Tag Archive for: climate change

New York City’s Climate Policies Could Make Life Even More ‘Unaffordable’ For The Middle Class

New York City is moving forward with several climate policies which are likely to make everyday life even more costly for the middle class in one of the country’s most expensive cities.

The city is aiming to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% come 2050, push a sweeping building electrification mandate known as Local Law 97 and impose an automobile traffic congestion fee, each of which will increase the costs of living or working in the nation’s largest city, especially for the middle class, energy and New York policy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan each already rank within the 15 most expensive places to live in the U.S., according to an analysis conducted by CNBC.

“The city is wealthy because, somewhere out there, people are producing energy, food, clothing and so on, and people are trading all of that in New York,” Dan Kish, a senior fellow for the Institute for Energy Research, told the DCNF. The city’s emissions target “will make things more expensive and drive people away to places like Florida,” he added.

That flight of capital would shrink the tax base, thereby straining the city’s finances further, Kish told the DCNF. “People without the means, working people, do not have the opportunity to just pack up and leave,” Kish told the DCNF. “But it’s easy if you’re Mike Bloomberg.”

Local Law 97, meanwhile, is poised to impose emissions standards that approximately 50,000 buildings in New York City will have to meet starting in 2024, with additional restrictions imposed starting in 2030, according to The New York Times.

Some buildings are easier to retrofit with the appropriate wiring and equipment necessary to comply than others, and a large share of the high costs incurred by landlords and building owners for coming into compliance will almost certainly be passed on to residents, Jane Menton, a mother who lives in a Queens co-op and has led a grassroots effort to fight against Local Law 97, told the DCNF.

“Progressives in Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn are so afraid to go against the narrative that this rule is a climate solution… but it’s unaffordable to convert buildings to electric so they won’t convert to comply with the rule, they will just pay fines which will then allow the city to use the money to plug gaps in the budget,” Menton told the DCNF. “The same politicians and advocates who claim to care about the city’s working class wrote a law that will push them out of their homes… functionally, this law is just a carbon tax on the middle class.”

Notably, other cities, such as Boston, have pushed for similar building electrification policies to fight climate change, and the Biden administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help state and municipal governments pursue policies that “decarbonize” buildings as well.

The New York City congestion pricing tax is promulgated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which is technically not an agency operating under the auspices of the municipal government.

Congestion pricing is meant to reduce emissions and air pollution by charging drivers fees to enter certain sections of the city. Specifically, the MTA has proposed to charge passenger cars $15 and trucks as much as $36 to be able to enter a large swath of Manhattan, according to local outlet NBC 4.

However, the proposal may not significantly reduce the amount of traffic that piles up on the city’s roadways, potentially even increasing the amount of congestion in areas like the Bronx, according to the New York Post. Qualifying low-income drivers who register with the appropriate authorities could also receive a 50% discount on the charges after their first ten trips into the relevant area of Manhattan, according to local digital news outlet northjersey.com

“Congestion pricing should be viewed primarily as a revenue action to cover the MTA’s indefensibly high capital costs,” Ken Girardin, director of research for the Empire Center, a New York-focused think tank, told the DCNF. “As to congestion itself, policymakers have declined to do basic things like enforce parking rules or dial back the parking permits given to public employees or other policy changes that would take cars off lower Manhattan roads because those aren’t things you can borrow money against.”

The policy would also make life more expensive for people who do not live in the city but make the commute each day to go to work, according to Politico. Notably, politicians in London, the U.K’s largest metropolis, have attempted a similar scheme, which Republican New York City Councilman Joseph Borelli of Staten Island described as “a complete disaster” and an “abject failure” when discussing New York’s forthcoming version of the scheme in January.

“If all of New York state went ‘net-zero’ today, United Nations climate modeling indicates that a mere 0.0023° F of global warming would be avoided by 2050. That is far from measurable, much less significant. So nothing would be accomplished,” Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, told the DCNF. Businesses will stay in NYC and play along with the climate agenda, including high taxes, as long as costs can be passed on to locals. When profitability stops, businesses will leave… The costs of the climate agenda are regressive. Poorer people will feel them first.”

The offices of Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the MTA did not respond immediately to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

This Populous Blue State Has A Green Energy Mandate. Experts Say It Threatens Grid Reliability

Fresh Off Their Alaska Failure, The Eco-Left Has Its Sights Set On A New Gas Project

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.

Investors Are Turning On A Key Pillar Of Biden’s Climate Agenda

Investors are backing off of electric vehicle (EV) charging companies, a key player in the Biden administration’s wider climate agenda, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Major companies in the industry— including ChargePoint, EVgo and Blink Charging— have seen their stock prices tumble over the past year as investors worry about their profitability, a sign of potential trouble for an industry that the White House is counting on to reach its aggressive longer-term EV targets, according to the WSJ. The administration has set aside billions of dollars to boost the industry, which it will need to thrive in order to develop a nationwide network of charging stations.

ChargePoint’s stock price is down 74% in 2023, while EVgo and Blink Charging have seen their shares lose 21% and 67% of their value, respectively, according to the WSJ.

ChargePoint, which the administration has touted in the recent past, is also currently subject to a class action lawsuit that alleges company executives engaged in securities fraud by making misleading statements that unduly inflated the firm’s share price.

“I think the investor class has grown weary of the industry’s lack of profitability,” Blink Charging’s CEO Brendan Jones told the WSJ. EV charging companies once received lofty valuations from investors, Jones told the WSJ.

The Biden administration spent $7.5 billion in the bipartisan infrastructure law to help build out a nationwide network of 500,000 charging stations in order to help reach its goal of having 50% of all new car sales be EVs by 2030. McKinsey, a leading consulting firm, has estimated that there will need to be about 1.5 million public chargers installed by 2030 if that target is to be achieved, according to the WSJ. At present, there are nearly 160,000 public chargers available at approximately 60,000 locations nationwide.

EV charging companies are generally struggling to turn a profit right now, but they expect to attain profitability within the next year or two, according to the WSJ. However, the wider EV industry is lagging despite the Biden administration’s efforts to support it, and charging companies find themselves in a difficult bind: more consumers need to switch to EVs to help these companies improve their performance, but consumers may be hesitant to do so if the reliability of the nation’s charging infrastructure remains inconsistent.

Currently, the vast majority of charging infrastructure is concentrated in more densely populated coastal areas as opposed to more rural areas of the country, according to the Department of Energy (DOE).

