Many bureaucracies are just doing their job to make regulations to save the less fortunate from emissions, at the expense of another 40 million Californians.
Published June 18, 2023 at CFACT https://www.cfact.org/2023/06/18/californias-emissions-regulatory-death-spiral/
Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and a co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book Harnessing Clean Energy.
I just returned from a recent 2-hour lunch with one of the people who served on the working groups and committees of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the East Coast Air Quality Management District. Nam (SCAQMD), and he shared his frustrations with working with these agencies.
The frustration stems from the devastating impact an extremely complex system of rules and regulations involving federal, state and regional agencies is having on private businesses and the entire industry. industry in California and the rest of the United States.
No one can argue that a certain degree of regulation of business practices is necessary to protect employees, the public and the environment from the negative effects of their operations. But over time, federal, state, and local regulations have not only increased in number, complexity, and cost, but have become so burdensome that it has become increasingly difficult to manufacture certain products anywhere. other than outside the United States becomes economically impossible.
Ironically, outsourcing our once proud domestic manufacturing capacity has strengthened the economies of our allies as well as our enemies.
In California, for example, administrative agencies like CARB and SCAQMD will follow federal law and even enact even more California laws in the form of additional rules and regulations, which means they’re doing everything everything possible to cut all emissions from the oil industry including oil production and manufacturing, i.e. refineries.
While the administrative agencies in CARB, SCAQMD and other air districts feel secure in developing and enforcing a multitude of regulations, none of them have an alternative to fossil fuels that they are actively eliminating, and they do not have any concerns about the unintended consequences for ALL of humanity, as they gradually achieve their goal of eliminating the industry. oil industry out of California and place restrictions on the supply chains of products that are the foundation of our economy.
If there is no fossil fuel alternative that California wants to eliminate, the domino effect from the adjustment of the crude oil supply chain is supply shortages and skyrocketing prices for thousands of products. products that support the DEMAND of the entire medical industry, all branches of the military, airports, electronic equipment, communications, merchant ships, container ships and cruise ships, as well as asphalt for roads amnesty and fertilizer to help feed the world. Product shortages are fueling inflation (no pun intended) as it severely damages energy infrastructure and raw materials.
The law of supply and demand ensures that inflation and permanent shortages will continue as there will be fewer refineries to produce crude oil into derivatives that account for more than 6,000 products for society, as well as to produce fuel for the public. 50,000 jets carry people and products, and more than 50,000 merchant ships for global trade flows, as well as military and space programs.
In the last few years, California has closed two refineries (Phillips 66 at Rodeo and Marathon at Martinez), both in Northern California, which used to produce many of the fuels and petroleum derivatives used to make them. thousands of products for mankind, now focusing only on the production of renewable diesel fuel.
Today, the Bay Area AQMD (BAAQMD) of Northern California has set its regulatory targets on refineries at Chevron Richmond and PBF Martinez (the former Shell location). If the courts uphold the recent 6-5 BAAQMD rule to further reduce particulate emissions, both the Chevron Refinery in Richmond and the PBF Refinery at Martinez have announced that they will close before the end of the year. spend a billion dollars at each site to retrofit their refineries to comply further reducing particulate emissions to 2.5 microns or less.
With the potential loss of two more California refineries in the coming years, Northern California’s gasoline and jet fuel needs will be imported from China and India to supply military bases and airfields. Major international flights in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Sacramento, along with many oil derivatives that have closed California refineries, will no longer be produced.
While the people in CARB, SCAQMD and other air districts continue to do their jobs according to the regulations they have at hand, they are only tinkering with the emissions reductions needed to meet the targets. reduce our emissions and remove fossil fuels from the supply chain, while demand for fossil fuel oil fuels and derivatives continues to grow worldwide.
Because emissions from fossil fuel production, production and use do not discriminate between community or international boundaries, people living in underserved communities or developing countries will get little if any benefit from this huge stock of government regulation.
Although wind turbines and solar panels are seen as promising renewable sources of electricity for transitioning away from fossil fuels, it is important to acknowledge their limitations. Two of the main disadvantages are the inability to generate electricity continuously and, most importantly, the inability to produce any goods to meet the demand for products for the growing population worldwide. gender.
For California it’s 4lame pants The world’s largest economy, California may have adjusted itself into a death spiral of emissions reductions. A handful of California’s less fortunate communities will benefit from reducing their backyard emissions, while the state’s 40 million other residents and others around the world bear the associated costs. to the impact the cuts have on the supply chain of the products and fuels currently produced from oil that support 8 billion people on the planet.
Ronald Stein, Sports
Energy & Infrastructure Ambassador
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