Reports show that the Biden administration plans to finalize its final tailpipe emissions rule for cars and trucks on Wednesday, a measure 61% of Arizonans oppose.
The possible rule could mean that nearly 70% of cars sold in 2032 would need to be electric vehicles, though this is not achievable with our current infrastructure and would make us more reliant on China, according to government relations firm AxAdvocacy.
Chet Thompson, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) president and CEO, said the EPA policy will feel like a ban for consumers.
“It will vastly restrict both their access to and ability to afford new gas cars, trucks, SUVs and traditional hybrids,” Thompson said. “And there are no offramps in the policy in the event our infrastructure isn’t ready or consumers simply don’t buy EVs at the rate EPA would like. This is exactly why 75% of registered voters solidly oppose any government efforts designed to ban gas, diesel and traditional hybrid cars.”
President Joe Biden has been clear since 2020 he intends to use his federal agencies and the state of California to eliminate sales of new gas cars.
“While multiple administration policies push us toward this end, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) passenger vehicle standards will do most of the damage on their own—requiring approximately 70% of new car sales to be electric in less than eight years,” he said. “This policy is bad for consumers, the economy and national security.”
“It will sacrifice our hard-won U.S. energy strength for even greater dependence on China and the EV battery and mineral supply chain China controls,” Thompson continued.
Only 16% of Arizonans support the rule, which would deprive Americans of the right to select the car best for them, their families, and their budgets.
In Wisconsin, 64% of residents oppose the measure, while 57% of Pennyslanvanians oppose, 61% of Nevadans oppose, and 66% of Ohioans oppose. Only 9% of Montana residents support the potential rule.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
A major vehicle rental company is offloading thousands of electric cars in its fleet.
In a January 11, 2024, filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. wrote that it had “made the strategic decision to sell approximately 20,000 electric vehicles (EV) from its U.S. fleet, or about one-third of the global EV fleet.” Hertz plans on “reinvest[ing] a portion of the proceeds from the sale of EVs into the purchase of internal combustion engine vehicles to meet customer demand.”
Hertz added that the sale of these vehicles would “position the Company to eliminate a disproportionate number of lower margin rentals and reduce damage expense associated with EVs.” When addressing the financial results for the fourth quarter of 2023, Hertz asserted that “expenses related to collision and damage, primarily associated with EVs, remained high in the quarter, thereby supporting the Company’s decision to initiate the material reduction in the EV fleet.”
The Vice-Chairman of the Arizona Senate Committee on Transportation, Technology and Missing Children, Senator Frank Carroll, addressed this announcement from Hertz, telling AZ Free News, “When one of the largest worldwide vehicle rental companies decides to sell off a third of its electric vehicles, we should pay attention. This move sheds light on the lack of demand and increased costs associated with EVs, which is why we need to continue to stand up against liberal extremism attempts to force every American to transition to electric cars. Hertz hopped on the EV experiment and paid the price.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Electric vehicles have become the centerpiece of the plan to ward off climate change by drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Biden administration seems to feel that if we can just get people to plug in their cars to a non-emitting electrical socket instead of filling up with carboniferous fossil fuels – voila! By 2050 we’ll be at zero-carbon emissions, no problem.
That would be a nice world, but it’s not the one we live in. In fact, EVs check virtually every box indicating an unrealistic policy bound for failure.
For starters, personal vehicles aren’t even the right target, despite the claim of the Union of Concerned Scientists that they are a “major cause of global warming.” The New York Times agrees that cars are a “major driver of climate change.”
Really? Transportation globally accounts for 20% of total emissions, but cars and vans are only 8% while personal vehicles, because they accumulate less mileage, generate just 3% of all emissions. But the U.S. owns just 12% of the world’s cars. That means that just 0.36% is the global carbon reduction we would achieve if every American car were electrified and if all carbon emissions were thereby eliminated.
But it gets worse. EVs don’t necessarily reduce carbon emissions at all. Energy must still be produced to power them, like any other car. It just happens in a different location.
The net emissions of an EV depend on how its electricity is generated. Since fossil fuels still generate the bulk of our power, many EVs are a little more than carbon neutral. Moreover, the manufacture and eventual disposal of the required batteries are intensely energy consuming.
California, New York, and other states plus the EU have promised to be fully EV by 2035. But these states are already straining under the increased demands of a power-hungry world even without EVs.
The task of fueling all these EVs would be overwhelming. According to one estimate, achieving a “net-zero economy” for New York would require building 2,500 giant, 680-foot tall turbines, which would hopefully generate electricity 40% of the time.
