or the people who employ their children now? Or are they working to appease “the media” — cowed into submission because someone might call them a denier if they don’t grovel before the Climate Demi-God?

Last year, a survey showed more then half of the US are wondering the same question and agree that the people who really “run” the country are not known to voters.

Fully 92% of Democrat voters say they think climate change is real. (What else could they say; they’d be excommunicated from friends and family if they said anything else.) Only 51% of Republicans tell pollsters they think climate change is real. But imagine how fast that would plummet if skeptical professors were interviewed on TV, and half of Republican politicians spoke for half the Republican voters?

Only a third of voters agree with the UN Experts that climate change is mainly a human-driven thing

Despite the UN experts being 97% certain, only one-third of voters completely agree with them. That’s really quite astounding.

Public opinion remains mixed on the degree to which human behavior contributes to change in the climate. Just over one-third (34%) say climate change is caused mainly by human activity, while 31% say human activity and natural changes in the environment play equal roles. Another 7% put climate change down mainly to natural causes, with the remainder saying climate change is not happening (23%) or are not sure if it is happening (4%). Just over half of Americans (51%) say there is still time to prevent the worst effects of climate change, while just 17% say it is too late.

After thirty years of scientific and media purity, only one-third think climate change is “mostly human”. Another third thinks the UN must be exaggerating, and the last third knows the UN is wrong.

AUTHOR

Joanne Nova

REFERENCES

The Monmouth University poll, Climate Change Concerns Dip, May 6th, 2024

CFACT Monthly Climate Fact Check

RELATED ARTICLE: POLL: 47% of Voters Believe the American Republic Has Fallen

EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

EU Backs Dutch Scheme to Forcibly Shut Down Thousands of Farms to Meet EU’s Climate Goals

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Dutch Scheme Bans Farmers From Returning to Agriculture Forever.

The buyout scheme prohibits Dutch farmers from moving to other countries and starting up farms abroad, meaning that their knowledge and expertise would be lost.

No one is safe.

Responding to the announcement from the EU, Dutch political commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek said: “This is how they do it: they put a knife to the farmers’ throats. They make sure they don’t get their licenses renewed, they’re plaguing them with new rules & restrictions every day and then offer them a bride, knowing many will take it out of pure desperation. It’s all so vile.”

“I also highly doubt that prohibiting them to start over elsewhere in the EU is even legal. The whole idea of the EU was supposed to be about freedom of movement and freedom of workers. This is some next-level USSR stuff,” Vlaardingerbroek added.

EU Backs Dutch Scheme to Forcibly Shut Down Thousands of Farms, Ban Farmers From Returning to Agriculture Forever

By: Kurt Zindulka, Breitbart News, 3 May 2023:

The European Commission in Brussels has backed a scheme by the globalist government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Netherlands that would see thousands of farms shut down in order to comply with EU climate goals.

On Tuesday, the governing arm of the European Union officially threw its support behind plans by the Dutch government to buy out thousands of farmers from their lands in order to meet the EU’s Natura 2000 scheme to protect certain environments. The plan, which would offer farmers 120 per cent of the value of their farm, could see some 3,000 so-called “peak” emitters of nitrogen shut down.

It was unclear before this week whether the EU would permit such a scheme, as it could have potentially fallen afoul of regulations surrounding state aid or subsidies. However, Brussels said that the plans were “necessary and appropriate” as they met the broader goals of the European Green Deal.

“The positive effects transcend any distortions of the free market,” the statement added.

In addition to the plan to buyout — or eventually force out if they refuse — the “peak” emitting farms, the government is also planning a separate scheme that would give dairy, pig, and poultry farmers a deal for 100 per cent of the value of their farm if they wished to shut down. In total, some 1.4 billion euros is expected to be set aside for both farm shutdown schemes.

Should the plan go ahead, it would not only be a major blow for the farming industry in the Netherlands, which is one of the most productive in Europe but could potentially impact other nations as well, given that part of the condition of the buyout scheme is that the Dutch farmers would be prohibited from moving to other countries and starting up farms abroad, meaning that their knowledge and expertise would be squandered.

Responding to the announcement from the EU, Dutch political commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek said: “This is how they do it: they put a knife to the farmers’ throats. They make sure they don’t get their licenses renewed, they’re plaguing them with new rules & restrictions every day and then offer them a bride, knowing many will take it out of pure desperation. It’s all so vile.”

“I also highly doubt that prohibiting them to start over elsewhere in the EU is even legal. The whole idea of the EU was supposed to be about freedom of movement and freedom of workers. This is some next-level USSR stuff,” Vlaardingerbroek added.

The plan to shut down thousands of farms is by no means a done deal, however, given that it would need to be managed mostly at the provincial level. This may be complicated for the fledgling Rutte government as the upstart tractor protest backing Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB) party not only became the single largest party in the Dutch Senate in March but also one of the largest parties at the provincial level where many of the farms are located.

