In a holiday weekend news dump this past Friday, the EPA promulgated a rule mandating the displacement of gas-powered trucks and buses with electric simulacra. The EPA gives its press release the unwieldy heading “Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes Strongest Ever Greenhouse Gas Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles to Protect Public Health and Address the Climate Crisis While Keeping the American Economy Moving.” If you want a picture of the future, imagine a federal bureaucrat stomping on a face while reciting that line — forever.
I must have an impoverished imagination. The stupidity and destructiveness of the rule seem to me unimaginable.
The Wall Street Journal runs a good editorial taking note of the rule in “Biden’s Order: Let There Be Electric Trucks.” Subhead: “EPA’s latest EV mandate is the most costly and fanciful to date.” This is the editorial’s opening salvo:
The Environmental Protection Agency chose Good Friday to roll out its burdensome electric truck mandate, no doubt so fewer people notice. Biden officials well know the damage they are doing, but the damage in the name of climate change is the point.
EPA’s new emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks will effectively require that electric semi-trucks make up an increasing share of manufacturer sales from 2027 through 2032, similar to its recent rule for passenger cars. The difference is that the truck mandate is even more costly and fanciful.
EVs make up less than 1% of U.S. heavy-duty truck sales, and nearly all are in California, which heavily subsidizes and mandates their purchase. EPA’s rule will require electric models to account for 60% of new urban delivery trucks and 25% of long-haul tractor sales by 2032. The harm is predictable in return for no climate benefit.
I would like to say “that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know,” but there is more. Whole thing here (behind the Journal paywall).
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