Federal appeals court strikes down Democratic city’s natural gas ban backed by Biden admin
A federal appeals court ruled unanimously Monday that a natural gas ban proposed by the City of Berkeley, California, would illegally circumvent federal law.
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Berkeley’s natural gas piping ban, which the city’s government passed in 2019 as part of its climate agenda, violated the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) of 1975.
By banning gas pipes in new building construction, the city effectively violated the EPCA which prevents local regulations from impacting the energy use of natural gas appliances.
“Instead of directly banning those appliances in new buildings, Berkeley took a more circuitous route to the same result,” Judge Patrick Bumatay wrote in the opinion of the court Monday. “It enacted a building code that prohibits natural gas piping into those buildings, rendering the gas appliances useless.”
“In sum, Berkeley can’t bypass preemption by banning natural gas piping within buildings rather than banning natural gas products themselves,” he continued in the ruling. “EPCA thus preempts the Ordinance’s effect on covered products.”
In July 2019, Berkeley’s city council passed the ban which was set to go into effect in January 2020, making the city the first in the nation to approve such a measure.
Berkeley Councilwoman Kate Harrison, who authored the legislation, said at the time that it was part of the city’s effort to take “more drastic action” on climate change and curb greenhouse gas emissions.
However, months after it was approved, the California Restaurant Association (CRA) filed a federal lawsuit challenging the city’s ability to pass a law banning new natural gas hookups.
After a lower court ruled in favor of Berkeley in July 2021, the CRA filed an appeal, leading to Monday’s ruling.
“The Ninth Circuit has unanimously affirmed the central issue in this case: local ordinances cannot override federal law,” CRA President and CEO Jot Condie said in a statement on Monday. “Cities and states are not equipped to regulate the energy use or energy efficiency of appliances that businesses and homeowners have chosen; energy policy and conservation is an issue with national scope and national security implications.”
“This ordinance, as well as the solution it seeks, is an overreaching measure beyond the scope of any city,” Condie added. “Natural gas appliances are crucial for restaurants to operate effectively and efficiently, as they allow for a wide variety of cuisines and innovations in the restaurant industry. Cities and states cannot ignore federal law in an effort to constrain consumer choice, and it is encouraging that the Ninth Circuit upheld this standard.”
The case drew the attention of industry groups that supported CRA — including the American Gas Association and Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute — and environmental groups and other jurisdictions across the country that supported Berkeley’s ordinance — including the National League of Cities, California, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Washington, DC, and New York City.
In February 2022, the Department of Justice filed a brief in support of Berkely’s law, arguing the lower court was correct to uphold the city’s natural gas hookup ban.
The ruling Monday, meanwhile, comes as the Department of Energy continues to consider regulations curbing which types of natural gas stoves manufacturers can sell.
And it comes after a President Biden-appointed member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) made headlines when he told Bloomberg in early January that a gas stove ban was “on the table” given the product’s purported impacts on health.
The White House later denounced a ban, but the CPSC said it would proceed with taking in public feedback on gas stove safety.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/17/federal-appeals-court-strikes-down-democratic-citys-natural-gas-ban/
**************************************************Warmism good for China
The Green Energy Revolution is strengthening the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and weakening the United States. Based on an ideology that believes reducing carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere will reduce or eliminate climate change, billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on lithium batteries, electric vehicles (EVs), windmills, and solar panels.
The EV ideology pursued by the Biden administration “could imperil national security,” states a top Democratic donor, Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. The CCP’s unrestricted warfare strategy includes economic warfare to dominate the world’s batteries, rare earth, semiconductors, and EVs.
The hysteria over climate change is driving green energy ideology. Science has not proven that increased carbon dioxide leads to global warming and, if so, what are the dangers to humanity? More carbon dioxide might lead to greater plant growth and increased food supply. Warmer temperatures might free up northern lands in Canada and Russia for more farming. Warmer temperatures can reduce deaths; more people die of cold than of heat.
Computer models project various climate change scenarios, but such scenarios should be taken with a grain of skepticism. How accurate is your local weather station’s forecasting for a week? And we are supposed to believe a 20-year projection based on suspect data? For over four billion years, the climate has been changing and continents moving. As recently as 20,000 years ago, northern parts of the present-day United States were covered in 5,000 feet of ice. What caused that ice to melt?
The U.S. government is spending billions of dollars subsidizing green carbon-free energy for EVs, windmills, and solar panels. All are unreliable, cost-inefficient, environmentally toxic, and a poor allocation of the nation’s resources. And while the U.S. green agenda is driving inflation and weakening national and economic security, it is laying waste to important economic segments in America---------the automobile and energy industries.
Ford Motor Company recently announced a $3.1 billion loss in the first quarter of this year due to EV costs and chip supply chain issues. Ford predicts electric cars will be profitable in a few years and plans to make 2 million by 2025. That would be an incredible achievement, considering Ford sold only 61,575 cars in 2022 and had sold 3,624 cars as of February 2023.