There have also been some cracks within Rutte’s coalition, with the CDA party expressing doubt over the general nitrogen emission crackdown following the surprise victory of the BBB party.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Comer Threatens Kerry’s ‘Powerful, Unchecked’ Climate Office With Subpoena

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Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky has threatened to subpoena the office of special climate envoy John Kerry, over a failure to disclose documents to the House Oversight Committee, in a letter released Tuesday.

Comer slammed the Biden administration for failing to respond to nearly two years of oversight requests from the House Oversight Committee — which Comer chairs — and requested information related to the budgets, names of staffers, internal communications and activities of Kerry’s office. The congressman threatened to take further action if the administration failed to respond by May 9, including “compulsory processes.”

“John Kerry continues to negotiate deals with foreign governments, including the Chinese Communist Party, that potentially undermine the United States’ interests and the Biden Administration has refused to respond to Committee requests for information on Kerry’s powerful, unchecked position,” the House Oversight Committee wrote in a press release.

The committee in February called for Kerry to provide information regarding his negotiations with China, which the committee alleged “undermine” both U.S. economic interests and congressional authority. In Comer’s Tuesday letter, the committee questioned Kerry’s ability to negotiate binding agreements on behalf of the U.S., despite the fact his position did not require Senate confirmation.

“Envoy Kerry is engaging in activities that skirt congressional authority, threaten foreign policy under the guise of climate advocacy, and could undermine our economic health,” wrote Comer Monday. “Yet, Envoy Kerry and his office are refusing to be transparent about their activities, spending, and staffing with the Committee—and the American people.”

In early 2021, the Boston Herald filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the payrolls of Kerry’s staff, which the State Department estimates will not be completed until late 2024, despite the availability of the relevant records, according to the outlet.

Comer’s office directed a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment to the Oversight Committee’s statement. The White House did not immediately respond to a DCNF request for comment.

AUTHOR

JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Environmental Protection Shouldn’t Mean Economic Suicide

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When I was in college in southern California many years ago, the smog could be overwhelming. Visibility was low and the sense of being closed-in by a layer of brownish-grey was ongoing. Then, one day it rained. The sky was actually blue and, to my great surprise, you could see the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance.

In the ensuing 40-plus years, the United States has made great progress in its war against all manner of pollution. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, since the enactment of the Clean Air Act in 1970 through 2019, “the combined emissions of the six common pollutants (PM2.5 and PM10, SO2, NOx, VOCs, CO and Pb) dropped by 77 percent.” This has occurred even as energy consumption has remained at an almost constant level — despite growth in the population by about 100 million people.

The EPA also reports that “Compared to 1970 vehicle models, new cars, SUVs and pickup trucks are roughly 99 percent cleaner for common pollutants (hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particle emissions).” Additionally, the U.S. is increasingly using renewable energy sources. One example: From 2000 through 2018, the use of coal as an energy source fell from about 23% percent of our total energy portfolio to about 13 percent. Similarly, clean natural gas went from accounting for about 24% percent of our energy consumption to about 31%. Other renewable energy sources (nuclear, solar, etc.) are also increasing. And, generally, the industrialized nations of Europe are also making notable progress.

But America still needs oil. A lot of oil. We will continue to need oil for decades to come. That is, unless we want to commit economic suicide.

That seems not to concern people on the environmental Left, who are outraged that President Biden opened up a relatively small sliver of Alaska for drilling. ConocoPhillips will drill 199 wells at three sites in the Willow Project area, employing 3,500 people outright and, over the longer term, several hundred in permanent jobs.

Here’s the irony: While America once again engages in national agony over a modest oil drilling plan, China is laughing up its sleeve at our tortured efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Just last year, China opened roughly two new coal plants a week. As recent report explains, in 2022 China’s construction of coal power plants was “six times as large as that in all of the rest of the world combined.”

India is in much the same boat. “From 2001 to 2021, India installed 168 gigawatts of coal-fired generation, nearly double what it added in solar and wind power combined,” according to one study. While the subcontinental nation is making strides toward clean energy use, the reality is that “its electricity demand will grow up to 6% every year for the next decade.”

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that America abandon its commitment to cleaner sources of energy. Rather, we have to simply be honest: If we tie ourselves to extreme environmental standards while much of the rest of the world keeps employing fossil fuels at record rates, we will only hurt our ability to foster job creation here at home and our capacity to compete successfully in the global economy.

Economic transitions can be hard. Carriage makers were no doubt unhappy with the advent of the automobile. The issue before us is how rapidly we should move toward a “carbon-neutral” economy. Under the Biden administration, even American agriculture is a target. In a biting analysis, Heritage Foundation scholar Daren Bakst reports that at last year’s White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, the administration advocated for policies that would “centrally plan how farmers produce food, what food farmers produce, and what food people eat.” The Biden plan “also appears far more concerned with environmental outcomes than efficiency, productivity, and affordability.”