ChargePoint, EVgo, Blink Charging and the White House did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Ernst Is Pulling The Plug On Biden’s Electric Vehicle Charging Initiative

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.

UN declares: ‘Whether you like it or not, fossil fuel phase-out inevitable’ – UN ‘is literally psychotic…We have to say HELL NO to idea of Net Zero!’

We’re Saved!? UN declares: ‘Whether you like it or not, fossil fuel phase-out inevitable’ – Morano: UN ‘is literally psychotic…We have to say HELL NO to idea of Net Zero!’

By Marc Morano

Morano: “The UN Secretary-General said whether you like it or not, fossil fuels are going away. Well, gee, if that’s the case, then these UN COP meetings are going away. You had the British Foreign Secretary, King Charles, and Richie Rich — Richie Sunak, their Prime Minister, fly there in three separate private jets to this summit. In many ways, this is just absolute virtue signaling, Laura.

Morano: “Since March of 2020, the whole world has changed. They are lusting after what they saw in COVID. And the most significant thing of this COP 28 happened about a week before COP 28 And that’s when a couple of hundred medical journals urged the World Health Organization to declare climate change a public health threat. The idea here is to bring this under public health authority. So if you could declare a COVID emergency or you can declare any kind of public health pandemic you can now call climate change as part of that and that’s what they’re looking for — to bypass democracy.”

Morano: “It’s easier to transition your gender, than it is the transition energy, especially the way the United Nations is going about it — centrally planned, command and control. They’re not backing off of this at any level. But the danger comes from the corporate government collusion that was there.” Over 200 health journals call on the UN & WHO to recognize ‘climate change’ as ‘a global health emergency’

‘COMMAND AND CONTROL’: Nations at COP28 agree to transition from fossil fuels – Climate Depot executive editor Marc Morano calls the United Nations’ climate push ‘absolute virtue-signaling’ on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’

CLICK HERE TO WATCH: ‘The Ingraham Angle.’ – Fox News Channel – Broadcast December 13, 2023

Rough Transcript:

Laura Ingraham:  Joining me now is Marc Morano, executive editor at Climate Depot. We just got back from Cop Out 28 in Dubai mark at the UN Secretary General also applauded the move saying that the era of fossil fuels must end and it must add this is my favorite part with justice and my favorite word equity. Yeah, okay, Marc, what is this really all about? How much is it going to cost us?

Marc Morano: Well, today, you need to hug your children because the UN and 190-plus nations have announced the end of fossil fuels. Now keep in mind that 100 years ago in the world — 80% of our energy came from fossil fuels, and today, 80% of our energy comes from fossil fuels. But hey, it’s going away.

You know what the UN Secretary-General — the former president of Socialist International — which the media doesn’t seem to mention that very much. But the UN Secretary-General said whether you like it or not, fossil fuels are going away.

Well, gee, if that’s the case, then these COP meetings are going away. You had the British Foreign Secretary, King Charles and Richie Rich,  Richie Sunak, their Prime Minister, fly three separate private jets to this summit. In many ways, this is just absolute virtue signaling, Laura.

But here’s the thing since March of 2020, the whole world has changed. They are lusting after what they saw in COVID. And the most significant thing of this COP 28 happened about a week before COP 28 And that’s when the couple 100 medical journals urged the World Health Organization to declare climate change a public health threat. The idea here is to bring this under public health authority. So if you could declare a COVID emergency or you can declare any kind of public health pandemic you can now call climate change as part of that and that’s what they’re looking for — to bypass democracy and that’s the whole setup. And that’s why this is really window dressing for the real power happening behind the scenes.

Laura Ingraham: Well, and that’s when they want to get rid of cash, they can track all of your all your purchases, electric cars, they can stop you from moving out of your allowed territory and so forth. But I know that China got a big free pass as usual and also India, because they’re, I mean, they’ve already said we’re not phasing out of I mean, they’re not going to phase out of anything. It’s vital to their economies and their people. They know what fossil fuels as it is to ours.

Marc Morano: The Indian environmental minister was on record as saying, we’re not going to limit our development because they are 20 to 30% of our population is in poverty. China, on the other hand, they’re going to be exempt, and they are pushing hard – Laurie they had an entire pavilion, the the most elaborate setup with a picture of Xi Jinping over the COP 28 sign.

And they literally were pushing for as much transition to solar and wind from fossil fuels. China was pushing the West to be more reliant on — drumroll please — China, which is what they’re doing,

And I would argue it’s easier to transition your gender, than it is the transition energy, especially the way the United Nations is going about it — centrally planned, command and control. They’re not backing off of this at any level. But the danger comes from the corporate government collusion that was there, and they also had children’s events there. They had sustainable fashion events. They have it all covered at these conferences.

Laura Ingraham: Marc, great to see you.

Over 200 health journals call on the UN & WHO to recognize ‘climate change’ as ‘a global health emergency’

Watch: ‘Stop Net Zero, Save Red Meat!’ Climate skeptics crash COP 28 & engage in traffic blockade at the UN climate summit in Dubai

https://www.climatedepot.com/2023/12/15/were-saved-cop-28-un-climate-claims-to-end-fossil-fuels-morano-goal-is-literally-psychotic-we-have-to-say-hell-no-to-this-whole-idea-of-net-zero/

December 15, 2023 – 10:47 am
Hug your children today! The UN has struck a deal to end fossil fuels & save the planet!
Watch: Morano on Fox w/ Varney on UN climate summit: ‘We have to say HELL NO’ to this whole idea of Net Zero’ – ‘This is an insane goal. It’s an insane meeting’
Varney & Co. – Fox Business – Broadcast December 13, 2023 – Phasing out fossil fuels is an ‘insane goal’: Marc Morano – Climate Depot executive editor Marc Morano discusses worldwide calls to phase out fossil fuels and Al Gore blaming the mental health crisis on climate change.
Watch: Morano on Fox News w/ Ingraham on COVID/Climate merging: ‘The most significant event of COP 28 happened before COP 28, when 200 medical journals urged the WHO to declare climate change a public health threat’
‘The Ingraham Angle.’ – Fox News Channel – Broadcast December 13, 2023Over 200 health journals call on the UN & WHO to recognize ‘climate change’ as ‘a global health emergency’Watch: Morano gives analysis and sums up UN climate summit with Alex Newman on TNT’s Unleashed with Marc Morano – 12 December 2023

COP28: Hype and Reality – ‘COP28 was futile climate theatrics’ – Full of ‘phony climate promises’ – ‘We must abandon Net Zero before it’s too late’

