Biden, Having Drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Boost Democrats' Chances for the 2022 Midterms, Now Breaks a Promise and Says He's Not Going to Re-Fill It

Biden lied. He's willing to weaponize the government and deplete critical wartime stocks for short-term political advantage.

He's an evil old vulture.

The Department of Energy said it has canceled its plans to purchase millions of barrels of oil to refill the depleted U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as oil prices rise to a five-month high.

In canceling the SPR purchase, the Energy Department said it was "keeping the taxpayer's interest at the forefront" of its buyback plan, which is to refill the depleted reserves so long as prices remain below $79 per barrel.

Prices for global benchmark Brent crude and U.S.-based West Texas Intermediate soared well higher Tuesday, with Brent prices nearing $90 per barrel and WTI climbing slightly above $85 per barrel, amid worries about supply from Russia and producers in the Middle East.

"We will not award the current solicitations for the Bayou Choctaw SPR site and will solicit available capacity as market conditions allow," DOE officials said, adding that they "will continue to monitor market dynamics" for future refills.

...

Like other SPR caverns along the U.S. Gulf Coast, its levels remain depleted to historic lows following President Joe Biden's 180 million-barrel drawdown of SPR oil in March 2022, aimed at stabilizing energy costs for consumers in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It was the largest one-time drawdown in the history of the stockpile. And while the sales did help alleviate prices for consumers, they also sent levels plummeting to a 40-year low and prompted concerns that a lengthy depletion period could leave the U.S. vulnerable and resource-strapped in the event of an emergency.

Wednesday's delay could also risk putting the administration off track as it looks to meet its promise of fully replenishing the SPR by the end of the year.

Biden's fantasies about everyone owning an electric vehicle are being exposed as an exhaust pipe dream.

Ford Motor Company announced Thursday that due to a lack of demand from customers, they will delay the rollout and manufacturing of new electric vehicles.

"In a manufacturing update Thursday, Ford announced that it is pushing back the production launch of its planned three-row electric SUV at its assembly plant in Oakville, Ontario, from 2025 to 2027," Fox Business reports. "Ford lost about $4.7 billion on EVs last year and projects losses in the range of $5 billion to $5.5 billion this year."

Two weeks ago the CEO of Hertz resigned after the company's failed electric vehicle experiment.

America's Least Favorite Gay Uncle says that if you don't buy an EV, you ain't black.

I mean, "You ain't a hepcat."

Via the Daily Mail:

Buttigieg was speaking on Fox News Tuesday afternoon when he was asked about a downturn in sales of Teslas and electric vehicles despite Biden's administration pushing them.

He said: 'Let's be clear, the automotive sector is moving toward EVs and we can't pretend otherwise. Sometimes, when these debates happen, I feel like it's the early 2000s and I'm talking to some people who think that we can just have landline phones forever.'

Oh Secretary Bootyjuice, you're so Fashion Forward.

...

Wall Street is bracing for the first Tesla sales decline in four years as appetite for electric cars continues to slow.

The last time it saw a year-on-year decline in deliveries was in the first half of 2020 when car makers had to shut down factories due to COVID.

Even with sales down of EVs, Democrats continue to push for them and against gas-powered vehicles.

At least eight states are planning to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars in the next decade - and others are considering joining them.

Only zero-emission vehicles can be sold in participating states beginning from the 2035 model year, according to the Advanced Clean Cars II legislation.

Biden spent $7.5 billion of this nation's ever-shrinking capital to build charging stations for EVs.

He built SEVEN charging stations in two years.

President Biden has long vowed to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the United States by 2030. Those stations, the White House said, would help Americans feel confident purchasing and driving electric cars, and help the country cut carbon pollution.

But now, more than two years after Congress allocated $7.5 billion to help build out those stations, only 7 EV charging stations are operational across four states. And as the Biden administration rolls out its new rules for emissions from cars and trucks -- which will require a lot more electric cars and hybrids on the road -- the sluggish build-out could slow the transition to electric cars.

"I think a lot of people who are watching this are getting concerned about the timeline," said Alexander Laska, deputy director for transportation and innovation at the center-left think tank Third Way.

In March, Biden pushed new rules on tailpipe emissions designed to force everyone to buy an EV.

Benjamin Zycher writes that the EPA justifies these new rules by, get this, lying about the data.

Biden's EPA can justify his new EV rules only by cooking the books

Before federal regulations are implemented, they must be justified with an extensive analysis of costs and effects. The new Environmental Protection Agency rule forcing a massive shift toward electric vehicles is no exception. Weighing in at 1,181 pages, it is accompanied by an additional 884 pages of "regulatory impact analysis."

The EPA analysis justifying this rule is not unique in its length, but it is unique in its dishonesty.

EPA claims that the rule will reduce total greenhouse gas emissions over 2027-2055 by 7.2 billion metric tons. But despite a long and disingenuous discussion of the purported adverse effects of greenhouse gas emissions, EPA admits that it "did not...specifically quantify changes in climate impacts resulting from this rule in terms of avoided temperature change or sea-level rise."

The reason for that failure is obvious: The answer would be embarrassing. If we apply EPA's own climate model, with assumptions that exaggerate the climate effects of reductions in GHG emissions, the rule would reduce global temperatures in 2100 by 0.0068 degrees Celsius -- an effect far too small to be detectable.

Yet somehow, EPA claims that the rule will yield "climate benefits" of $1.6 trillion. How is that possible for a near-zero effect on temperatures? As with the entire Biden climate regulatory regime across all agencies, EPA multiplies asserted reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by the "social cost of carbon," a fictitious number that supposedly measures damage caused by the emissions.

This multiplier is fictitious because it is derived from an assumed future emissions scenario ("Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5") so extreme that it has virtually no chance of becoming reality. And this is incorporated into climate models that already overstate the actual satellite temperature measurements by a factor of about 2.5. The result? Climate doom and gloom predictions wholly at odds with the actual evidence.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:00 PM

| Access Comments