The turbines would require 110,000 tons of copper alone, for which 25,000,000 tons of copper ore would have to be mined and processed, after removing 40,000,000 tons of overlaying rock. Then, birds, bats, and endangered species would be regularly massacred by the millions. And that’s only for one state.
The unwelcome fact is that sustainable fuel sources have received massive subsidies for years to “help them get started.” Yet wind, solar, and other minor sources of energy still produce just 12% of global demand and have yet to demonstrate the potential to replace fossil fuels in the future as the main source of energy for EVs.
EVs are more popular with green activists than with drivers. They accounted for just 5.8% of all auto sales last year, despite being heavily subsidized. Buyers benefit from generous production subsidies, from fueling subsidies, from special driving privileges such as use of HOV lanes, and are unfairly excused from participating in the fuel taxes which fund road construction and repair.
Yet most consumers still find the extra cost of an EV is not justified. Automakers, with the notable exception so far of Tesla, are beginning to feel the pinch. Many were bull rushed into EV production by government pressure and subsidies as well as fear of getting left out of the presumed coming boom market.
But now Ford, for one, expects to lose $3 billion on EV production this year. Volkswagen is cutting back on EV production as well, stating that “we are noticing customer reticence quite vehemently in the electric world.” It’s going to take a mountain of subsidies and mandates to get anywhere near 100% EVs by 2035.
There are other big problems too. The batteries average 1,000 pounds or so in weight, resulting in excessive wear to roads and bridges. Collisions are more damaging – for the other guy. There are not nearly enough mines, metals, and minerals on earth to supply EV battery manufacture. EVs are an ineffective solution to an exaggerated problem. We can only hope environmental alarmists come to their senses before their unrealistic dreams bankrupt us all.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
American school children are instructed that the late 19th century, the Gilded Age, was dominated by “robber barons” who made great fortunes creating monopolies that exploited the poor and middle classes.
Howard Zinn‘s best-selling textbook, which introduced generations of Americans to their own history, informed them that “ordinary people who lived through the Gilded Age… experienced tremendous hardships and losses… While they got poor, the rich were getting richer.” Another noted economist concurred that “the poor grew helpless, the middle class got swept away.”
But let’s look again. In fact, by the numbers, it was a golden age for American workers.
As Phil Gramm and Amity Shlaes documented in the Wall Street Journal, between 1870 and 1900, the national GNP rose 233%, per capita GNP surged by 90%, and wages increased 53%, all inflation adjusted. Meanwhile, food costs and other necessities fell by 70%. Better yet, the illiteracy rate fell by 46%, life expectancy rose12.5%, and infant mortality declined by 17%. The people did OK when government stayed on the sidelines.
But Americans, then as now, misread their history and so were doomed to repeat it. Modern progressivism was born in response to the purported outrages of the plutocrats. Government controls stifled economic growth and innovation. Later, big government was credited by many with pulling us out of the depression.
By the 1970s, the damaging effects of the dead hand of government were so obvious that Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter led a massive deregulation movement – airlines, communications, energy, and other sectors – that ushered in the tech revolution and renewed prosperity.
But the tendency to regard socialistic policies as inherently good is so ingrained in human nature that once again we have already forgotten the lessons learned. Now the Biden administration is creating a new industrial policy in which government handouts are lavishly dispensed but conditioned on compliance with progressive mandates.
For example, America’s semiconductor chip producers scored a $280 billion subsidy recently, on the grounds that their sector was ailing financially, and its health was so important to the economy generally, that it was, you know, too big to fail. Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo was very explicit about the strings attached, “if Congress wasn’t going to do what they should’ve done [in the Build Back Better bill], we’re going to do it in the implementation.”
She meant it. For starters, chipmakers receiving $150 million or more in federal aid will be required to provide childcare to their employees and construction workers that has been crafted in “tandem with community stakeholders including…local groups with expertise in administering childcare” (i.e., lefty nonprofits).
Chipmakers will also have to pay construction workers prevailing wages set by unions and abide by “project labor agreements” which allow unions to mandate conditions and benefits for all workers, union members or not.
That’s not all. The “lucky” chipmakers must also provide “paid leave and caregiving support” to employees as well as wraparound services such as adult care, transportation, and housing assistance to the disadvantaged or underserved.
Centralized economic planning is once again butting up against economic reality. Chip manufacturers have already been transferring production overseas because costs are 40% higher stateside. Any benefit from the subsidies will be so offset by the increased costs that the net profit may be questionable.
Still, other industries are eagerly lining up for their government handouts. In their ceaseless efforts to socialize their losses while retaining profits to themselves, banks lobbied the FDIC to guarantee uninsured deposits without limit after the recent midsize bank collapses. Broadband providers received tens of billions in grants from states to build high-speed broadband to subsidize low-income purchases of Internet service plans.