You have NO CHOICE! UN Sec. Gen. António Guterres (the former president of Socialist International) declares: ‘Whether you like it or not, fossil fuel phase out is inevitable’

UN Celebrates! COP28 Agreement Signals ‘Beginning of the End’ of the Fossil Fuel Era – UN brags it is ‘ratcheting up climate action’CNN: ‘It’s time to limit how often we can travel abroad – ‘Carbon Passports’ may be the answer’ – ‘Drastic changes to our travel habits are inevitable’ – Suggests restrictions will be ‘forced’ upon publicWatch: ‘Stop Net Zero, Save Red Meat!’ Climate skeptics crash COP 28 & engage in traffic blockade at the UN climate summit in DubaiWatch: I participated in a traffic blockade at the UN climate summit in Dubai – Climate skeptics turn the table on climate activists! CFACT’s 1 minute climate protest video here at the COP28 conferencesWatch: Morano on Fox on COP 28: Believing we can abolish fossil fuels & a UN climate pact is going to save us ‘is literally psychotic’ – ‘Net Zero is a Soviet-style central planning technique that has to be roundly defeated’
 
Morano on UN COP28 Climate Summit & Net Zero Goals of Fossil Fuel Phase-Out:

Morano: “Let’s say it out loud. Net Zero is a Soviet-style central planning technique that has to be roundly defeated. We need Republican leadership. We need the House Speaker. We need Mitch McConnell. We need them to do a Sense of the Senate, a declaration of Congress to declare Net Zero an anti-human agenda.

It’s one of the greatest farces that ever come from the United Nations — the idea that the UN is going to act as though they’re they can control the dial of the earth and control the temperature by crushing human energy and development. … 

And just to go back to the whole big picture, 100 years ago, 80% of our energy came from fossil fuels. Today, 80% of our energy comes from fossil fuels both globally and in the US. The idea that we can get rid of fossil fuels in the next few decades and that the UN is going to save us or the idea that the Inflation Reduction Act is going to save us — is literally psychotic. It has no science or common sense behind it.”

NYT: ‘Saudi Arabia Is Trying to Block a Global Deal to End Fossil Fuels, Negotiators Say’

‘Tears flowed’ at COP 28 climate summit as UN agreed to ‘historic’ decision to TAKE AWAY YOUR FOSSIL FUELS to save planet!!

Flashback 2020: Crying over ‘climate change’ – Tears, sobbing, & ‘climate grief’ is an actual thing for activists – Special Report

Via Climate Nexus: https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/saudis-had-unregistered-oil-employees-at-cop-tesla-recalls-cars-more

COP28: Was COP28 a success or flop? Depends who you ask (TIME), The world has a new floor for climate ambition (The Atlantic), Climate talks end on a first-ever call for the world to move away from fossil fuels (NPR), What to make of the deal struck at COP28 (Economist), Heard at UN climate talks: Quotes that tell the story (AP), Climate summit makes ‘historic progress’ — but the world still can’t quit oil (E&E News), How an oil executive led the world to an agreement to ditch fossil fuels (Grist), COP28 deal just about keeps net zero on the road (Reuters), COP28 kicks carbon trading down the road as EU blocks deal (Reuters), COP28 agreeable to Saudis as it lets nations chart own course – source (Reuters), The world just made it clear the fossil fuel era is ending — with some wiggle room (Washington Post $), Analysis: At COP28, Sultan al-Jaber got what the UAE wanted. Others leave it wanting much more (AP), In the end, an oil man won a climate summit deal on moving away from oil (New York Times $), Oil companies are fine with call to move away from fossil fuels (New York Times $), COP28 ends with legacy potential after breakthrough fossil fuel pact (Axios)

JUSTICE: The last residents of a coastal Mexican town destroyed by climate change (AP), Climate reparations are becoming a reality. Here’s what they could look like. (Grist), Analysis: It’s uncertain if push to ‘Stop Cop City’ got enough valid signers for Atlanta referendum (AP)

Technocracy: Critics Slam UN ‘Climate Scientists’ Bid for Dictatorial Power

Over 200 health journals call on the UN & WHO to recognize ‘climate change’ as ‘a global health emergency’

COP 28: UN scientists seek Fauci-like ‘powers – Gore & Kerry demand phase-out of fossil fuels – ‘Clothing limited to 3 new items per person’

Eliminate fossil fuels for the kids’ future! Climate activist: ‘COP28, the clock’s ticking’ – ‘Phase out fossil fuels? Yes, please’

Scientist Dictators emerge at Cop28! UN IPCC scientists declare: ‘We need power to prescribe climate policy’ – ‘Scientists should be allowed to make policy prescriptions & potentially oversee implementation’

Gore declares: Agreement to phase out fossil fuels would be ‘one of the most significant events in the history of humanity’

‘Climate lockdowns are here & now’ – Marc Morano Joins Rose Unplugged From COP28 Climate Conference in Dubai

Watch: Morano on TV from Dubai COP 28 UN climate summit on Destroying The World’s Energy Supply

Not again!? ‘This may be our last chance’: Cop28 talks ‘enter final phase’ — But every climate summit is hailed as the ‘last chance!’

UN climate summit serving burgers, BBQ as it calls for US to stop eating meat – Offerings include ‘juicy beef,’ ‘slabs of succulent meat,’ smoked wagyu burgers & Philly cheesesteaks

©2023. Marc Morano. All rights reserved.

President Of UN Climate Confab Says There’s ‘No Science’ Behind Push To Phase Out Fossil Fuels

Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the president of this year’s United Nations (UN) climate summit, said that there is “no science” behind calls to eliminate fossil fuels to counter global warming, according to The Guardian.

Al Jaber also said that getting rid of fossil fuels would not allow for sustainable economic growth “unless you want to take the world back into caves,” according to The Guardian. He made the remarks during an exchange with Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change, during a virtual event held on Nov. 21.

“There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5,” Al Jaber told Robinson, referencing the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold for increase in global average temperatures that many scientists and activists point to as critical to stay below, according to The Guardian.

“Please help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves,” Al Jaber told Robinson, according to The Guardian.

Al Jaber’s comments drew the ire of other UN officials, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and climate activists, who advocate for a much stronger international effort to abandon fossil fuels and switch the world’s economy to relying on green energy generation, according to The Guardian.

Al Jaber’s presidency has also generated other controversies, as he runs the Emirati state-owned renewable firm and the state-owned oil and gas giant. Leaked documents showed that Emirati officials planned to use COP28-related meetings to discuss potential business dealings related to the two firms with foreign officials, and separate documents revealed how the companies viewed Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry as a key player in efforts to secure their future financial success.

