Free Republic

Landmark environmental laws leveraged for decades to challenge infrastructure projects are now being used against offshore wind, a key aspect of ... Joe Biden’s green energy agenda. A new lawsuit brought by grassroots environmental groups, fishermen and local citizens alleges that the government did not abide by the terms of statutes including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act in a rush to permit two massive offshore wind developments off the East Coast. “Destroying ocean habitat in the name of climate change prevention is absolutely hypocritical and atrocious,” Dustin Delano, the COO of the New England Fishermen’s...

The Senate on Wednesday afternoon voted in favor of passing a bill reversing the Biden administration's actions mandating states to track and set reduction goals for greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles on highways. The chamber approved the resolution in a 53-47 vote in which Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Jon Tester, D-Mont.; and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., joined every Republican voting in the affirmative. The bill was introduced in February by Sens. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; and Manchin. "Few things are more frustrating in government than un-elected bureaucrats asserting authority they don’t have and foisting federal...

American truck drivers are sounding the horn on the Biden administration's recently finalized environmental regulations that aim to push for the heavy-duty vehicle sector to go all-electric. The truckers voiced concerns that electric heavy-duty vehicle technology is not nearly advanced enough to replace the nation's existing diesel-powered fleet, noting limitations on vehicle batteries, like low performance in cold weather conditions and shorter range. They also warned that the lack of high-powered charging infrastructure and power grid upgrades needed for fueling vehicles would present additional problems. "I'm an owner-operator. I've been in the business for 30 years," Mike Nichols, a Wisconsin-based...

The Biden administration has announced in recent weeks new stringent emissions requirements for virtually the entire American transportation system.The Environmental Protection Agency will mandate by the year 2035 that virtually every car made and sold in America must be an EV. No more gas cars. The New York Times comically declared that motorists don't have to worry because this "is not a ban on gasoline-powered vehicles." Sure it isn't. Today less than 2% of cars use the electric power grid for fuel. So soon we will see 50 times more demand for electricity from autos. Then the EPA announced new...

Say goodbye to the trucking industry as we know it, and goodbye to the American economy, too. You might have missed it on Good Friday — which you can be sure was no accident — when the Biden EPA released its new tailpipe rules for semi-trucks, but the new rules will destroy how we move goods around the country. It seems like only two weeks ago [It was only two weeks ago, Steve —editor] that I told you about Presidentish Biden's new EPA regulations, coming into effect starting in 2027, that will force two-thirds of new car buyers into electric...

Ford will need to build two fully electric F150s for every gas-powered F150. By 2032, the company will need to build four electric F150s for every gas-powered F150. The Environmental Protection Agency has released its final tailpipe emissions standards, which some have called an electric vehicle mandate. “Make no mistake: This is a coerced phase-out of gas-powered cars,” the Wall Steet Journal editorial board recently opined on the final rules. The 1,181-page rule doesn’t require auto manufacturers to produce any electric vehicles, and the EPA insists the rule is not an EV mandate. “The standards continue the technology-neutral and performance-based...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday set strict emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks, buses and other large vehicles, an action that officials said will help clean up some of the nation’s largest sources of planet-warming greenhouse gases. The new rules, which take effect for model years 2027 through 2032, will avoid up to 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades and provide $13 billion in net benefits in the form of fewer hospital visits, lost work days and deaths, the EPA said. The new standards will especially benefit an estimated 72 million...

The Gateway Pundit reported last week that Joe Biden sued the most radical environmental rules in American history to phase out gasoline-powered vehicles and force customers to drive ineffective electric cars. Now, a new report has revealed the effort to finish off the gas-powered car is well-underway in eight states. As The Daily Mail reported Tuesday, the rules being adopted in these states specify that only zero-emission vehicles, which include electric vehicles and certain plug-in hybrids, can be sold beginning with the 2035 model year. This is known as the Advanced Clean Cars II rule. The eight states that have...

When future historians decide to write the definitive treatise on the downfall of the state of California, we can be sure that the final days of August 2022 will feature very prominently. It was on August 25 that the state announced a bold plan to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by the year 2035. Everything had to be electric from that point forward. What would that do to the economy of the state of California, given how expensive electric vehicles are? Where were we going to get the materials to manufacture all of these new EV batteries? No one...

How one quick trick in 2012 changed the way America drives—and undermined its climate rules In less than a decade after that change took effect—between 2012 and 2021—the EPA found that the percentage of new vehicle sales classified as passenger cars and those classified as light trucks has essentially flipped. In 2012, 64 percent of new vehicle sales were classified as passenger vehicles, while 34 percent were classified as light trucks. By 2021, light trucks accounted for 63 percent of sales while passenger vehicles accounted for 37 percent of sales. “Sedans have largely been replaced with taller vehicles such as...

