When’s Biden giving up his own fossil fueled travel? The lawsuits from Republican states should be epic
Biden Crafts a Climate Plan B: Tax Credits, Regulation and State Action
After losing the centerpiece of his climate agenda just a week before heading to a major global warming summit, President Joe Biden intends to make the case that the United States has a new plan that will still meet its ambitions to sharply cut greenhouse gases that are warming the planet.
The administration’s strategy now consists of a three-pronged approach of generous tax incentives for wind, solar and other clean energy; tough regulations to restrict pollution coming from power plants and automobile tailpipes; and a slew of clean energy laws enacted by states.
Tax incentives means “hooking up his rich donors” while others pay through the nose. Regulations means “raising the cost of living for the middle and lower classes”. How does he plan to force states to pass “clean energy laws”, ie, helping out China which slams the market with undervalue products?
But chances for success are slim; the approach faces significant legal, logistical and political challenges. The process of crafting regulations could take years, and the conservative-leaning Supreme Court could overrule them, or a future president could simply roll them back. And relying on states to amp up their clean energy laws just shifts the fight to statehouses for environmentalists and fossil fuel interests to battle it out on the local level.
In other words, the law/rules/regulations could violated the Constitution
Speaking at a CNN Town Hall on Thursday night, Biden pledged that when he arrives in Scotland, “I’m presenting a commitment to the world that we will in fact get to net zero emissions on electric power by 2035 and net zero emissions across the board by 2050 or before, but we have to do so much, between now and 2030, to demonstrate what we’re going to do to get there.â€
Accompanying the president to Scotland, in addition to a significant portion of his Cabinet, will be Biden’s top climate change advisers, John Kerry and Gina McCarthy, both veterans of the Obama administration. During that administration, Kerry and McCarthy traveled to multiple international climate negotiations, where Kerry promised that the United States would pass a tough climate law, which it never did, and McCarthy detailed tough pollution rules governing smokestacks and power plants, which were enacted but then rolled back by the Trump administration.
So, he’ll force you, or at least attempt to force you, to limit/give up your use of fossil fuels while he takes a fossil fueled flight to Scotland, with a backup jumbo jet, one carrying his limo, fighter jets, then a large convoy of fossil fueled vehicles.
Looming over that question is the shadow of former President Donald Trump, who relished dismantling Obama’s climate policies. The fossil fuel industry would almost certainly challenge new environmental regulations, which could end up before a Supreme Court with a conservative majority, including three justices appointed by Trump. The former president also appears to be weighing another run for the White House in 2024.
They just can’t quit him, eh?
Read: Let’s Go Brandon: Biden Crafts A ‘Climate Change’ Plan With Lots Of Taxes And Forcing States To Act »