General Motors (GM) is asking for the voluntary separation of 5,000 employees to save $1.5 billion as it invests $35 billion in EVs between now and 2025. GM plans to sell one million electric cars by 2025, even though it sold only 40,000 in 2022. The so-called affordable GM Bolt sells for $30,000 yet loses $9,000 for the company. The only way the automobile industry can survive is through massive government subsidies, tax credits, and government mandates, such as in California, where in 2035, you can only buy EVs. (Fascism, anyone?)
Millions of American jobs will be lost because of the government's central planning Marxists establishing unattainable regulations and mandates. Industries associated with energy and automobiles will suffer closures and bankruptcies. Society will suffer from increased unemployment and mental depression. Increased family fractures, alcoholism, and drug use will follow.
Consumers don’t want electric vehicles because they are too expensive and too unreliable. Internal combustion engines work fine, are dependable, can be recharged easily, and are cost-efficient. Outside of major urban cities, the electric grid will not be able to supply the electricity needed to power EVs. Even then, major cities may not have power due to declining carbon-based power plants and unreliable wind/solar power plants. If climate change ideologues were honest, they would support nuclear energy. It is carbon dioxide-free, 24/7 reliable, cost-efficient, and not dependent upon CCP raw materials and technology.
The mining industry does not have the capacity to supply the minerals used in EVs. Much of the country will not be able to charge EVs economically, that is assuming consumers will buy them. The U.S. will end up like Cuba, where the citizens desperately work to keep old cars running. The climate will not be changed by a switch to EVs.
Summary
What is the purpose of this irrational green energy revolution? Is it to strengthen China and weaken America? China is the world’s biggest contributor to atmospheric carbon dioxide. China is building two coal-powered power plants per week, or six times more than any other country. The United States and the European Union are building none.
While Americans are committing societal suicide with the clean green energy revolution, the CCP is getting stronger. China does not have the gas, oil, and coal energy resources of the U.S. What China does have, is a stranglehold on rare earth minerals and lithium batteries------- all used by American green energy industries and the military. The U.S. is banning the export of high-tech chip technology. What would happen if China retaliates against the U.S. and bans rare earth exports as it did with Japan in 2010?
The United States must stop funding this green energy madness. If the product makes sense, the consumer will buy it. It should not be forced fed as it is in totalitarian societies.
Peace Through Strength
https://www.conservativehq.org/post/red-china-green-energy-revolution
***********************************************Heavier EV’s not funding California Roadways
California has almost 400,000 miles of roadways used by the State’s 31 million vehicles. Those roadways are heavily dependent on road taxes from fuels that contribute more than $8.8 billion annually, the same gas tax revenues that also funds many environmental programs. That revenue source will be diminishing in the decades ahead as EV’s begin to replace internal combustion engine vehicles.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has mandated no sales of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles after 2035 but appears incapable of acknowledging EV’s currently contribute nothing for road maintenance and repairs and that EV’s are heavier than ICE vehicles and will be inflicting more wear and tear on California roadways.
Newsom’s silence on how California will finance the billions of dollars for the roads being used by those heavier EV’s is an indication that he will just pass that problem on to his predecessor. Newsom will not even discuss funding for future road maintenance as the EV mandate starts to negatively impact the revenue stream to maintain California roadways.
It’s public knowledge of Newsom’s dyslexia challenges that may hamper his ability to read reports that renewables and fossil fuels are not comparable for their support of humanity, but California voters support his avoidance of addressing those tough energy policy questions that would expose his limited energy literacy.
Regarding the high cost of energy in California, voters continue to be complacent with the state governments hidden taxes and mandates that contribute to the highest energy costs in America:
Fuels that are more than a dollar a gallon higher than the national average and
Electricity rates that are more than 60 percent higher than the national average and
Natural gas rates are more than 30 percent higher than the national average.
The California Governor may be experiencing a “dangerous delusion” of a global transition to “just electricity” that eliminates the use of the fossil fuels that made society achieve so much in a few centuries. From the proverb “you can't have your cake and eat it too” tells us that:
you can’t rid the world of fossil fuels and
continue to enjoy the products and fuels manufactured from fossil fuels.
Newsom may not be well read that there is little to compare between fossil fuels and renewables as fossil fuels are primarily used to manufacture products and fuels for humanity, while renewables manufacture nothing for humanity.
Fossil fuels make products for humanity that allowed the world to populate from 1 to 8 billion in 200 years.
Renewables cannot manufacture anything for humanity! The current rhetoric is falsely transitioning from apples to oranges, as renewables and fossil fuels are different.
To add insult to injury, those so-called renewables of wind and solar are 100 percent made from the products manufactured from fossil fuels!
The above insult pales to my disappointment that our elite leaders are oblivious to the fact that fossil fuels made it possible for humanity to grow from 1 to 8 billion in 200 years, because they can be manufactured into thousands of usable, life-enhancing and life-saving products. On the other hand, renewables can only generate occasional electricity, but cannot manufacture anything for humanity, while fossil fuels manufacture everything for humanity.