The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has revealed its ambition: to phase out gas-powered cars in favor of electric vehicles (EVs). Incredibly, this announcement comes as we are flooded with overwhelming evidence that EVs are a market loser. Indeed, the artificial boom and then meltdown of the EV market is a modern industrial calamity. It was created by government, social media, wild disease frenzy, far-flung thinking, and the irrational chasing of utopia, followed by a rude awakening by facts and reality. CEO of Hertz Stephen Scherr has been booted out due to a vast purchase of an EV fleet...

Not since Prohibition has the federal government sought to ban a product as popular as the internal combustion engine. This week, the Environmental Protection Agency released its final emissions standards rule, requiring that 70% of new vehicle sales be pure battery-powered electric or hybrids by 2032. Prohibition was a disaster and ended 13 years after it began. If implemented, this rule to take away Americans’ choice in cars will be equally harmful. This new rule comes at a time when auto manufacturers are dialing back on EV investments because EVs are left unsold on dealers’ lots. EV maker Fisker has...

‘Historic progress’ on electric cars may turn into a historic rout in swing states. This week’s Environmental Protection Agency tailpipe rule amounts to an imminent ban on gasoline-powered cars Who else approves? The White House will point to a cheerleading automotive industry, but peek behind the pom-poms and you see an administration with a gun to carmakers’ heads... “They’re coming for your truck.” An energy trade group has already been up with ads making that point in swing states, calling on Americans to reject Biden’s “EPA car ban.” Today’s Democratic Party is entirely dedicated to the proposition that all Americans...

Electric vehicle start-up Fisker is exploring bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reported this week. Fisker’s stock plunged this week as investors worry about the company’s ability to survive amid a cash crunch. The auto company also said it would slash 15% of its workforce. The Wall Street Journal reported: Electric-vehicle startup Fisker FSR -55.88%decrease; red down pointing triangle has hired restructuring advisers to assist with a possible bankruptcy filing, according to people familiar with the matter. Fisker, which recently warned that it risked running out of cash this year, hired financial adviser FTI Consulting and the law firm Davis Polk...

The startup electric car company Fisker said this week that it is halting the production of its vehicles to raise $150 million in emergency funds as it grapples with a cash crunch spurred by a low demand for electric vehicles. The California-based company, which says its mission is to “create the world’s most emotional and sustainable electric vehicles,” has barely produced over a thousand electric vehicles worldwide for the year. “The company has approximately 4,700 vehicles in its currently inventory, carried over from 2023 and including 2024 production,” the company said. “While it has not completed an NRV analysis for...

The Biden administration has finalized a slate of highly-anticipated environmental regulations curbing gas-powered vehicle tailpipe emissions as part of its broader efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat global warming. In a joint announcement Wednesday, the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled the most aggressive multi-pollutant emission standards ever finalized.

"Outlaw your car" sounds like such an outrageous phrase, and technically speaking, it isn't true — but only barely. What practical difference is there between outlawing something, and regulating it out of existence? That's exactly what the EPA intends to do this week with strict new rules going forward against gas- and diesel-powered cars and light trucks.

Story after story has come out about the implosion in the EV market. As with many luxury goods, the market can quickly expand and just as quickly top out, as the latent market demand gets filled. This is what happened with electric vehicles, which appeal greatly to a small cross-section of the market, but not so much to the general car buyer. Our colleague, Beege has been on this beat and done an outstanding job, so I won't duplicate her work proving that the market for EVs has slowed dramatically. All you really need to know is that the market...

The Biden administration will likely complete regulations this week designed to punish gas-powered vehicles and pave the way for electric vehicles, whose average cost is roughly more than twice as expensive as average subcompact car. In its proposed rules published in May 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency wrote that it wanted to target vehicles that would phase-in over model years 2027 through 2032, stating, “EPA finds it appropriate to set new standards for model years after 2026 for both criteria pollutants and GHG at this time, rather than continuing its prior approach of coordinating the standards but setting them in...

The Biden administration is expected this week to finalize highly anticipated regulations targeting gas-powered vehicle tailpipe emissions, considered the tip of the spear in its efforts to electrify the transportation sector. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is slated to issue the final rulemaking — which officials have boasted will incentivize greater adoption of electric vehicles (EV), but which opponents have criticized as a de facto mandate — as soon as Wednesday, industry sources told Fox News Digital. The regulations, a key part of President Biden's climate agenda, would ultimately force automakers to more rapidly expand electric options in their fleets...