As America moves toward “clean” energy, we should not do so to appease activists at the cost of jobs, prosperity, sound mining and farming policies, and our continued leadership in international markets. Our country does not exist in pristine isolation any more than the wind stops at our borders.

The only way we get a clean environment is if we have the resources to obtain it. The only way we have those resources is if we have a strong economy. And the only way we have a strong economy is if our laws and regulations make sense.

I love the memory of seeing mountains in the far distance. But I also like filling up my car’s gas tank affordably. We can have both economic growth and environmental health, but only if we also have a strong dose of national common sense.

AUTHOR

Rob Schwarzwalder

Rob Schwarzwalder is Senior Lecturer in Regent University’s Honors College.

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The EPA’s Latest Regulation Could Devastate The Trucking Industry

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  • The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule Tuesday that will impose stricter emissions standards on new heavy-duty vehicles, a regulation that will significantly raise operating costs for truckers, experts and industry representatives told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  •  “The costs associated with this are also a concern because these are costs that not only the industry will bear … prices will go up for everybody,” Texas Trucking Association President John Esparza told the DCNF.
  • “It’s an overreach that is indicative of this administration’s tendency to set aside balance to achieve the goals of activists that they are politically aligned with,” Mandy Gunasekara, a senior policy analyst for the Independent Women’s Forum and former EPA Chief of Staff during the Trump administration, told the DCNF.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule Tuesday that will impose stricter nitrogen dioxide emissions standards on new heavy-duty trucks, a move that will substantially hike operating costs for truckers, experts and industry representatives told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The EPA’s rule, which is more than 80% stricter than the previous regulation, will require large trucks, delivery vans and buses manufactured after 2027 to cut nitrogen dioxide emissions by nearly 50% by 2045, according to an agency press release. The agency’s rule is intended to push truckers to phase out diesel-powered vehicles and use electric vehicles (EV) instead; however, the compliance costs associated with such rules could suffocate an industry that is not ready to transition to EVs, experts told the DCNF.

“It’s an overreach that is indicative of this administration’s tendency to set aside balance to achieve the goals of activists that they are politically aligned with,” Mandy Gunasekara, a senior policy analyst for the Independent Women’s Forum and former EPA Chief of Staff during the Trump administration, told the DCNF. “It’s going to squeeze out the mid-sized and smaller trucking companies because they’re not going to be able to afford to purchase the new, extremely expensive equipment required to continue to do what they do.”

The new rules are intended to phase out older trucks that emit more nitrogen dioxide and will push drivers to purchase electric trucks or newer models of diesel trucks that do not produce as much nitrogen dioxide when they burn fuel, according to the EPA.

“If small business truckers can’t afford the new, compliant trucks, they’re going to stay with older, less efficient trucks or leave the industry entirely,” Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association President Todd Spencer told trade publication Freight Waves. “Once again, EPA has largely ignored the warnings and concerns raised by truckers in this latest rule.”

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said that the rule would protect “historically overburdened communities,” that are disproportionately affected by trucking emissions as truck freight routes are often located near “vulnerable populations,” according to the press release. Nitrogen dioxide gas can exacerbate respiratory diseases like asthma and form acid rain in the atmosphere which can damage lakes and forests, according to the EPA.

“The EPA is happy to go easy on big trucking since they support regulations that will harm their smaller competitors far more,” Steve Milloy, Energy and Environmental Legal Institute senior legal fellow and former Trump administration EPA transition team member, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Regan announced the new rule in front of an electric garbage truck produced by Mack Trucks and following his remarks, Mack spokesman John Mies stated that his company supports the administration’s zero emissions targets for trucks and is working to cut “dangerous” emissions produced by diesel trucks, according to CNN.

“Companies have taken the initiative to electrify a certain percentage of their fleet by a certain year and have made plans to build the necessary infrastructure, but they are then told that there isn’t enough power to achieve what they’re seeking,” Texas Trucking Association President John Esparza told the DCNF. “The costs associated with this are also a concern because these are costs that not only the industry will bear … prices will go up for everybody.”

The EPA’s final rule is the first step in its “Clean Trucks Plan” which seeks to heavily regulate trucks’ emissions to push drivers to adopt electric trucks.

Gunesakara echoed Esparza’s comments and said that such targets were a “technological fantasy” that could cost truckers their jobs due to the high price of electric trucks. Gunesakara added that the EPA’s rules would force truck drivers to drive older, more polluting and less efficient vehicles for longer as diesel trucks will be rapidly phased out long before EVs can become a more viable alternative.

The EPA touted its new rule and said that it will result in up to 2,900 fewer premature deaths, 18,000 fewer cases of childhood asthma and 6,700 fewer hospital admissions as well as an overall annual net economic benefit of $29 billion due to fewer missed work days. The agency’s trucking rules are less strict than California’s regulations as heavy vehicles in the state must cut nitrogen oxide emissions by 75% starting in 2024, and 90% starting in 2027, according to a California Air Resource Board rule.

The EPA did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

JACK MCEVOY

Energy & environment reporter.

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