From the Daily Caller

NICK POPE

CONTRIBUTOR

The Department of Energy (DOE) finalized or proposed a bevy of regulatory actions cracking down on numerous appliances on Friday.

The DOE proposed new rules designed to promote “energy efficient” commercial fans and blowers, and also finalized energy efficiency standards for refrigerators and freezers, the agency announced Friday. The regulatory actions are the latest in a string of moves by the Biden administration intended to phase out a host of fossil fuel-powered appliances and replace them on the market with more energy efficient, and often electric, equivalents.

“Today’s announcement is a testament to the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to lowering utility costs for working families, which is helping to simultaneously strengthen energy independence and combat the climate crisis,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said of her agency’s actions. “DOE will continue to move quickly in 2024—together with our industry partners and stakeholders—to update and strengthen outdated energy efficiency standards, which is critical to innovation, more consumer options, and healthier communities.” (RELATED: Biden Admin’s Latest Spending Spree Amounts To A Backdoor Ban On Gas-Powered Appliances, Experts Say)

REPORTER:

“We’ve seen them go after gas stoves…how many more home appliances will Americans eventually have to replace?” pic.twitter.com/JgjQyiPGK0

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 24, 2023

Compliance with the finalized fridge and freezer standards will be required starting in either 2029 or 2030, depending on the model and configuration of the equipment, according to the agency. The DOE projects that the rule will cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 100 million tons.

The proposed set of regulations are modeled on those already in place in California, according to the DOE. The regulations are expected to kick in starting in 2029 and are projected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 300 million tons.

The Biden administration, led primarily by the DOE, has promulgated numerous regulatory actions that are designed to reduce the use of fossil fuel-powered appliances that tend to be cheaper up front than their more “energy efficient” counterparts. Other appliances the administration has sought to regulate include water heaters, gas-powered portable generators, furnaces and pool pump motors.

Numerous energy policy experts have asserted that the Biden administration’s regulatory blitz on appliances is likely to limit consumer choice and impose higher up-front costs for the sake of fighting climate change. The DOE, on the other hand, estimates that the full suite of energy efficiency regulations will provide approximately $1 trillion in consumer savings over the next 30 years.

The DOE did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

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The key event for the UK will be an election in May, at which Labour will win a majority. I think it will be a small majority, but it will be a majority nonetheless. This result might be a double-edged sword: it will offer the possibility of opposition to bonkers plans actually having some bite, but on the other hand it may lead to the Conservatives not learning the lesson the sceptics would like them to learn. The Budget will be a sad last throw of the dice in which the Chancellor will not even throw the dice. How nice it would have been for the government to cut the green crap and dare the opposition to promise to reinstate it. But that is not the path we are on. The likely bribe will be an increase in the personal allowance, probably by a grand, starting with the new tax year. Labour still wins. The present government has gone through more incarnations than Doctor Who and is exhausted, at the end of its tether.

Labour’s stated policy is a prescription for national destruction, but the optimist in me says that it will run aground on the shoals of reality before too much damage is done. This depends, as I may have mentioned before, on the extent to which we the great unwashed will swallow the gaslighting BS that they are shovelling down our throats. What we believe causes our woes – whether some external force or government policy – is a key matter for the country. You already know that I believe that, when it comes to climate change, the “cure” is worse than the disease. The disease is mild, and the cure is no cure at all, but poison. Alas too few are persuaded of that view for now. Too many fall for the seductive idea that because wind turbines produce free electricity, then the more of them you have, the cheaper electricity becomes. This is a completely wrong idea, but the germ of truth that it holds appears to have the power to override more complex arguments around what a civilised nation requires from its electricity grid. I expect Labour to quadruple down on stupid, but there are a couple of other factors here. The first is that there is no magic wand that can instantly produce serried ranks of wind turbines up hill and down dale. Even a manic approach to renewables will produce pain that escalates only gradually. The second point is the corollary of the first: as the roll out is slow, as the difficulty of hiding the true drivers of our woes grows slowly, slow will be the dawning of the realisation that we are sawing off the branch we are sitting on.

Earlier crunches are inbound, and we know that whenever people are personally affected by Net Zero BS, they begin to oppose it. A generalised and theoretical approval of the goal of Net Zero becomes a particular and concrete opposition to at least one part of it when each of us realises that our part in all this is not as a mere bystander. The challenge for sceptics is to help people to connect the dots. What are the earlier crunches? We have the boiler tax, where because boiler manufacturers are going to be fined if they do not meet their quota of heat pumps, they will be forced to cross-subsidise heat pumps by upping the price of gas boilers – i.e. the heating systems people actually want to buy. It may only be a few hundred quid initially, but even this may have an effect on public opinion disproportionate to its effect on folks’ pockets. So far the true costs of climate policy to the ordinary punter have been kept well hidden. In 2024 it can be hidden no more. Now at last it comes to the fore.

At the same time as the advent of the boiler tax, we will have the ICE vehicle tax – a rather more daunting 15 grand for each vehicle beyond the manufacturer’s quota. By how much manufacturers will be over, and how much they plan to cross-subsidise their EVs is to me an imponderable matter for now. It may be that small petrol cars will be wiped out by the policy. But again the hit on folks’ pockets and freedoms will be impossible to keep hidden.

My prediction: by the end of next year we in the UK will be in a worse position climate policy-wise than we are now, and there will as yet be little gain in momentum for a change of course. I think there will be glimmers of hope. As they say, hope dies last. Which means I think that good sense will win out in the end, even if it takes a hell of a kicking along the way.

Please do append your predictions for 2024, particularly if mine seem off beam.

Let the turn in the year be a time for optimism and good health to all Clisceppers.

Commentary from Jonathan Adler (The Volokh Conspiracy)

Adler wrote about the case last June.

This afternoon, Judge Aiken on the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon revived  Juliana v. United States, aka the “Kids Climate Case,” by granting the plaintiffs’ motion to amend their complaint, some two years after the motion was filed.

This is a remarkable order because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit previously ordered the case dismissed due to a lack of standing. The original Ninth Circuit panel ruling was in January 2020, and the court denied en banc rehearing in February 2021. The plaintiffs filed a motion to amend in March 2021, which was opposed by the Department of Justice on the grounds that “the mandate rule requires [the district] court to dismiss the case.” Despite the DOJ’s opposition, the district court further ordered a settlement conference, and whatever jurisdiction the district court may have retained over the case should have expired when the plaintiffs failed to petition for certiorari.

https://reason.com/volokh/2023/06/01/district-court-judge-revives-kids-climate-case/

Adlers article quotes the judge’s reasoning and it’s worth a read, however Adler concludes, emphasis mine:

The Ninth Circuit’s initial decision dismissing the Juliana case was likely the best outcome the plaintiffs could have hoped for, as it avoided substantive Supreme Court intervention (after the justices had indicated their concern about the case). By reviving the case, Judge Aiken is tempting fate—and risking a broader legal judgment that could preclude a broader array of climate-related suits.

https://reason.com/volokh/2023/06/01/district-court-judge-revives-kids-climate-case/

My take is that Judge Aiken is tempting the Supreme Court to smack down a whole array of Climate legal theories if the case makes it that far.

Expect breathless coverage congratulating them on their Climate Case and taking it to the man.