It began with Governor Gavin Newsom in California. In September 2020, the newly elected governor issued an executive order imposing a ban on the sale of new gas and diesel-powered vehicles by 2035. In August 2022, California’s Air Resources Board enacted rules to require that 35 percent of new vehicle sales be electric or hydrogen-powered by 2026. It outlawed the sale of fossil-fueled powered combustion engines in California by 2035.
On April 8, the Biden Administration announced that the EPA is set to unveil regulations that would represent the tightest restrictions on tailpipe emissions ever introduced in the United States. “Already . . . Biden’s Investing in America agenda is powering a domestic clean energy manufacturing boom, lowering costs for American families, and creating good-paying union jobs,” the EPA stated. “As directed by the President in an executive order, the EPA is developing new standards that will build on this historic progress and support the transition to a zero-emissions transportation future, lowering costs for consumers, and protecting people and the planet.”
The EPA has a history of efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from stationary sources, but this is the first effort to regulate CO2 emissions from transportation vehicles.
In 2015, the EPA issued final regulations to limit GHG emissions from new fossil fuel-fired utility boilers and from natural gas-fired stationary combustion turbines. In 2018, the EPA proposed to amend the limits for newly constructed coal-fired units. On March 17, 2021, in line with Biden’s Executive Order 13990 on “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” the EPA asked the D.C. Circuit to vacate and remand the “significant contribution” final rule. The rule was promulgated without public notice or opportunity to comment. The court granted the EPA’s request.
Presumably, the EPA took this action to pave the way for the issuance of even stricter limits on transportation vehicles promulgated on April 12.
The EPA plans to enact these regulations despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling on June 30, 2022, against the regulatory powers of the EPA to limit CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants as relates to climate change. Logic would suggest that if the Court moved to strike down the EPA’s effort to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants, they would do likewise with respect to similar regulations to restrict CO2 emissions from internal combustion engines. Unless the automobile industry unwisely capitulates on this issue in the face of woke opposition, there will be legal challenges to the EPA’s proposed new regulations.
Government overreach is never acceptable in a democratic form of government, ipso facto. The fact that the U.S. federal government should determine the strategic direction of the automotive industry and limit consumer choice should be of grave concern to every freedom-loving American.
The legal reason the Supreme Court ruled against the ability of the EPA to regulate coal-fired power plant CO2 emissions under the “Clean Air Act” was clearly stated by Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion:
Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day.’ But it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme. A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.
If the current EPA regulations were to be adjudicated by the Court soon, one would expect Roberts to write something like this:
Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of internal combustion engines in transportation may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day.’ But it is not plausible Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme. A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.”
A more fundamental question deals with the very nature of the carbon dioxide molecule itself. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Every human and animal on the planet emits carbon dioxide when exhaling. CO2 is not our enemy; it is essential for life on Earth. It powers photosynthesis in all living plant matter which provides oxygen for man and the rest of the animal kingdom to breathe and promotes agriculture around the globe to feed a growing population.
In my book, Global Warming: The Great Deception—The Triumph of Dollars and Politics Over Science and Why You Should Care, I cite published, peer-reviewed scientific research, employing the first principles of the relevant scientific fields of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, atmospheric physics and spectroscopy to prove that CO2 does not cause global warming. I use publicly available data from the world’s temperature databases to prove that there has been no significant global warming of the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans or land mass as the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increased, thereby falsifying the global warming hypothesis. I use publicly available information to demonstrate that the motivation of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, certain world politicians and global investment firms is to gain financially by promoting the fraudulent hypothesis. It is all about money and political power; science has been sacrificed on the altar of political opportunism for economic and political gain.
However, the march towards totalitarianism on the part of government at all levels in the United States continues onward under the guise of addressing the “climate crisis and restoring science” to the establishment of public policy. In the case of global warming, the objective is to eliminate the combustion of carbon-based fuels: oil, natural gas, gasoline, diesel, wood, etc. No more internal combustion engines, no more gas stoves or water heaters, no more wood burning fireplaces, no more gas or charcoal grills.
In the concluding chapter of my book, I write: “If pseudo-science becomes the weapon of politicians and regulators; and, it is used to enact extreme policies, then civil liberties can and will be sacrificed under the false facade of the common good.”
That is why you should care.