Big Climate Tries to Censor Opponents Progressives move to block TV ads opposing the Biden EV mandate.
If President Biden’s electric-vehicle mandate is as popular as progressives claim, why are they trying to censor critics who want to inform the public about the mandate’s costs?
That’s the story this week, after the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) launched ads in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio and Montana to educate Americans about the Administration’s back-door EV mandate. Mr. Biden is “rushing to ban new gas-powered cars” and wants “to force you into an electric vehicle,” one ad says.
The Biden team doth protest. “There is no EV mandate,” a Biden campaign official declared. No? The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed greenhouse gas emissions standards that would effectively require that EVs make up two-thirds of auto maker sales by 2032. The standards will “accelerate the transition to electric vehicles,” EPA said.
EPA’s proposed emissions rules are so stringent that auto makers will be able to comply only by producing an increasing number of “zero-emission vehicles” or by buying regulatory credits from EV manufacturers like Tesla.
. Americans shopping for a new car will have no choice but to buy an EV or pay a fortune for the few gas-powered cars still available.
Yet Mr. Biden and his allies don’t want voters to know that banning gas-powered cars is their end game. That’s why the progressive umbrella group Climate Power on Tuesday shot off a missive to broadcasters demanding that they pull the AFPM ads—or else. These “advertisements include obvious lies aimed at deceiving the public and must be pulled from the air immediately,” Climate Power chief operating officer Jill Shesol wrote. But who’s actually trying to deceive the public?
The letter cites a PolitiFact report claiming it is “wrong to say there is a ‘Biden mandate’ to replace gasoline-powered cars with [electric vehicles].” PolitiFact is a liberal opinion operation. Was it also wrong for the
last May to report that EPA’s proposed rule is “designed to ramp up sales of electric vehicles while ending the use of gasoline-powered cars”?
“The EPA does not have the authority to demand such a mandate,” the Climate Power letter says. Correct, which is why the EPA is using regulation to impose the de facto mandate. The Obama Administration similarly tried to force a transition to renewable power by setting unfeasible emissions standards for fossil-fuel power plants.
Climate Power warns local broadcasters that the Federal Communications Commission could pull their licenses if they continue broadcasting the ads. “Failure to prevent the airing of ‘false and misleading advertising’ may be ‘probative of an underlying abdication of licensee responsibility’ that can be cause for the loss of a station’s license,’” the letter says.
EDF Action on Tuesday also sent stations a letter claiming that the AFPM ad “appears to be a deliberate attempt to tarnish the politicians . . . who may support policies that reduce air pollution and save lives.” But President Biden isn’t trying to reduce air pollution or save lives, and the EPA rule doesn’t aim to do either.
Opponents of “cleaner alternatives,” the letter adds, “do not have the right to mislead voters and spread disinformation on public airwaves.” But they do have a First Amendment right to critique public policies that damage their livelihoods.
AFPM is doing a public service. Mr. Biden and the climate lobby are misleading the public. There’s no reason for local broadcasters to bow to the climate lobby’s deceptions.
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