Free Republic

Breitbart economics editor John Carney said Thursday on Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow” that President Joe Biden is implementing regulations that were crushing the economy. Carney said, “When you add on giant regulatory burdens onto the private sector what you end up doing is crushing the ability of businesses to grow, crushing the ability of businesses to hire people, crushing people to start new businesses. That is what happened under Obama when it was just 1/5 of what Biden has done. Biden this is just the track record so far, imagine what he will do when he is a lame duck...

About 2 1/2 years ago I wrote a post titled "California plans to kill the residential solar industry." At the time, I had just had solar panels installed on my roof to save money and within months California announced a new plan (Net Metering 3.0) that would have taxed me and anyone else who owned a rooftop solar system for owning the panels. I predicted that if this plan passed, California's rooftop solar industry would fall off a cliff.The result of Net Metering 3.0 is likely going to be the end of the residential solar industry in California. I have...

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...

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...

A federal district court has overturned the Biden administration's climate rule that required states to track and set reduction goals for greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles on highways. In a sweeping judgment late Monday, Judge Benjamin Beaton of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ordered the Federal Highway Administration to stand down on the rules, which the agency finalized in November. The ruling represents a major victory for the State of Kentucky, which challenged the regulations alongside 21 other states. "President Biden’s radical environmental agenda has lost touch with reality, and Kentucky families, farmers and workers...

Democrats in Congress are encouraging the Biden administration to quickly enact a slew of far-reaching regulations ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to Punchbowl News. The Biden administration has pursued an aggressive regulatory agenda to implement President Joe Biden’s political priorities, including measures to encourage the production of more electric vehicles, forgive student loans, restrict “junk fees” by service providers and ban non-competition clauses in contracts, among many others. Amid concerns that Biden may not win the election against former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, Democrats have been encouraging the administration to finalize rules as soon as...

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 Biden administration has begun a crackdown on emissions generated by heavy duty diesel trucks and buses with regulations announced Friday aimed at forcing those vehicles to hit zero pollution targets by the end of the decade. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims the new rules represent the “strongest-ever greenhouse gas emissions” standards of their kind with everything from city buses and box trucks to garbage trucks and 18-wheelers targeted.

Democrats in Congress are encouraging the Biden administration to quickly enact a slew of far-reaching regulations ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to Punchbowl News. The Biden administration has pursued an aggressive regulatory agenda to implement President Joe Biden’s political priorities, including measures to encourage the production of more electric vehicles, forgive student loans, restrict “junk fees” by service providers and ban non-competition clauses in contracts, among many others. Amid concerns that Biden may not win the election against former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, Democrats have been encouraging the administration to finalize rules as soon as...

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...

A constitutional battle is shaping up over whether the U.S. government can force the owners and top employees of small businesses to send their addresses and photo IDs to federal financial crime investigators. The Biden administration has appealed a decision by a federal judge in Alabama, who ruled this month the Corporate Transparency Act exceeded the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution. The government says the information collected from small businesses will ferret out shell companies and help law and intelligence officers foil human smugglers, drug traffickers and terrorists. The appeal has a good chance because courts rarely strike...

The Biden administration finalized its crackdown on gas cars Wednesday, with the Environmental Protection Agency announcing drastic climate regulations meant to ensure more than two-thirds of passenger cars and light trucks sold by 2032 are electric or hybrid vehicles. The EPA rule imposes strict limits on tailpipe pollution, limits the agency says can be met if 56% of new vehicles sold in the US are electric by eight years from now, along with 13% that are plug-in hybrids or other partially electric cars. That would be a huge increase over current EV sales, which rose to 7.6% of new vehicle...

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 EPA is rolling out stringent tailpipe rules correctly described as an ‘electrical vehicle mandate in disguise.’ As spring begins, let us think back to an icy time in January when Tesla owners were stranded because their electric vehicle batteries flatlined in the subzero temps and many charging stations were dead or dying. “I’ve been here for over five hours at this point, and I still have not gotten to charge my car,” Tesla driver Brandon Welbourne told CBS Chicago. “A charge that should take 45 minutes is taking two hours.” Spring forward and the enviro-extremist Biden administration is rolling...

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.

President Joe Biden has issued a new environmental federal regulation to begin phasing out gas-powered cars, requiring American automakers to produce Electric Vehicles (EVs) as part of his sweeping green energy agenda. On Wednesday, Biden announced the rule to require that a majority of new cars sold in the U.S. market are EVs or hybrids by 2032, the New York Times details: Nearly three years in the making, the new tailpipe pollution limits from the Environmental Protection Agency would transform the American automobile market. A record 1.2 million electric vehicles rolled off dealers’ lots last year, but they made up...

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...