Despite Al Jaber’s comments and the appearances of potential conflicts of interest, the conference he is overseeing has resulted in several major developments. For example, several of the world’s developed countries, including the U.S., pledged hundreds of millions of dollars combined to a de facto international “climate reparations” fund, and American officials approved a new set of methane emissions regulations that could severely impact the domestic oil and gas industry.

The UN did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

White House Deploys Kamala Harris To Represent US At Elite Climate Summit: ‘It’s Only Fitting’

Biden Could Jack Up Food Prices, Wreak Environmental Havoc With ‘Sustainable’ Jet Fuel Subsidies

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.

U.S. To Hand Billions To United Nations’ ‘Green Climate Fund’ For Poor Countries

President Joe Biden’s administration is committing an additional $3 billion to help developing countries fight climate change, the White House announced Saturday.

The allotment will go toward the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund and will be pledged by Vice President Kamala Harris at the COP28 summit in Dubai, according to the White House. The U.S.’ pledge will bring the fund to its largest level so far, as other countries like France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan have already made similar commitments that totaled $9.3 billion, according to Bloomberg, who first reported the funding.

“Since day one, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and the entire Biden-Harris Administration have treated climate change as the existential threat of our time,” the White House’s announcement reads. “After spearheading the most significant climate action in history at home and leading efforts to tackle the climate crisis abroad, the United States heads into the 28th U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) with unprecedented momentum.”

The U.S. reached $5.8 million in international funding geared toward curbing climate change in 2022, compared to $1.5 billion allotted during 2021, according to the State Department. The Biden administration will exceed $9.5 billion this year, and the president is already planning on topping $11 million in 2024.

Wealthy countries are supposed to commit $100 billion per year to help developing countries fight climate change, a pledge that began in 2020, according to Bloomberg.

The Biden administration’s commitment follows a trend of funding green energy initiatives the president has focused on during his tenure, including his signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA approved $750 billion in new spending, $370 billion of which went toward Biden’s green energy initiatives aimed at curbing climate change.

The U.S. pledged over $17 million toward an international “climate reparations” fund at the summit on Thursday. The fund is also geared toward helping developing countries fight against the impacts of climate change.

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Admin Pledges Millions To International ‘Climate Reparations’ Fund

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.

Biden Admin Preparing To Finalize Barrage Of Methane Regulations

The Biden administration is gearing up to finalize a host of emissions rules and regulations in the coming months, E&E News reported Wednesday.

The rules and regulations are all focused on methane, a greenhouse gas that is more potent, but dissipates more quickly, than carbon dioxide, and align with the administration’s commitment to attacking climate change with a “whole-of-government” response. The Biden administration is aiming to finalize the slew of methane regulations in the coming months ahead of the 2024 election, which would make the rules more difficult for a potential Republican administration to scrap should President Joe Biden loseaccording to E&E News.

The White House is reviewing an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) final rule that would cut methane emissions from oil and gas production, refining, transport and storage, according to E&E News. The rule could be finalized on Dec. 2, when the U.S. hosts a methane summit with China and the United Arab Emirates at the upcoming United Nations climate conference.

The Biden administration and China committed to working together to control methane emissions last week, though the Chinese climate envoy has balked at calls to ditch fossil fuels and the country permitted an average of two new coal plants each week in 2022, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

The EPA is also looking to finalize regulations for power plant and vehicle emissions in the coming months, according to E&E News. A separate EPA methane tax regulation from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate bill, is currently under White House review and due to become finalized early in 2024. The rule will be based on updated and more aggressive reporting standards.

Meanwhile, the administration is working with the European Union and other countries to craft new international standards to give low-methane natural gas privileged access to the European market, according to E&E News. While work on these standards is underway, it is unclear when they will become final.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) is working on a rule for pipelines for methane leak detection and repairs, according to E&E News. The agency had signaled that it would unveil the final rule in July, but it has not come out yet. The American Gas Association slammed the proposal as an example of “overreach” that sets “highly unrealistic” compliance timelines when the agency unveiled it in August.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is also crafting a methane rule focused on leaks from oil and gas production on federal lands, according to E&E News. The final rule was supposed to be unveiled in September, but the White House has not yet reviewed it.

The Treasury Department is also working on tax credit eligibility guidelines for “green hydrogen” projects, according to E&E News. The guidelines for the sizable tax credits, made available for the IRA, will set the threshold for acceptable levels of upstream methane leaks from gas used to produce the hydrogen.

The White House, the EPA, the DOT, the Treasury Department and the BLM did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘Outrageous’: EPA Agents Are Flying Helicopters Over Texas Oil Fields To Crack Down On Methane Emissions From Drilling

Biden Safety Agency Pushes Tech That Could Remotely Control The Speed Of Your Car

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.

‘Climate Virtue Signaling’: Another Blue State Commits To Banning New Gas-Powered Car Sales By 2035

New Jersey will prohibit the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035 in order to fight climate change, state officials announced Tuesday.

Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Shawn LaTourette, the commissioner of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection announced Tuesday that Murphy would file the “Advanced Clean Cars Rule II” for adoption on Dec. 18, with the policy coming into effect on Jan.1, 2024. The policy will bind the state to completely phasing out the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035, with incremental benchmarks for increasing the minimum share of manufacturers’ new fleets that are zero emission vehicle requirements along the way.

“Here we see yet another Democrat elected official pandering for votes by interceding in the markets in a way that will create perverse incentives for automakers and inevitably higher costs for consumers,” David Blackmon, a 40-year veteran of the oil and gas industry who now writes and consults on the energy sector, told the Daily Caller News Foundation about the policy. “This is just one more example of why politicians are literally the very worst class of people in our society to be making energy-related decisions for the rest of us. Everything they do in this space only serves to make our situation worse.”

New Jersey joins a growing list of states that have adopted 2035 bans on the sale of new gas-powered cars. Other states with similar or identical policies include  California, Vermont, New York, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Virginia, Rhode Island, Maryland and Connecticut, according to Coultra.

The state will start restricting the number of gas-powered vehicles that can be sold in the state in 2027, before arriving at zero in 2035, according to Murphy’s office. The 2027 benchmark will require manufacturers to ensure that zero emissions vehicles compose 43% of their new car fleets.

The policy does not ban ownership or use of internal combustion engine vehicles, and it will not bar the sale of used gas-powered cars, according to Murphy’s office.

