Let me see if I have this right: carbon dioxide, which we exhale with every breath, and which is essentially plant food, without which all life on Earth--you know--dies, is also causing Climate Change, which is absolutely going to kill the entire planet, so we have to make all our appliances vastly less efficient and vastly more expensive to eliminate carbon dioxide to keep from killing the planet, by killing the plants, which will kill us. Is that about it?

Yes, I know. I’m ignoring some of the highly nuanced science, which makes me a science denier, but this is only a brief article, and science isn’t exactly encouraging sane people—science deniers--to recognize its credibility these days. Thomas Catennaci at Fox explains:

Image: wikimedia commons.org, creative commons attribution 2. generic license.

The Biden administration unveiled environmental regulations Friday targeting multiple popular home and commercial appliances in an action that will impact millions of Americans, but which federal officials said would help curb carbon emissions.

The Department of Energy (DOE) both finalized new energy efficiency standards for residential refrigerators and freezers, and proposed standards for commercial fans and blowers. Overall, the agency said the actions would eliminate 420 million metric tons of "dangerous carbon dioxide emissions" over the next three decades and save households and businesses $5 billion a year on utility bills.

"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," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. 

Uh-huh. Bidenomics—rampant inflation--is also a testament to the Mummified Meat Puppet Administration’s brilliance and concern for Normal Americans.

"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will continue to move quickly in 2024 — together with our industry partners and stakeholders — to update and strengthen outdated energy efficiency standards, which is critical to innovation, more consumer options, and healthier communities," she continued.

Helpful Translation: “industry partners and stakeholders”—the rubes we’re going to ruin if they don’t do what we say.

According to DOE, meanwhile, the standards mean the administration proposed or finalized a grand total of 30 such regulations in 2023 as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda and "underscore the administration’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis." The agency projects that its regulations introduced since early 2021 will provide nearly $1 trillion in consumer savings and curb emissions by 2.5 billion metric tons.

The MMPA tells us these marvelous “energy efficiency standards” will not only save the environment by reducing emissions—carbon dioxide—they’ll cost loads less, because they’re so efficient! Why, we’ll save billions on our heating and cooling and electricity bills because efficiency! “Nearly $1 trillion?” That’s about one thirty-fourth of the national debt, which has increased as I’ve typed this sentence.

Environmentalists have long argued in favor of appliance and energy efficiency regulations given their high use of electricity and natural gas. Green energy groups have called for the electrification of homes and businesses, reducing reliance on natural gas and simultaneously replacing current fossil fuel-fired power with alternatives like wind and solar.

What’s really going to happen is dictated by market forces.  Manufacturers will be forced to eliminate their less expensive products, which will not meet minimum efficiency standards. Middle class, working Americans, and the working poor, won’t be able to afford necessities like washing machines and driers, and inexpensive window air conditioning units and similar appliances will vanish. The cost of living will continue to rise to ruinous levels. Available appliances will be dramatically more expensive and far less effective. Clothes not clean?  Add a third wash cycle. Clothes not dry? A fourth cycle should handle it. Hmmm. Don’t third and fourth cycles use more electricity than single cycles, and doesn’t that cost more? How is that more efficient, and if we’re using all our juice to charge our electric vehicles, from where will those extra cycles come?

These are the same people demanding homes be entirely electrified, while simultaneously demanding everyone buy electric vehicles. As I’ve so often written, they “believe the science,” but have no idea from where electricity comes, what is necessary to produce it, or how much it costs. Lightning is electric, right? There’s a lot of that, so it’s like, natural! It’s gluten free and non-triggering too! So even though we don’t have sufficient electric generation capacity for our current needs, we can simultaneously shutter all our coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants and electricity will be more abundant, cost less, be more efficient, and everyone will save trillions and the planet to boot.

Better, more efficient, products of any kind need not be mandated. Americans know how to make choices that benefit them, choices they can afford. Totalitarian control of every aspect of American lives? That must be mandated.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor and retired police officer and high school and college English teacher.  His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.