For decades, California was synonymous with the open road: free-wheelin’ dune buggy races, beach vans, and low-rider culture, among myriad road-based recreational options that free people could enjoy.
Unfortunately, the freedom-oriented spirit that existed from the days of the Gold Rush -- when, as historians have noted, the California Territory was governed through private arrangements, not by bureaucratic political power -- to the days of California gearheads is gone, replaced by a government control grid that state and federal politicians continually make more onerous.
Case in point: Gavin Newsom, the Democrat governor with the shark-like smile, who appears ready to get the Biden blessing to shut down the sale of gas-powered automobiles beginning in 2035.
As Brady Knox reports for The Washington Examiner, California leads a pack of collectivist state “leaders” thirsting for the power to ban efficient, durable, relatively inexpensive automotive travel via the internal combustion engine:
“President Joe Biden is set to allow California to ban the production of new gas-powered vehicles after 2035.”
And California is not the only state ready to kill the traditional car.
“California and 11 other states were awaiting permission for the ambitious measure, which Biden is set to give in one of his final acts during the lame-duck period, two people briefed on the matter told the New York Times. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled his opposition to the measure, setting up a legal battle for the second administration.”
Knox engages in more than a bit of massaging when he uses the word “ambitious” to describe the combined hammer-blows of federal and state bullies.
In fact, he merely parrots what the Newsom Administration calls the thuggery, and allows the government claim of power to go unquestioned.
“Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has been trying to move forward with the ban for the last four years. He signed an executive order in 2020 and the California Air Resources Board voted on the regulation two years later.
Initially, the rules were set to let California start phasing out gasoline-powered cars beginning as early as 2026, when the state could require 35% of new cars sold be zero-emission vehicles. The percentage required would ramp up to 68% in 2030 before completely phasing them out by 2035.
‘It’s ambitious, it’s innovative, it’s the action we must take if we’re serious about leaving this planet better off for future generations,’ Newsom said in 2022. ‘California will continue to lead the revolution towards our zero-emission transportation future.’”
Mental alarm bells ought to sound for anyone who hears such rhetorical tripe.
First of all, it begins with the government-is-including-you, collectivist mandate pronoun, “we,” which is a verbal tactic that collectivists use to sound “inclusive” and put a warm, fuzzy, spin on the brutal fact that they are imposing their will on others. The politicians are telling all others that they are part of the “we,” and must comply.
Second, the “zero-emission” future Newsom claims to be securing is not a “zero-emission” future, at all. Newsom wants to force people to use electric vehicles, vehicles that require massive amounts of lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and manganese for their various “power-storing” formulations.
And, not only do many reports indicate that either there are not sufficient supplies of these minerals, or that, if they are, the supplies are too expensive to mine and translate into marketable batteries that the Climate Cultists can afford, the process of pulling these minerals out of the ground is arduous, and requires incredible amounts of work – i.e. energy use – to complete.
And not only is the process of getting the minerals a time-consuming, labor-intensive, energy-sucking, endeavor, drawing massive amounts of human, temporal, monetary, and natural resources into the black hole of bureaucratic diktat, the electric vehicle batteries, themselves, present an elevated risk of disastrous fire if they become cracked, are exposed to salt water, or, even if they are left to the ravages of time.
And, of course, the electric vehicles don’t perform well in cold weather, and don’t hold their charge forever. As I have noted for MRCTV, and as automobile expert Eric Peters has pointed out, even EV sellers have to keep them connected to an electric feed while the unsold vehicles sit on the lot.
Then there’s the length of time it takes to charge an EV at home, where the typical home power system is insufficient to handle the load required for so-called “fast charge” that one might get at an outdoor charger supplied either by government or, typically, a government-subsidized charging station.
Oh, and there aren’t a lot of charging stations.
And especially in California, there isn’t enough electricity already. Power monopoly PG&E already has trouble handling the demand for power, and its lines have been cited as a fire risk, which has inspired the corporation to engage in rolling blackouts to avoid wildfires during the dry season.
Then there’s the problem of disposing the batteries, which can cause a great deal of environmental damage to the areas where they are tossed. And there's the fact that California gets most of its electricity from the burning of natural gas, i.e. one of those dreaded "carbon-based" energy sources.
The initial California move to ban the sale of internal combustion engine autos came in 2022, when its “California Air Regulatory Bureau” (CARB) issued its diktat and numerous states announced that they would follow suit.
Related: 'Infrastructure Bill' Pushes Electric Cars, Takes Over Regional Power Grids
In the 1970s, the Nixon-created “Environmental Protection Agency” (EPA) allowed California to create more onerous emissions limits than those that the EPA forced onto other states (mainly because of the air pollution in the LA Basin), but, despite this, Aubrie Spady writes for Fox News, CARB needed a new waiver to impose these new demands on emissions that will, by 2035, see virtually all new internal combustion cars unsellable in the state.
“Just weeks before Biden's term ends, the EPA is reportedly planning to grant the waiver to allow the state to set stricter emissions standards for electric vehicles than allowed by the federal government, the Washington Post first reported, citing several sources briefed on the matter.
The EPA did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment, but a spokesperson for the agency told POLITICO’s E&E News that they are still reviewing the regulation ‘to make sure its decisions are durable and grounded in the law.’"
Which is a bizarre way to put it, given the insult to the Constitution that both the EPA and the California “regulations” represent.
If the feds were prepared to abide by “the law,” they would look at the US Constitution, see that the EPA is not sanctioned by it, and note that the so-called “justification” for the EPA – a misreading of the Interstate Commerce Clause that imagines federal control over anything that is sold over state borders – is unwarranted and insulting.
The feds might uphold the Contract Clause and eliminate the EPA.
Likewise, they could make sure California doesn't infringe the Contract Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids state governments from interfering with the fulfillment of private contract.
Any state interference in long-term auto-maker contracts that run beyond 2034 -- those between car makers and sellers or car sellers and buyers, or the subcontractors that auto makers use to make their products – would run counter to the Contract Clause. And then there is threat the California CARB plan represents to the bulk of the Bill of Rights.
This state's ban requires surveillance of makers and sellers, sellers and buyers, and it will punish people without trial, through fines, property seizure, and more.
As a result, any honest observer of Biden’s EPA giving permission for this California move can see that it practically is the wrong stand on economics, it runs counter to the US Constitution and freedom of contract, and is, most of all, immoral, using force and threats of aggressive government punishment to mold and push car sales towards what Newsom desires.
If he and other Climate Cultists want to see higher sales of electric cars, why don’t they leave politics and start their own, private, market-competing, EV companies?
The answer seems clear: electric vehicles are not popular in the real market, and they only get the attention they receive because of politically-generated propaganda, and politically-steered subsidies.