“There is no justification, environmental or otherwise, to ban gas powered vehicles,” Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, told the DCNF. “All it does is force automakers to charge more for the types of vehicles that consumers actually want to buy. This power grab by unelected bureaucrats will make it harder for tens of thousands of New Jersey residents to buy their first car.”

Environmentalists and other green energy advocates often tout electric vehicles (EVs) as the future of American transportation and car culture, but they have several significant problems that their gas-powered counterparts do not. Public charging station performance remains inconsistent, drivers often have range anxiety, EVs tend to perform poorly in cold weather and they cost significantly more than gas-powered cars.

“By filing the landmark Advanced Clean Cars II rule, New Jersey builds upon its standing as a national leader in climate action and its participation in the global Accelerating to Zero commitment,” Murphy said of the policy.

Notably, some of Murphy’s other decarbonization efforts have not gone as smoothly as hoped. In October, Orsted, a major offshore wind developer, terminated two massive wind farms off the state’s coast that were expected to provide low-emissions power to the state for years to come. Now, the company is attempting to get out of up to $300 million it owes the state, which could ultimately leave New Jersey taxpayers on the hook.

“Governor Murphy needed another means of climate virtue signaling since Orsted messed up his offshore wind plans by cancelling two major projects last month,” Blackmon told the DCNF. “This is what he chose.”

Murphy’s office did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Study determines the astronomical true cost of electric vehicle ownership

Auto Manufacturers Start To Pump The Brakes On Ambitious EV Goals

A Massive Carveout In Dems’ Climate Law Is Boosting Foreign-Made EVs

As Other Automakers Push EVs, This Luxury Brand Drove Laps Around Them In 2022

Which Burns Faster, Wind Turbines or EVs?

FACT: All Electric Vehicles (EVs) Are Powered by Coal, Uranium, Natural Gas or Diesel-Powered Energy

RELATED VIDEO: So, what’s it like to live near wind turbines?

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.

Biden Admin Doubles Down On Climate Cooperation With China As Xi’s Economy Goes On Coal Binge

The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it is doubling down on efforts to work with China on climate change.

The State Department unveiled a comprehensive strategy reaffirming the administration’s commitment to taking on climate change as a global problem alongside China, even during a time of rocky relations between the two nations and clear signs that China may not be inclined to ditch fossil fuels anytime soon. The countries are on the same page regarding emissions reduction targets and strategies, cooperation through international institutions, subnational agreements and numerous other specific topics, according to the State Department.

China permitted an average of two coal-fired power plants per week in 2022, according to NPR, and their climate envoy said in September that the complete elimination of fossil fuel energy is an “unrealistic” goal. Nevertheless, the Biden administration is committed to working with China to reduce numerous classes of emissions, including methane and nitrogen oxides, both of which are associated with coal.

Both countries welcome subnational agreements focused on climate, such as those reached by Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and representatives of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to the State Department. Additionally, the countries are jointly committed to turning back forest loss, reducing plastic pollution and rapidly developing green energy generation sources.

Tuesday’s agreement on climate stands as one of several tentative deals reached this week between the two countries. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to halt the production of illicit fentanyl and resume inter-military communications in California during their first meeting in a year.

Notably, the State Department announcement also alludes to a joint plan to hold “a high-level event on subnational climate action” at some point in the first half of next year.

The two countries also committed to working together to keep United Nations average temperature targets in reach in ways that “[reflect] equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances,” according to the announcement. China is technically a developing nation in the eyes of the United Nations, despite being by far the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases and its status as the world’s second-largest economy, and it appears unwilling to pay into the so-called “loss and damages” fund, a de facto international climate reparations program by which rich countries would pay developing, poorer countries for the impacts of climate change.

The “loss and damages” program is poised to be a major topic of discussion at the upcoming United Nations climate conference, which itself is another point of collaboration between Washington and Beijing, according to the announcement.

The State Department did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Biden Admin Approved Huge Loan To Green Company As It Was Allegedly Defrauding Investors. Now Its Stock Is Tanking

Biden’s Energy Secretary Says ‘We Can All Learn From China’ On Climate Policy

‘Obvious Violation Of Federal Law’: Forthcoming Litigation Could Gum Up America’s Largest-Ever Offshore Wind Farm

Organizer With Deep CCP Ties Helped Bus Hundreds Into San Francisco To Welcome Chinese Dictator

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.

The Green Energy Industry Just Had An Absolutely Brutal Week

The past week has been marked by worrying developments for the state of the green energy industry, suggesting that President Joe Biden’s sweeping climate agenda could be imperiled.

Offshore wind companies are cancelling projects and executives are sounding the alarm on the state of the industry, while solar companies and indexes have seen their value continue a months-long slide that has resulted in diminished earnings forecasts and a solar-oriented loan provider’s bankruptcy. These developments suggest that Biden’s sweeping green energy plans could be in trouble, especially given the intractable nature of some of the crucial economic problems plaguing the industries.

“Boosters for this energy transition bet the farm on three rent-seeking industries: wind, solar and electric vehicles. Two legs of that three-legged stool are now showing signs of financial distress despite massive subsidies they’ve already received from multiple levels of government,” David Blackmon, a 40-year veteran of the oil and gas industry who now writes and consults extensively on energy, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “American consumers, who are paying the price for this in the form of skyrocketing costs of all forms of energy, should demand their representatives hang up the phone when the calls come in from wind and automaker executives asking for even more.”

Orsted, a Danish offshore wind company, announced on Tuesday that it cancelled two major developments off the coast of New Jersey. Company executives blamed factors like inflation, interest rates and supply chain woes, saying that the problems had left the firm little choice but to walk away from the major projects.

Since the cancellations, the company’s stock price has fallen even further and S&P has indicated that it is considering downgrading the company’s credit rating. But Orsted is not the only offshore wind company showing signs that the industry may be in an extremely precarious position.

The U.S. offshore wind industry appears to be “fundamentally broken” due to problems with permitting and rising costs, Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, the head of gas and low carbon energy for British Petroleum (BP), said at a conference on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg News. “There’s a fundamental reset needed,” she said, suggesting that there could be solutions and that her company is working with its partner to assess “options for their U.S. offshore wind projects to mitigate the effect of inflationary pressures and permitting delays.”

Under Biden’s leadership, the federal government has heavily subsidized the offshore wind developments, primarily via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), in a bid to have the industry provide enough power to source electricity for 10 million American homes by 2030. The state of the industry is so dire that numerous energy market experts told the DCNF that a government bailout for the industry may be just around the corner.