Years ago, EV producers received temporary subsidies as start-up inducers, which, of course, aren’t going away at all. They just keep expanding, like $523 billion over 10 years for vehicle consumer and battery production tax credits.
As the chipmakers are discovering, the effect of all this free stuff from government is to make big businesses the compliant wards of the state. Thus, the administration imposes a cradle-to- grave welfare system through centralized industrial policy, while unconstitutionally usurping congressional authority in the bargain.
It’s the path to nowhere – again.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
An Arizona company has announced plans to ship African-mined cobalt to Mexico, then truck it north to be processed at a new, state-of-the-art facility in Yuma County so it can be sold to companies that make batteries for Electric Vehicles (EVs).
EVelution Energy is expected to start construction of its Yuma cobalt processing facility next year, with a goal of being operational no later than early 2026. It forecasts more than 1,000 construction phase jobs, along with 60 direct and 300 indirect jobs once the facility is fully functional.
Cobalt is a rare, ferromagnetic metal primarily used in lithium-ion batteries and in the manufacture of magnetic, high-strength alloys. Dating back to 3000 BC, cobalt was mostly used for its blue coloring in the making of ceramics and glass.
Other uses were limited due to the fact arsenic fumes are a by-product of smelting. But new processing methods in the last few decades changed all of that.
In March, the Yuma County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a special-use permit allowing EVelution to move forward with construction on 139 acres just east of the City of Yuma and south of the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge.
The property, which spans Union Pacific Railroad tracks and U.S. Interstate 8, is located within one of Arizona’s Qualified Opportunity Zones which provide a wide range of tax incentives for private, long-term investments in economically distressed communities.
There are also various federal economic development incentives currently available for EVelution Energy’s project, such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, nearly two-thirds of all mined cobalt (150,000 tonnes in 2019) comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (100,000 tonnes in 2019). The USGS also estimates there is about 4 million tonnes of cobalt reserves on the African continent, and another 3 million tonnes globally.
EVelution plans to transport cobalt hydroxide feedstock sourced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a port in Ensenada, Mexico, a roughly four hour trip by truck to the Yuma processing facility. And the company knows there is domestic market for its product.
Currently, more than 70 percent of the world’s battery grade cobalt is processed in China. That puts U.S.-based Electric Vehicle manufacturers overly reliant on imports.
The Yuma cobalt facility’s expected annual 7,000 tonnes capacity could meet 40 percent of the expected demand for U.S.-produced EVs in 2027.
The forecasted $55 million economic benefit from EVelution Energy’s project is very much needed, particularly in southwestern Arizona. However, two environmental concerns will be closely monitored even though Yuma County approved the company’s special use permit.
First is the sourcing and disposal of water. EVelution expects to use 74 million gallons of water per month. The water will be sourced from aquifers running under the property, likely via wells which will run more than 1,000 feet deep.
“Our water usage is therefore not expected to impact the surrounding area’s water table/groundwater,” the company says, adding that a water treatment plant will allow for about 70 percent of its used water to be recycled.
The second concern is the disposal of “tailings,” which are the unused materials which remain after processing. EVelution intends to minimize risks of potential contamination to its or surrounding land by foregoing on-site tailing ponds.
“Tailings will be collected, transported and safely disposed of at a licensed local landfill located less than 20 miles away,” the company says.
EVelution Energy is also focused on transitioning to a net zero carbon future. Getting there will mean building a 38.4 MW (peak) solar power array to power the processing plant. The company expects to use excess power from the day to recharge its battery storage.
There is also the possibility some of the excess electricity can be sold to a local power utility to service nearby agricultural companies.
“Solar power will heat the water and process solutions for hydrometallurgical cobalt processing,” according to the company’s website. ‘This heated solution will be stored at temperature in large storage tanks overnight. Using solar power rather than propane or natural gas will further reduce our carbon-footprint.”
As with most mining operations in Africa, there are concerns with the health impacts to workers and with the use of child labor. EVelution’s website shows the company is aware of those issues.
“We are committed to sourcing cobalt in a socially responsible manner, preventing child labor and to promoting respect for human rights of people employed in or affected by our cobalt supply chain,” the website states. “We plan to source our cobalt only from companies that comply with the guidelines of the Responsible Cobalt Initiative.”
EVelution’s proximity to California could lead to further revenue streams, given that state’s early acceptance of EVs.
With EV batteries being quite heavy, and thus expensive to transport, the company is “well positioned to potentially recycle EV batteries from electric vehicles that reach the end of their product lifespan,” its website notes. “The oldest electric vehicles are predominantly located in California and therefore their batteries will be in need of recycling the soonest.”
Terri Jo Neff is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or send her news tips here.
