TRANSITION President Joe Biden talks about his green-energy policies, during a visit to the former coal-fired Brayton Point power plant, which is shifting to off shore wind manufacturing.
FORMER COAL-FIRED BRAYTON POINT POWER PLANT
is control of people and the economy. This is one reason why the trend toward the de facto nationalization of our ener- gy industry through government man- dates, the restriction on the production and use of oil and natural gas, and the reorganization of the electric grid are so dangerous.” Beyond ideology, there is a pitched
battle going on between business inter- ests. It’s the “green economy” — green industries, including alternative ener- gies and electric vehicles and appli- ances — battling for supremacy against traditional fossil fuel-based industries. Billions of dollars are at stake. For
instance the 10-year cost of electric vehicle tax credits alone could be as high $1.2 trillion, according to the non- partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, which estimates what legislation will cost. In Joe Biden’s Infl ation Reduction Act, which might as well be called the Green New Deal for all the money it handed to green companies and tech- nology, companies are subsidized to produce electric vehicles, and consum- ers are subsidized to buy them. They’re still too expensive for most
people. But hundreds of billions of dol- lars are wasted this way. For instance, in June EV truck
maker Lordstown Motors, which got $200 million in Department of Energy loans, declared bankruptcy. Subsidizing what the market doesn’t want wastes tax dollars.
WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN? Under former President Donald
Trump, none of this was a prob- lem. In the 20 years prior to Biden’s administration, America had moved from being an energy importer, to being energy independent, to being an energy exporter. A return to that status is the solu-
tion we need. The goal should be making energy companies comfortable doing busi- ness in the U.S., and meeting energy demand so that we don’t need to buy oil from adversaries like Iran, Rus- sia, or Venezuela. According to Mark Mills, a lead-
ing energy expert at the Manhattan Institute, the Environmental Protec- tion Agency must reverse “emissions rules that would eff ectively require automakers to sell mostly EVs.” Mills has emphasized that the
costs in fossil fuels of mining the cobalt, lithium, and other minerals needed to build EV batteries may negate any emissions savings from the vehicle itself. As for switching to electric cars and appliances, Furchtgott-Roth
says: “We should be pro-choice. Peo- ple should have the choice between electric and gas-driven cars, electric or gas stoves, and dishwashers that use a lot of water or a little. “None of that should be deter-
mined by government edicts.” Six percent of cars sold last year
in the U.S. were electric. Of those, two-thirds were Teslas. Finally, it is time to develop
nuclear power, which is the only renewable energy source capable of actually powering the nation’s elec- tric grid.
Americans’ longstanding preju-
dices against nuclear energy need to be educated away by leaders who understand that solar and wind power are not capable of meeting the needs of a large country like ours. Nuclear power is clean, renew-
able, and it works. All that needs to be done to make it happen is a rewriting of restrictive regulations that were created to deal with fi rst stage nuclear power plants. We’re at stage four now.
D
EVs Don’t Work for Americans “I was focused on
iana Furchtgott- Roth of The
Heritage Foundation describes walking around the wealthy Rodeo Drive neighborhood in Los Angeles.
the cars in people’s driveways,” she says. “Everyone who had an EV also had an SUV or a minivan.” If you’re
FURCHTGOTT-ROTH
wealthy and you want to
drive an electric vehicle locally but need more room for kids, or more range for trips, or a car that functions in cold weather, one of each is a fine choice. But most Americans
who don’t get two cars each are sticking with gas-powered cars.
SEPTEMBER 2023 | NEWSMAX 15
BIDEN/DAVID L. RYAN/THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES
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