The offshore wind goal is just one slice of the administration’s efforts to decarbonize the American energy sector by 2035 and then have the entire U.S. economy reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

Like offshore wind, the administration is counting on solar power to emerge in the coming years as a replacement for the energy generated by fossil fuel infrastructure. Solar power is also similar to wind power in that it is intermittent and currently more expensive than power sourced by natural gas and other fossil fuels, according to Peter Grossman, an emeritus professor of economics for Butler University.

Solar companies have generally had a rough 2023 so far, and this past week has been no different: while stocks are down for several leading solar producers, Sunlight Financing, a company which provided loans to consumers to buy residential solar systems, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday. Several leading home system installers pared back their outlooks for the year this week as well, as higher interest rates and inflation have cooled consumer demand, according to Bloomberg News.

“The green industry makes products that are both very expensive and mostly ineffective,” Larry Behrens, the communications director for Power The Future, told the DCNF. “Yet, instead of admitting reality, we have an administration in Washington that is doubling-down and working overtime to force these terrible products into our lives,” he continued, adding that “thanks to the laughably-named Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Biden has a $369 billion dollar green slush fund and he’s put a political operative in charge of it… Joe Biden knows that when the green agenda fails, his legacy will sink even further, so there will be no dollar amount too high to keep green boondoggles afloat for as long as possible.”

The White House, Orsted, BP and Sunlight Financing all did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Blue State Taxpayers May Pay The Price For Dems’ Wind Power Gamble

Dems’ Own Banking Rules Could Strangle Green Energy Investment

Berkshire Hathaway Reports $12.8 Billion Loss Amid Falling Investments

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.

Outsmarting Wind & Solar Lobbyists

Most people know that lobbyists are paid shills (for a product, industry, or cause). However, few citizens are aware that almost all state and federal laws are written by lobbyists. That said, this commentary is just on one subject area: wind and solar energy. Since lobbyists’ objectives (e.g., their client’s financial gain) are in direct conflict with what is in the best interests of citizens, this is a deplorable situation.

This travesty will continue until lawsuits expose how such laws contradict other statutes on the books. For example, most states require that state utility boards approve energy projects based on two paramount criteria: cost and reliability.

But wind and solar projects are high cost and low reliability — so how could any of them ever be approved? Because: 1) of the undue influence of lobbyists, 2) state utility boards are acting to support political agendas (instead of their own statutes), and 3) no one is suing them for their lack of adherence to state laws, etc..

One way around this has been citizens getting their community to impose reasonable (science-based) rules and regulations on local wind or solar projects (e.g., regarding setbacks, etc.). Of course, lobbyists and political virtue signalers find that citizens restricting non-sensical industrialization in their own community, to be unacceptable.

In response lobbyists got state legislators to pass state laws that limited what local legislators could do regarding the regulation of such projects in their community. For example, local communities are not allowed to make setbacks more than a “state approved” amount — regardless of what scientific information they have.

A major problem here is that in some cases, these new state restrictions are a violation of Home Rule rights. See here for a basic definition of what this means, and the numerous states that have Home Rule. Again, they get away with this extraction of citizens’ rights, because no one is properly suing them for this infringement.

The choice for citizens here is very simple: a) roll over and continue to be beaten down, or b) decide that they have had enough and then take meaningful action.

The good news is: if citizens are finally ready to pay hardball, they have several effective options. I’ve mentioned one already: sue state agencies for not complying with their statutory obligations. The most powerful lawsuit is to sue state agency members individually using the Federal 1983 Statute. This is to sue them personally for violating your civil rights, but it requires a sympathetic, aggressive attorney.

Note: I am not an attorney, so I am not giving legal advice here. Instead, I am simply letting you know some options available. Consult with a competent lawyer.

Another effective strategy against lobbyist influence is to outsmart them. For example, state laws that restrict how communities can regulate wind and solar are almost always about not allowing stricter setbacks, etc. than the state specifies. (Of course, the state has no scientific basis for the setbacks they allow — and, again, a proper lawsuit would expose that major deficiency.)

To effectively fight lobbyists it is essential to know the key factors needed to be properly regulated for industrial wind projector solar projects. A clever way to outsmart them is to pass local regulations that are not specifically identified (limited) in a state law.

For example, pass a Property Value Guarantee. My energy website has a document about PVG, which also shows the scientific justification for it. PVGs are also incorporated into our model local wind and solar ordinances.

Some other clever tactics are:

  1. Pass zoning laws that limit where wind or solar projects are allowed,
  2. Pass an ordinance prohibiting any wind energy-related PILOT program,
  3. Assess wind or solar projects at their FULL value,
  4. Pass a General Zoning Ordinance listing a wide variety of things (including industrial wind energy) that would be inconsistent with your Town’s character, objectives, etc. [e.g., what the Town of Dryden did, which was upheld in court],
  5. Require that the wind or solar facility developer not impose any confidentiality clauses on any landowners, in their lease or easement agreements, and
  6. Declare your community to be a Sanctuary Community (opting out of certain regulations imposed on it by the State). [Note: to date, this has been done regarding immigrationgun laws, etc., so no good reason why not a renewable sanctuary!]

The bottom line is that if citizens are determined and creative (i.e., use critical thinking), they can outsmart lobbyists and lapdog politicians.

Here is a 100% guarantee: if you don’t properly defend your rights, they will take more of them away!

©2023. John Droz, Jr. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren’t working

Biden: Already Declared Climate Emergency ‘Practically Speaking’

President Biden has “practically speaking” already declared a national emergency on climate change, the president said in an interview with The Weather Channel published Wednesday. “We’ve conserved more land. We rejoined the Paris Climate Accord, we passed a $368 billion climate control facility.” At first, he said he had declared an emergency, but when pressed he said he had done so “practically speaking.”

The point of an emergency declaration is so that executives can exercise special powers to respond to an emergency, which would be unlawful under normal circumstances. However, due to the enormous powers they unlock, federal emergency declarations are limited by three federal laws.

Under the Public Health Service Act, the Health and Human Services Secretary can declare a public health emergency that grants the secretary extensive powers to respond to the public health emergency.

Under the Stafford Act, a state governor or tribal area chief executive can request federal assistance, allowing the president to declare a disaster or emergency; such a declaration enables the federal government to disburse financial assistance and other relief, coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Under the National Emergencies Act, the president may declare a national emergency without a request from a specific state, which confers 123 powers granted in other laws, although the president must specify which authorities are activated.

