MRCTV readers and viewers likely are aware of our reports, going back years, that expose the cozy relationships between many government figures and special interests in the ever-widening, increasingly subsidized “green technology” and “climate change” fields. From the stunning lack of evidence to support the political claim that mankind is causing a global warming apocalypse… to the annual COP gatherings where bureaucrats, politicians, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and crony corporate heads oft fly their private jets, enjoy air conditioning and other amenities, and tell us we can’t eat meat, fertilize soil, or have a/c… to the literal connections between current Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and a failed electric bus maker that favored her with nearly $3 million worth of stock options before she joined the Biden Admin… we have seen years of fabrications, confabulations, deceit, arrogance, immorality, and political disregard for private property, freedom, and the US Constitution.
And they are doing it again.
Thomas Catenacci reports for the Washington Free Beacon:
“The Biden administration finalized climate regulations to ban most natural gas-powered instantaneous water heaters—a move that critics say will drive up costs for consumers.”
Indeed, anyone who understands the wide range of needs that manufacturers and sellers try to fill will see that the new Bidenista “regulations” will eliminate many options for those who want affordable water-heaters.
But the entire idea of the government calling their edicts “regulations” or “rules” hides the truth of the matter. These are political thugs with government guns and our tax money telling peaceful people what they can and cannot buy or sell. And, by issuing their commands, the thugs steer markets towards what they prefer, replacing our decisions with their own, and warping the market in secondary ways tied to the expansion of the preferred sellers, who increase their own demand for their preferred materials when the government artificially pumps up their business and pumps out lower-priced competitors.
Notes Catenacci:
“The Department of Energy—which formally published the rules the day after Christmas—didn’t issue a press release announcing the action, a departure from past appliance regulations. The published rules say the regulations are expected to help the climate by curbing carbon dioxide emissions.”
Which, as we have reported many times at MRCTV, is an assumption that is not backed up by trustworthy data, and, even if it were, the US government has no place, constitutionally, or morally, telling people what they can and cannot buy.
Related: Inconvenient: Global Temps Lower Now Than When Gore Received Nobel Prize
Catenacci adds:
“Overall, under the regulations, roughly 40 percent of the new tankless water heaters available in the United States today will be taken off the market by 2029. Experts and industry officials say that will force consumers to purchase either more expensive or less efficient water heater models.
One industry analysis estimates that consumers will pay $450 more on average when purchasing new water heaters thanks to the regulations. And that will impact low-income and senior households, which are most reliant on the models targeted by the Department of Energy.”
So, fewer options on the lower end of the price and efficiency range, less competition, and fewer people on the lower end of the income scale having the ability to get good, quick, hot water.
“The rules apply to instantaneous water heaters, of which there are two types: non-condensing and condensing. But the rules hike efficiency requirements to a threshold that only condensing models can meet, effectively banning the cheaper but less efficient non-condensing models.”
This comes on the heels of many, many government impositions that they claim are for our good. But if they are so good, the government gang could leave their public troughs and enter the free market, offering them to people, rather than manipulating and strangling that market, and our freedom, in the process.
Catenacci adds:
“The new regulations also highlights (sic) how the current administration has targeted home appliances to reduce carbon emissions and drive a green transition to electric products. The Department of Energy faced widespread blowback in early 2023 after it targeted popular gas-powered stoves and has continued to receive criticism for rules restricting refrigerators, furnaces, dishwashers, and clothes washers.
‘It's one more example of an appliance regulation that raises costs and reduces choices,’ Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Free Beacon. ‘It bans an entire category of tankless water heaters and the ones that are most affordable.’"
Lieberman’s perspective is very valuable, in fact, he easily gets to the root of the matter.
"’This is all part of the climate change agenda,’ Lieberman continued. ‘One of the things we see is an antipathy towards natural gas versions of appliances because natural gas is a fossil fuel and they want to electrify everything. When you see bad regulations from the Biden administration, usually it has something to do with climate change.’"
Joe and his jackals continue to bite, and this will hurt many low-income Americans, the very people he claimed to understand and for whom Joe pretended to fight.
And it might come as no surprise that, after four years of these kinds of attacks, the Biden Administration would engage in one last push of insulting and injurious mandates to hurt our lives and living standards.
One can only hope that Donald Trump will reverse these edicts and acknowledge the deeper truth that James Madison told us in the early 1800s, that the feds are not supposed to engage in any of this kind of activity. If he does not, this move might be challenged in the courts, because the Supreme Court recently ruled that government agencies cannot "expand" their edict powers beyond what Congress allowed.
It would indicate that this heater move will have cold legal water thrown on it.
Until that time, if it ever arrives, manufacturers, sellers, and consumers will suffer.