Many Americans recently heard that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) on August 25 issued its edict prohibiting the sale of internal-combustion-engine cars, starting in 2035.
They might not how many states are ready to follow suit, or how long ago this bureaucratic tide started rising.
Based on previous years of empty propaganda that eventually saw its promoters change their label from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change” because their apocalyptic predictions of increasing global temps were not being borne out, in 2006, the California Assembly passed AB32, also known as the “Global Warming Solutions Act,” reading, in part:
“Pursuant to AB 32, CARB must adopt regulations to achieve the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective GHG emission reductions. The full implementation of AB 32 will help mitigate risks associated with climate change, while improving energy efficiency, expanding the use of renewable energy resources, cleaner transportation, and reducing waste.”
What are those risks? If they exist, how are they measured and priced? Where is the “climate change”? What reliable data can they show us? Are there actual people bringing tortious claims against specific “carbon” perpetrators who’ve raised temps and caused damage to those nonexistent victims?
Of course not – because this is a religion. In fact, it’s a dark religion that utilizes government control and subtle, gradual, human sacrifice as key parts of its fraud.
Skeptics who think this claim is hyperbolic might consider what High Priest Barack Obama in 2013 told poverty-stricken Africans:
“(I)f everybody is raising living standards to the point where everybody has got a car and everybody has got air conditioning, and everybody has got a big house, well, the planet will boil over -- unless we find new ways of producing energy.”
That deadly elitism is matched only by his economic ignorance and scientific chicanery. And it’s been followed by figures such as Gavin Newsom, who in 2020 set his 2035 “target” (sarcastic pun intended) of banning sales of internal combustion cars in Cali, which, in turn, saw CARB’s move last week.
This in a state where, year-upon-year, “officials” at Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) – the corporation which California politicians still grant a virtual monopoly over wholesale power distribution – has warned residents of rolling blackouts, and told them not to use air-conditioning that could “strain the grid.”
This also is a state where, again, thanks to the PG&E monolith and the fact that both the federal government and the state government claim ownership and control over vast portions of the state, the power company runs its spark-shedding lines over government “owned,” and poorly cleared, tinderboxes of land, which has inspired the corporation to announce rolling power-decreases in order to mitigate the risk of wildfires.
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But even then, when wildfires take lives and destroy homes, politicians like Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris grandstand, and use the scenes of devastation as photo-op backdrops, in one case traipsing over the ruined shell of a home, without the property owner’s permission, before the owner even knew the home was lost.
All, of course, to raise their favorite Climate spectre, and grab more power over people’s lives.
Political power that is being wielded, and which, in 2035, will ban gas-powered vehicles for “non-essential” civilians, but will offer exemptions for police, ambulance, and government.
And, of course, California Democrats claim it will replace that “power” with electricity, via PG&E, and sourced from things like the burning of natural gas, coal, and less reliable hydro, wind, and solar – all of which provide their own “evil” carbon footprints.
And now, Americans are discovering how many other politicians in other states are following Newsom’s lead.
As CNBC’s Emma Newburger reports, prior to the outright ban, Newsom’s plan will impose additional upward-creeping “fuel efficiency standards” on ICEs starting in 2026 (much higher than the already higher-than-U.S. regulations – these being state “standards” which have contributed to the trucking/shipping problem there). And:
“At least 15 states, including New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, have adopted California’s vehicle standards on previous clean-car rules.”
Then, loom the bans.
Gianna Melillo reports for The Hill:
“A total of 15 states have backed California’s zero-emissions vehicle requirements, while Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts and New York have taken steps to follow suit.”
To offer clarity through translation: those latter three have “locked-in” their bans, seeing Washington’s leftist Dem Governor Jay Inslee in April sign the statute for a 2030 ban, based on a 2020 statute that allowed the state to “adopt” California emissions standards. The Dem-dominated Massachusetts Legislature passed its 2035 ban last year. New York’s leftist government did the same, and MyCentralOregon reports that the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is ready to increase its demands on drivers and sellers:
“The proposed rule would transition all new light-duty vehicle sales in the state to zero-emission by 2035. Previously the state had set a target to have at least 90% of new vehicles sold annually be zero-emission by 2035.”