The law does not recognize a method of declaring an emergency, “practically speaking,” without an official declaration. Thus, even CNN acknowledged, “President Joe Biden incorrectly claimed in an interview with The Weather Channel that he has already declared a national emergency on the climate crisis.”

Biden elaborated on what he meant regarding a climate change emergency. “It’s the existential threat to humanity,” he stated. A threat to humanity’s existence would logically involve a threat to American lives, and a natural event that threatens American lives would typically be an appropriate subject for an emergency declaration. In that sense, it’s possible to follow Biden’s logic.

But while the logic is certainly clear, the solution is not. To protect lives during a hurricane, tornado, or manhunt, a governor could order citizens to evacuate, shelter in place, or avoid a certain area, as well as stockpiling emergency resources. Then, once the emergency is past, citizens can resume their normal lives. These are not only inadequate but meaningless responses to something as ill-defined as “climate change.” Evacuate to where? For how long? The current climate change narrative identifies a global crisis extending for lifetimes.

In fact, the lack of workable solutions might explain why President Biden has so far declined to declare a climate emergency. Biden has labelled climate change an “emergency” in speeches and vowed to combat it through executive actions, but he has stopped short of declaring an official emergency. If he did declare an emergency, what powers would he invoke, precisely?

Another possible reason for Biden’s delay is the inevitable legal and constitutional challenges, which he might then lose. Under normal circumstances, emergency powers are as short-lived as the crisis. But a climate emergency would be practically endless, enabling a presidential administration to sweep away America’s normal operating procedure forever, “practically speaking.” The courts have already struck down a number of Biden administration executive actions on the climate — from stopping offshore drilling to redefining inland waters — and they might not look too kindly on what would amount to a massive power grab.

But climate change is not the only issue on which emergency powers allure Biden. Biden has been contemplating an abortion emergency declaration since last year. He contemplated declaring an emergency over monkeypox, which primarily affects a very specific subset of the population. And he kept extending the COVID-19 emergency until long after he declared the pandemic over, and Congress had forced him to let it end. Somehow, under the president who promised to restore normalcy to Washington, everything is an emergency.

But President Biden’s track record with emergency declarations — specifically, considering them but not declaring them — suggests they serve a purpose other than good governance. That purpose is politics. When the chief executive is constantly mulling an emergency declaration, that stokes fear and alarm in the public, who assume he has alarming information they don’t. Fear can be a powerful motivator, driving people to vote, protest, or answer polls in the desired way. And many politicians today traffic almost exclusively in the rhetoric of fear. Even 70% of churchgoers have a growing sense of fear, although the Bible repeatedly exhorts them to “fear not.”

Biden is not the only figure to misuse an emergency declaration to advance a political agenda. In May, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (D) officially declared a state of emergency because the legislature was considering a school choice bill. In June, the Human Rights Campaign — an activist organization with no governmental or emergency power — declared a state of emergency for people in Florida who identify as LGBT because the state government enacted measures to check the inroads of transgender ideology in education and medicine. These nakedly political emergency declarations cheapen the whole concept, so that people are tempted to take it less seriously in the event of an actual emergency.

Today’s progressives are apparently trying to improve on former Obama advisor Rahm Emanuel’s slogan, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” After lurching society to the Left, their worry is not that they might waste a crisis by failing to achieve their agenda, but that there aren’t enough crises to accommodate it all. Thus, they are proactively looking for crises to exploit or, if necessary, manufacture. “Is this a crisis?” they ask themselves. “Or rather, would people believe it is?”

Healthy representative governments don’t flit breathlessly from crisis to crisis, nor do they replace mature deliberation for fear-driven urgency. This is unacceptable, and it must not continue.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARITICLE: Two Princeton, MIT Scientists Say EPA Climate Regulations Based on a ‘Hoax’

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

EPA’s New Climate Rule Would Cause Rolling Blackouts In Huge Swath Of America, Analysis Finds

  • Proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations for power plant emissions could spur blackouts in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) power grid region and cost stakeholders nearly $250 billion in the coming decades, according to comments filed in response to the rule by the Center of the American Experiment (CAE).
  • The average annual cost to stakeholders of building enough capacity to stave off the blackouts CAE projects in the MISO region is greater than the average annual benefit the EPA estimates its proposals will bring for the entire country by 2055, according to CAE’s analysis.
  • “This is the regulatory equivalent of studying the structural integrity of the top floor of a 100-story building without doing so for the preceding 99 floors,” Isaac Orr, policy fellow for the CAE and coauthor of CAE’s comments, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules regulating carbon dioxide emissions for power plants would lead to blackouts in a large slice of the Midwest and impose costs of nearly $250 billion, according to new analysis by the Center of the American Experiment (CAE).

The EPA’s proposed regulations would require fossil fuel-fired power plants to adopt developing technologies, such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and hydrogen blending, in order to significantly bring down their greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades. CAE filed comments this week in response to the EPA’s proposals, highlighting in its analysis that the EPA has overestimated the efficacy of wind and solar while exposing the 45 million people living in the area served by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) power grid to elevated blackout risks.

The EPA “does not appear to have the expertise necessary to enact such a sweeping regulation on the American power sector,” CAE wrote in its comments.

CAE’s analysis found that the EPA’s modeled MISO grid could result in massive blackouts across the 15 states it serves, with one stress test scenario estimating that nearly one in five MISO-served households would be without power. Additionally, CAE calculated that building up enough capacity to avoid its projected blackouts in the MISO region would cost $246 billion in total by 2055.

That figure breaks down to $7.7 billion annually on average through 2055, a number which is greater than the EPA’s projected $5.9 billion annual benefit to the entire country if the proposals are finalized.

“For EPA’s RIA on the proposed rules, EPA assumes 99 percent of the emissions reductions resulting from changes to the electric grid are driven by the subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is called its ‘Post-IRA’ Base Case and only 1 percent is from the proposed rules,” Orr continued. “But EPA never studies whether its base case, which accounts for 99 percent of the changes, maintains enough reliable power plants on the grid to meet electricity demand, as they only looked at that last 1 percent,” Orr said, adding that “this is the regulatory equivalent of studying the structural integrity of the top floor of a 100-story building without doing so for the preceding 99 floors.”

