More Proof That The Electrify Everything Push Is A Regressive Tax

On December 14, 2022, the Biden administration held “the first-ever White House  Electrification Summit.” The goal of the meeting, which included officials from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Climate Policy Office, and Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, along with leaders of various NGOs, including the American Federation of Teachers, Greenlining Institute, and Rewiring America, was to create a “strategy to accelerate affordable, equitable, and efficient electrification of American homes, businesses, and transportation.”

The same day of the Electrification Summit, the White House released a “rapid innovation agenda” that included President Biden’s goal of “a carbon pollution-free electricity grid by 2035, and to reach net-zero GHG emissions no later than 2050.” The same document claimed that by “electrifying our homes, businesses, industry, and transportation, the United States can get more than halfway to our goal of a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.” It also claimed, “Electrification will help enable the United States to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 while improving health, prosperity, and justice for all Americans.”

In April, the New York Times published an article headlined “How Electrifying Everything Became A Key Climate Solution.” The article, by Nadja Popovich and Brad Plumer, said that “To tackle climate change” the U.S. will have to quit burning fossil fuels in our engines, furnaces, and boilers, and the “best way to do that, experts increasingly say, is to replace them with electric versions.” The article quoted Saul Griffith, the founder and chief scientist at Rewiring America, a dark money group, that I wrote about here on Substack on March 19, in “The Dark Money Behind The Gas Bans.”

Griffith told the Times that “All roads point to electrification.” The Times did not mention that Rewiring America is leading the effort to ban the use of natural gas in homes and businesses. Nor did the Times bother to report that Rewiring America doesn’t disclose its budget or funders. The Times article didn’t contain the word “ratepayers,” and did not include “consumers.”

This lack of rigorous reporting by legacy media outlets is unfortunate. Alas, it’s not surprising. As with much of the rhetoric around alt-energy and decarbonization, cost figures — and the regressive effect that decarbonization mandates like bans on gas appliances will have on low- and middle-income consumers — are routinely ignored.

Read the rest of this piece at Robert Bryce Substack.

Robert Bryce is a Texas-based author, journalist, film producer, and podcaster. His articles have appeared in a myriad of publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Time, Austin Chronicle, and Sydney Morning Herald.

Photo: Ivan Radic Flickr under CC 2.0 License.