I & I Editorial BoardShould Donald Trump be elected this fall, he should waste no time in reversing Joe Biden’s electric vehicle mandate. He not only overstepped his authority, he set the country directly on a course that will bring nothing but trouble.
Acting like the authoritarian that the Democrats and media claim that Donald Trump is, Biden, with a pen and maybe a phone, has ordered through his Environmental Protection Agency to issue a rule that will require Americans to replace their internal-combustion engine automobiles with battery-powered cars. The rule doesn’t require Americans to buy electric vehicles, nor does it directly outlaw the sale of automobiles that run on gasoline.
But in effect, it is a mandate and a ban.
Forcing the country into EVs is an egregious abuse of power by executive edict. Biden’s rule has been referred to, for good reason, as “a “crackdown on cars,” a “bloodbath” for consumers and an example of chutzpah. American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers wisely suggests that “the American people need to rise up against this rule and reject it.”
Yes, he has a financial interest in making that statement. But he knows, as do many, that the booted regulatory regime we’re living under “has become the government’s primary mode of controlling Americans,” as Philip Hamburger, a Columbia University law professor, wrote in his 2014 book “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?”
While “administrative law has avoided much rancor because its burdens have been felt mostly by corporations,” says Hamburger, the beast is no longer being contained.
“Increasingly,” Hamburger says, “administrative law has extended its reach to individuals. The entire society therefore now has opportunities to feel its hard edge.”
In terms of practicality, well, to borrow and modify an aphorism from Swedish socialist economist Assar Linbeck, Biden couldn’t make more of a mess if he bombed his own country (which he has implied is not an impossibility).
Adding tens of millions of EVs to the roads will strain the grid right up to and beyond its capacity, as charging competes with “electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories” for power. (But that’s fine because the government can then institute rationing – a dream come true for the political left.) At the same time, Americans’ wallets will grow flatter as they have to pay higher electricity rates, scrimp to pay EVs’ luxury-item sticker prices, cover their costly repairs, and keep up with steep insurance premiums.
The EV mandate will also devastate the domestic automobile industry – yes, it would be a bloodbath, or a death spiral – and decrease mobility in an ostensibly free society
If Trump, who’s said that on day one of a second term he would close the border, and “drill, drill, drill,” were to cut the Biden rule, it would probably require the White House to issue a new rule that overturns it. It’s a task the feisty Trump would probably enjoy.
In any event, Trump needs to act right away, and, in a clear message to the climate cranks and the warming grifters in elected office, make as much noise as possible while doing it.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
Trump’s first job of 2025 will be in a prison laundry.
Trump 47’s first task should be an executive order repealing _all_ those of Biden, not just one. He can promise to reissue one or two if need be. Any bureaucrat who objects to the extra work of rolling things back is free to resign.
You must have missed his last couple of rallies. Trump has said repeatedly that on Day One he is also reversing Biden’s EV mandates and rules. He said they were causing an economic bloodbath (a word he’s now embraced) in the auto industry. He made a big deal of it in Michigan (car country). Fox News rarely carries his rallies (but getting better) while Newsmax does (where I watched it). The left-stream press doesn’t even bother to hide their contempt and simply lie about what he says.
If Trump wins, there is an exceedingly long list of things he ought to negate, rescind, reverse and correct in the wake of Biden’s stupidity, and perhaps even Biden’s treasonous leadership.
Please do not forget Obama’s warning about his own VP: “Never underestimate Biden’s ability to screw up everything.” (And so why did Obama, the Magnificant, select Biden?)
Deliberately opening our country to millions and millions of unknown, unvetted and possibly many sleeper terrorists from 180 countries. How is that not treasonous behavior against the safety, prosperity and integrity of our country?
Yes, Trump must fight back (in order to preserve our liberty) and reverse the EV (and all Biden executive order mandates).
As Lord Acton observed: Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This means, as I understand it, that as one expands his power in government, morality and ethics in governing becomes less important-ie the ends justify the means.
Or as Stalin would put it: “You must break an egg to make the omelet.”
The ironic part, assuming (as I hope he does) Trump gets in, he must reverse the EV’s and regs using his own executive power.
I view it as the logic of not “whose ox is gored” but as the first step to the survival of this country and the re-emergence of its participatory, non-mail in ballot, non-extentsive-voting-periods mode of governance.