“EPA is required to justify any proposed regulations from a scientific and economic standpoint in a document called a Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA). Unfortunately, EPA used misleading assumptions in its analysis to justify the rules that don’t accurately reflect their impact on the reliability of the grid or their cost,” Isaac Orr, policy fellow for the CAE and coauthor of CAE’s comments, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Edison Electric Institute, a leading trade group for U.S. energy companies, also filed comments in response to the EPA’s proposals this week, highlighting that the EPA’s assertion that the efficacy of hydrogen blending and CCS has been adequately demonstrated is legally insufficient.

“The proposed rule does not require that plants go offline,” an EPA spokesperson told the DCNF. “The proposed rule would require plants to install proven technology to abate greenhouse gas emissions. The proposal provides 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.”

The EPA “looks forward to reviewing comments and constructively engaging with stakeholders as we work to finalize the proposed standards,” the spokesperson continued.

Two of the “proven” technologies cited by the EPA in its proposal are CCS and hydrogen blending. A considerable majority of CCS projects have underperformed or failed across the world, according to a 2022 report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, while hydrogen blending is a technique that is neither completely safe nor effective, according to a 2022 report by the Pipeline Safety Trust.

The EPA is seeking to impose these new regulations under the Clean Air Act in a way that accords with the limits to its authority clarified by the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA, decided in June 2022. The proposals align with the Biden administration’s wider push to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in the American power sector by 2035 and to have the American economy reach net-zero by 2050.

Some aims of the new proposals are “more aggressive” than those of the Clean Power Plan (CPP), an Obama-era attempt to impose stiff regulations on fossil fuel-fired power plants that ultimately formed the basis of West Virginia’s successful legal challenge in West Virginia v. EPA, according to comments filed in response to the rule by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

Mark Christie, a top official for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) warned in June that “catastrophic consequences” could await the U.S. if the premature retirement of fossil fuel-fired power plants continues before green energy alternatives are ready to supply large amounts of power to the grid.

MISO did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Blue State That Pushes Green Energy Delays Closing Power Plants Amid Blackout Concerns

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.

Kept Husband and Private-Jet Connoisseur Kerry Ripped for Demanding Agriculture Emission Cuts: ‘Bankrupt Every Farmer in America’

John Kerry’s deranged ‘Green’ policies are wreaking havoc on American families. And Kerry flies around the world on private jets to promote this crap. Kerry has been wrong on practically everything, but he continues to exert significant power in American and global affairs. Watch below.

Kerry made controversial comments during speech in May

By Fox News, July 31st, 2023

Kerry ripped for demanding agriculture emission cuts: ‘Bankrupt every farmer in America’

U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry was blasted on social media over the weekend by critics who accused him of trying to destroy the agriculture industry in order to achieve “net zero” emissions.

“Agriculture contributes about 33% of all the emissions of the world, depending a little bit on how you count it, but it’s anywhere from 26 to 33, and we can’t get to net zero, we don’t get this job done unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution,” Kerry told a climate change summit in May.

Read more.

AUTHOR

RELATED TWEETS:

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

Energy Industry Fears White House Will Declare COVID-Like ‘Climate Emergency’

 

They promoted lie after lie on Covid and got away with murder, literally. Why wouldn’t work for the fetish hoax on climate?

“Every single prediction they’ve ever made has been wrong… They still haven’t, after 30 years, shown us that human emissions of CO2 drive global warming.”

Energy Industry Fears White House Will Declare COVID-Like ‘Climate Emergency’

By Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times, July 30, 2023:

Some energy industry groups are expressing concern that the White House will declare a COVID-19-like emergency—but for the climate instead.”They’re leaning to that direction,” U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart told Just the News in an article published on July 30. “If you grant the president’s emergency powers to declare a climate emergency, it’s just like COVID.”

An emergency declaration on the climate could give the president “vast and unchecked authority to shut down everything from communications to infrastructure,” said Mr. Stewart, who has been a critic of the Biden administration.

Infrastructure around water and electricity could be affected by such a decision, he said.

“They can literally do exactly what they did in COVID,” Mr. Stewart said. “If you disagree with the climate emergency, [speech] can be shut down. We really need to be paying attention to that because that power could be extended indefinitely until the ‘climate emergency’ is over. Who knows how long that would last.”

The White House press office didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment about whether the administration might be preparing such a declaration.

President Joe Biden and other administration officials have said that the United States and the world are in the midst of a “climate crisis” and have used language describing it as an emergency. So far, Mr. Biden has stopped short of declaring an emergency, although some Democrats and environmental groups have pushed the idea.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLES:

New CDC Director Announces ANNUAL COVID Shot, To Be Finalized in September

New Facebook Files reveal lengths WH was willing to go to try to control COVID narrative on social media

RELATED VIDEO: Crimes Against Humanity have been committed. Millions harmed & killed by failed public health response.

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

Nobel Prize Winner Canceled By IMF After Announcing There Is No Climate Crisis

Clauser, who won the Physics Nobel Prize in 2022, “was to present a seminar on climate models to the IMF on Thursday and now his talk has been summarily canceled. “This is why no one speaks up and out against the greatest political fraud of the modern age. The immense power and machinery of the left will destroy you.

Dr. John Francis Clauser, PhD is an American experimental and theoretical physicist. He is best known for his contributions to the foundations of quantum mechanics, in particular for the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality, for the first experimental proof that non-local quantum entanglement is real (Freedman-Clauser), and for the formulation of the theory of Local Realism (Clauser-Horne).

Nobel Prize winner canceled by IMF after denouncing ‘climate change’ alarmism

The UN’s International Monetary Fund canceled a talk by Dr. John Clauser shortly after he declared that he does not ‘believe there is a climate crisis.’

By: Lifesite News, Jul 25, 2023:

Nobel Prize laureate Dr. John Clauser’s talk at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been canceled following his outspoken criticism of the “climate change” agenda.

Clauser, who won the Physics Nobel Prize in 2022, “was to present a seminar on climate models to the IMF on Thursday and now his talk has been summarily canceled,” according to a press release by the CO2 Coalition, an organization critical of the mainstream climate narrative that Clauser joined in May 2023.

“According to an email he received last evening, the Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund, Pablo Moreno, had read the flyer for John’s July 25 zoom talk and summarily and immediately canceled the talk,” the press release continues, adding that “Technically, it was ‘postponed.’”

Patrick Moore, a former Greenpeace activist and now a member of the CO2 Coalition, also insinuated in a tweet that “postponed” means that Clauser’s talk is effectively canceled.

Clauser made headlines recently when he said during a speech at the “Quantum Korea 2023” event that he does not “believe there is a climate crisis.”

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

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