It Was Always About The Money

On Monday, Just the News posted an article about where a lot of the money designated for ‘green energy’ actually went.

The article reports:

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin says he has made several criminal referrals after uncovering a major political enrichment scandal that routed billions in Biden-era green energy grants to Democrat cronies. “It’s about self-dealing,” Zeldin tells Just the News.

Zeldin said he has canceled or stopped about $29 billion in EPA grants – including one for $2 billion to a nonprofit tied to longtime Georgia Democrat election activist and failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams – after unmasking a series of pass-through groups used to route taxpayer monies to the politically connected.

“As you look through all of these pass-through entities, you’re seeing so many connections to former Obama and Biden administration officials and Democratic donors, people who were former Cabinet members, other high-ranking administration officials,” he said during a wide-ranging interview Monday on the John Solomon Reports podcast.

Zeldin said he has referred several of the transactions to the EPA inspector general, the agency’s chief watchdog, and the Justice Department for possible prosecution or further investigation. “Those referrals have been made,” he said.

Zeldin said some of the allegations have their roots in legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, when Congress and the White House were all in Democrat hands. “They included all of this funding in this so-called Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. And then they would work with these different agencies of the Biden administration to get it out to their unqualified friends. The whole thing just feels criminal,” he said. “[…] This is clearly something that falls into the category of blatant waste and abuse.”

The article concludes:

Zeldin said he is confident that when all litigation is complete most of the $29 billion in grants he has flagged and blocked will be returned to the Treasury as savings for taxpayers.

“We’re not taking money from left-wing NGOs to give them to right-wing NGOs,” he said. “This is about getting that money back to the taxpayer. This is about making sure that that money coming through an agency like EPA doesn’t have any amount of waste and abuse, that there’s a zero tolerance for it.”

Always remember the following quote:

In March 2016, I posted an article with the following:

…Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:

“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.

So what is the goal of environmental policy?

“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.

It’s never been about the environment!

Removing Things American Drivers Hate

On Wednesday, Red State posted an article about the automatic start-stop technology in vehicles installed during the Obama administration. The feature is annoying at best. The technology gives me flashbacks of my high school days when I was driving a 1954 Lincoln Capri with a carburetor problem. The best way to get the car to idle properly was to open up the hood and put a board in to warm it up while the board held something down and even then you couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t stall out when you stopped.

The article reports:

The Trump administration is eliminating Obama-era off-cycle credits that incentivized automakers to install automatic start-stop technology in vehicles, effectively killing what many drivers consider one of the most annoying features of newer models.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin highlighted the victory on Wednesday — building on the February repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding — while sharing a Wall Street Journal article highlighting drivers celebrating ‘the demise of the most hated feature in their cars.’

Zeldin mocked the technology as an Obama administration climate zealot “participation trophy.”

“The start/stop concept in vehicles is almost universally DESPISED. So, the Trump EPA has now REMOVED the ridiculous climate participation trophy the Obama Admin created to get this hated feature installed,” he wrote on X. “The incentives for manufacturers to make your car die at every red light and stop sign have now been ELIMINATED!”

The Journal reports that a significant percentage — 58 percent — of new gasoline non-hybrid cars had these universally despised systems installed by 2024.

Why were these systems installed?

In October 2012, the Obama EPA finalized the “2017 and Later Model Year Light-Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards” rule. 

As part of that package, the agency created “off-cycle credits” — a regulatory incentive that allowed automakers to earn compliance points toward stricter GHG emissions standards by installing certain fuel-saving technologies. Automatic engine start-stop systems were explicitly eligible for these credits. 

Adoption by manufacturers rose sharply after those credits kicked in, from less than 1% of new gasoline non-hybrid models in 2012 to the aforementioned 58% in 2024.

Never mind that real-world fuel savings proved modest and inconsistent at best — many studies showed only marginal gains in typical driving, especially once frustrated owners simply turned the system off or dealt with the annoying restarts.

In a 2011 White House press release, the administration touted the upcoming fuel economy standards, saying they should “spur manufacturers to increasingly explore electric technologies such as start/stop, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric vehicles.”

They should have explored it, realized nobody liked it, and killed it with fire. 

Fortunately, Zeldin and the EPA are doing just that. Figuratively, of course.

No more forcing gimmicks on the public under the guise of environmental virtue.

Thank God my husband’s car has an easily accessible switch that turns this feature off. My current car is, thankfully, too old to have this feature!