By contrast, “transitioning” humanity to just electricity means converting to wind and solar systems that can manufacture none of the vital products now being used by humanity. That will very likely cause the death of BILLIONS of people from diseases, malnutrition, lowered living standards and weather-related disasters, whereas projections of millions of fatalities from “carbon emissions” and climate change are based on computer models that take none of these realities into account.
National economies and nations’ militaries still run on fossil fuels. As both World War I and II historians Russia and China know, the country that controls the minerals, crude oil, and natural gas, controls the world! They both know there is no substitute for fossil fuel product dominance in the foreseeable future, even on a longer-term horizon. To believe a transition to just electricity from renewables is possible from the products manufactured from fossil fuels and act accordingly is suicidal for humanity. As former Congressman Don Ritter of Pennsylvania wrote “It’s the real “existential threat.”
In any event, you cannot run households, businesses, hospitals, and the military on occasional electricity and no products from fossil fuels!
EV buyers beware that the “tax equalizer”, higher electrical rates and/or the “VMT” is coming. The Vehicle Mileage Tax (VMT) that has been discussed for years sounds like a logical idea – requiring the users of the highways to pay the fees to maintain those highways. The VMT tax will be needed to replace the $8.8 billion annually from fuel sales that will be diminishing in the decades ahead.
https://heartland.org/opinion/heavier-evs-not-funding-california-roadways/
************************************************No More Cheap Flights Is the New Reality for Air Travel
Jetting off to the Mediterranean this summer? I hope you got a good deal, because cheap flights are becoming increasingly hard to find.
You probably had an inkling that the era of absurdly cheap short-haul flights in Europe was coming to an end. After all, according to travel search engine Kayak, summer flights between the UK and the continent are currently one-third more expensive than last year. But two new reports make it clear that this isn’t just temporary turbulence.
It’s the new reality for flying as airlines face a huge decarbonization challenge and tightening climate-compliance laws.
The first headwind stems from two big changes in the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). Airlines must have enough emissions allowances to cover every metric ton of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere on flights starting and ending in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland. Right now, they get about half of those allowances for free. But that deal comes to an end in 2026, as the share of allowances they have to pay for starts to rise from 2024. That is effectively going to double their carbon costs over just three years.
The unit price of carbon emissions has also soared recently, topping €100 ($111) for the first time in late February, and it doesn’t seem to be on its way back down. A report by Alex Irving, European transport analyst at Bernstein, puts the resulting cost from these changes for European airlines at about €5 billion in 2027.
Polluting Price
The cost of emitting CO2 in Europe has nearly quadrupled from the 2019 average
That’s just the thin end of the wedge. Over the next three decades, aviation has to transform itself from a polluting industry — planes are responsible for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions — to a net-zero one. Under Destination 2050, the European sector’s plan to reduce emissions, it’ll do that by investing in future aircraft and infrastructure, making operations more efficient, and using alternative fuels and carbon-removal technologies.
A report by research groups SEO Amsterdam Economics and the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre, commissioned by airline industry bodies, has put the cost of reaching net zero by 2050 at a whopping €820 billion.
Destination: Net Zero
The biggest climate outlay for aviation will be on alternative fuels, but this also delivers the biggest carbon saving
Note: Costs/investments are from 2018-2050 and measures the premium expenditure on top of a business-as-normal scenario.
Both reports conclude the sector won’t be able to absorb these costs itself. The changes to the EU ETS alone will slash the operating profit of the continent’s six largest point-to-point airlines (Ryanair Holdings Plc, EasyJet Plc, Wizz Air Holdings Plc, Vueling, Eurowings and Transavia) by an estimated 77%. That means ticket prices will have to be higher, which in turn means that demand destruction is inevitable. As Irving writes: “If it were possible to charge more without spoiling demand, airlines would have already been doing so.”
Demand growth is a touchy subject for airlines, as a recent battle over proposed flight caps between the Dutch government and Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport illustrates. The forecasts are strong: The International Air Transport Association suggested that passenger numbers would nearly double to just under 8 billion by 2040 from 2017 levels. Time will tell if rising ticket prices dampen that, but the question remains whether growth is even compatible with ambitions for carbon-neutrality.
The answer might be hard to swallow. Decarbonizing flying is hard enough without the extra passengers. A briefing from the Royal Society, for example, outlined that even meeting existing UK aviation demand with biofuels would require about half of the country’s agricultural land.
Fewer flights is, naturally, the easiest way to slice carbon emissions, and so a demand drop would come with its own climate benefits. The aviation industry’s report calculates that, in 2050, the drop in demand from raising prices to pay for sustainable airplane fuel would reduce emissions by 12%, and economic measures — such as emissions-trading obligations and CO2 removal investments — would lead to a further 2% reduction, compared with a business-as-usual scenario.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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