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The EPA’s new pollution regulations on semi-trucks and other dieselpowered vehicles push the industry toward an unrealistic zero-emissions standard.
Biden’s EV Truck Mandate
Thomas Gallatin
April 2, 2024
It would not be much of a stretch to make the assertion that America runs on diesel. Or maybe a better way to put it is that without diesel, American commerce as we know it would not exist.
Modern American society thrives thanks to trucking. Indeed, everything from Amazon’s marketplace to your local mom-and-pop shop would effectively be out of business without trucks moving goods across America’s
roads.
Yet the Biden administration has just threatened America’s economy in a way that few may fully appreciate. In Joe Biden’s drive to rid America of fossil fuels, his Environmental Protection Agency has done much of the bureaucratic dirty work to force the country into doing what Americans don’t want to do or believe in doing.
Last week, the EPA issued new pollution regulations for buses, trucks, and other heavy-duty vehicles that will effectively eliminate their dieselpowered future. Like the EPA’s newly released regulations on new cars, which seek to ensure that 70% of the new market is electric vehicles by 2032, the EPA is putting its thumb on the scales to effectively force the trucking industry to meet similar zero-emissions standards.
As White House climate advisor Ali Zaidi explained, “Today’s announcement is a big one in terms of cleaning up the pollution from these vehicles on our roads and highways and importantly, the pollution that impacts our communities and our kids.”
It’s a “big one,” alright. The Biden administration plays the game of it not being an EV mandate because, technically, it doesn’t outlaw new dieselpowered vehicles, but for all intents and purposes, it is a mandate because no technology exists to lower emissions to that level in a diesel-powered heavy-duty vehicle.
Further exposing this EV pseudo-mandate is the EPA’s anticipation that these strict emissions standards will force at least 12% to 25% of new freight trucks to have zero emissions by the end of the decade — a number that jumps to 40% for smaller trucks.
With these new standards, the cost of shipping will rise significantly. Never mind the fact that there is no charging grid yet in place for EV semi-trucks. An estimated 1.4 million chargers would be needed across the nation by 2032. That feat would not only require the building of some 15,000 charging stations a month but also require upgrading the nation’s electrical grid.
Furthermore, the technology for making EV semi-trucks is far from ready
for prime time. How far can an EV semi run on a charge? How long will it take to fully recharge a big rig? And what about the weight? How many of America’s current roadways and bridges are built to handle the massive increase in the overall weight of these vehicles?
Speaking of roadways, these are currently maintained by gas taxes. With fewer gas-powered vehicles on the roads, how will road maintenance be paid for? Taxes on electricity?
Then there is the energy problem. It is estimated that the amount of energy an EV semi would require is seven times that which a typical home consumes in a day. We’re talking gobs of energy. Where will all this new energy come from? It certainly won’t be made up of renewable energy, as that new technology can’t even keep up with current demands, let alone a massive increase. That will result in everyone’s power bill rising dramatically.
However, the Biden administration has effectively ignored or dismissed these glaring issues as essentially inconsequential when it comes to “saving the planet.” As the EPA argued: “One billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions avoided by these standards is equivalent to the emissions from more than 13 million tanker trucks’ worth of gasoline. With this action, the Biden-Harris Administration is continuing to deliver on the most ambitious climate agenda in history while advancing a historic commitment to environmental justice.”
Well, the Biden administration might succeed in driving the American economy into the ground by killing off small businesses that depend upon cost-efficient shipping to get their goods to an online market.
The Biden administration is thus killing the free market in the name of climate change. Centralized control of an economy has never led to greater prosperity for a nation but the exact opposite. That’s why it takes an excuse like climate change to dupe enough people into believing that killing the fairest and greatest wealth-generating system ever devised is a good thing.