By “transition” MyCentralOregon likely means MANDATE.
And Melillo noted that those are just the states with established deadlines. The list of states where politicians are close to hopping on the train to ban-ville includes: Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia (where new Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) just vowed to stop it) and the lovely blemish called Washington, D.C.
And all of the leftist moves follow a path set by the Constitution-insulting EPA and Clean Air Act (of 1970, and subsequently amended) as Melillo writes:
“The Clean Air Act grants California the ability to impose emissions standards on new vehicles that are stricter than those at the national level and which other states can then follow. As long as states’ standards are identical to California’s they are permitted to adopt them without government approval.”
As a matter of constitutionalism, it should be noted that the EPA shouldn’t exist. Beyond that, if any state legislators wanted to impose such “regulations” on car makers, buyers, or owners, they would have to, first, be sure that they weren’t breaching already existing contracts between sellers and buyers (such action is prohibited by the Contract Clause of the U.S. Constitution), and they would have to see if their state constitution allowed them to impose their vaunted “regulations.” In most cases, because the people who wrote the state constitutions believed in private property and freedom of contract, the answer is NO.
Of course, even IF the U.S. Constitution or the state constitutions allowed a group of politicians and bureaucrats to issue these edicts and bans, the actions would not be moral, because they are threats, backed by government violence if a citizen does not comply.
If the moral arguments don’t register, there are the practical matters.
For example, as I’ve noted for MRCTV, it takes hours to charge an electric vehicle at home, because homes generally don’t have the capacity for high loads. And the simple matter is that the grids can’t handle electric vehicles anyway. In England, the government is imposing new bans on home EV charging during specific times of the day.
Then there’s the pass-through time for electric vehicles when charging at supposedly “fast charge” stations outside the house. Electricity isn’t like a physical product such as gasoline. It’s not storable for long periods, and has to be sent to charging stations. This takes time for the power to flow, which means it takes upwards of twenty minutes to fully charge a car at the fastest charger stations available. This, in turn, means that the “pass-through” time for customers at each station is roughly (on the best day) at least four-times longer than the longest time at a gas station for ICE users to fill up.
Ever get stuck in a storm, run out of gas, walk to a station and get a gallon, or have a friend bring you some? That’s not gonna happen in a dead EV in a snowstorm.
And what happens in areas where homes can lose power for days, and you have to get somewhere for emergent reasons?
On the subject of emergencies, the Brits already learned that having EVs handle them is a really dumb idea.
Finally, the cost to replace electric car batteries is astronomical, something MRCTV Director Eric Scheiner showed us, covering the story of a Chevy Volt owner whose new battery cost $14,000 when the car itself originally cost only $11,000.
And there are the environmental and human costs of lithium and cobalt mining – both essential for the electric vehicles – and the environmental costs of the battery disposal (both require heavy emissions of eeevil “carbon” to run the machines that make it happen.)
The EV phenomenon is politically driven, and because of this, six auto makers have decided to stop making internal combustion engines for the US market. Those include: Ford, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Jaguar Land Rover and the Chinese firm BYD.
Their board members likely know that California is a big market, and that the disastrous California precedent is seeing other states follow.
But corporate heads also could be intent on toeing the government line, so that they can be included in EV handouts like the ones Joe Biden recently started in motion in his “Infrastructure Act” and the newly passed “Inflation Reduction Act” – both of which are so misnamed it’s almost criminal.
Politicians for years have been setting up the dominos, despite not having any moral or constitutional authority to do so. And now, they’re ready to knock them down – at the expense of everyone who is not a crony of the people in power.
It’s clear: political power is their real goal.
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