EPA is dumping $4.3 billion in taxpayer-funded grants into climate change projects before Biden leaves office

 The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it is disbursing $4.3 billion in taxpayer-funded grantsfor several climate projects across the United States before President Joe Biden leaves the White House in January.

These grants, provided through the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Program established under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, will be allocated to 25 projects in 30 states. These projects will address greenhouse gas emissions across various sectors, including waste and materials management, commercial and residential buildings, transportation, electric power, natural and working lands, industry and agriculture.  

The EPA climate grants key projects include:

• Decarbonization in Pennsylvania: Targets cement and asphalt to reduce industrial emissions.
• Climate-smart practices in Nebraska: An initiative with a budget of $307 million to promote practices that reduce emissions from agriculture and waste.
• East Coast electric vehicle charging infrastructure: Installation of EV chargers for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles along a major highway.
• Southern California air management: The region will receive $500 million to decarbonize transportation and freight sectors, including the ports in Long Beach and Los Angeles. The grants will fund electric charging equipment, zero-emission freight vehicles and the conversion of cargo handling equipment to lower emissions.

Earlier in July, the Department of Energy announced that it had already awarded $1.7 billion in grants to 11 factories to convert them from manufacturing internal combustion engine cars to making EVs and their components.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said: "President [Joe] Biden understands that America needs a strong EPA." He even boasted that "the administration has made the largest climate investment in history, providing billions of dollars to state, local and tribal governments to tackle climate change with the urgency it demands."

Cohen: Green initiatives only protect the ruling class and let ordinary citizens suffer the consequences

In the article written for the Climate Depot, Bonner Russell Cohen, a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, argued that the EPA climate grants tolerated the "Biden administration's practice of throwing taxpayer money for the purported transition to EVs. However, unsold EVs are accumulating on dealer lots across the nation.

For instance, automakers Ford and General Motors have responded by cutting EV production, with Ford reportedly losing over $100,000 on each new EV sale.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, the state's largest school district has encountered significant issues with its electric school bus program. An electric bus company delivering hundreds of buses has "repeatedly missed delivery deadlines and made late repairs," resulting in "millions of dollars in wasteful spending." Delivered buses faced problems including the need for battery replacements and high-voltage wiring issues. This forced the school district to spend over $14 million to purchase diesel-powered buses to meet its transportation needs.

In 2022, Maryland lawmakers passed legislation to reduce greenhouse gases, including mandates for new school buses to run exclusively on electric power. However, the implementation has proven problematic.

This local debacle mirrors other green technology failures, such as the recent incident in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where a giant rotor broke off an offshore wind turbine, causing pollution on local beaches. Both cases highlight how politically favored green technologies can fail to meet expectations. The offshore wind project in New England, like the electric school bus initiative in Maryland, is subsidized by taxpayers.

Cohen concluded that such initiatives often protect the ruling class' interests more than the public's, with failures typically impacting ordinary citizens rather than policymakers.

"The ruling class repeatedly claims to protect the masses from whatever "existential threat" suits their purposes. Time and again, their follies blow up – usually not in their faces, but in the faces of ordinary people who bear the brunt of their hubris. The billions EPA is spreading around will have no effect on the climate, but it will ensure more precious resources are wasted," Cohen wrote.