You may have noticed that in recent weeks, the Biden administration has been rolling out a hell of a lot of new regulations. Earlier this month it wasĀ big student loan reformsĀ and aĀ massive improvement in how public lands are managed, then this week we hadĀ better pay and working conditionsĀ for working Americans,Ā minimum staffing ratiosĀ for nursing homes, and evenĀ improved service on airlines.
Thatās not only because itās an election year, though Joe & Kamala certainly do like to point out that where the Other Guy rages (andĀ wants to raise inflation!) theyāve been busy making Americansā lives better. But the bigger reason is that the administration wants to get new rules finalized prior to May, toĀ keep them from being tossed out in the next CongressĀ via the Congressional Review Act, which Donald Trump and his cronies used to reverse a bunch of Barack Obamaās environmental regulations.
. . . The requirement that coal plants find a way to eliminate 90 percent of their emissions by 2032 effectively accelerates the end of coal for power generation, which was inevitable anyway. Roughly 70 percent of US coal plants have already closed, and last year,Ā coal generated only 16 percentĀ of electric power, a new record low. In addition to the emissions rule,Ā three other final rulesĀ alsoĀ impose strict new limits on mercury, coal ash, and pollution of wastewater,Ā to put an end to the environmental degradation caused by coal.
. . . The other option, obviously, would be for utilities to meet coming demand with renewables, as administration officials pointed out when previewing the new rule. Thanks to the IRAās hundreds of billions of dollars in incentives, carbon-free power generation, including battery storage,Ā already beats the cost of building new gas plants.Ā Going forward, the administration is confident renewables will be the far more cost-effective and reliable way to meet increasing demand by 2032, when the emissions limits fully kick in.
The false statement I was correcting was about āweaponsā. You never mentioned ābombs and shellsā. Here is the thing about bombs and shells. Israel has plenty of dumb bombs and shells, and they donāt need the US to get more. What they get from the US are precision weapons, which means fewer bombs are required to hit a target. Whatever you think of Israeli tactics (and we probably agree completely) itās better for them to have the precision weapons.
The whole point of slow rolling weapons shipments is to be able to send a signal but maintain official deniability. Actually denying it is just maintaining that veneer.
I stated my position clearly so that it wouldnāt be misconstrued, but you went and did it anyways. I support the general strategy of ramping up pressure, but I think it has been done far too slowly. Iām sure it has a lot to do with the powerful Israel lobby, but we passed the point where that should matter a long time ago.