In our quirky world, where almost nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no shortage of examples of politicians, let alone rich academics, journalists and elites, looking stupid. stupid with incoherent and self-contradictory policy claims. My favorite of them all is the need for “climate justice” for the poor at the same time seek action that will significantly increase the price of energy and those derived from it (e.g. transportation, heat) – increases will obviously hit the poor hardest. The inconsistency is so severe that I have called the situation a “glass world” and, in one piece this past September, promises a series of articles that highlight the madness.
But then I had to wait for the right news to give a perfect illustration of the absurd. This week provided a great example.
You are certainly aware of the Biden administration’s obsession with both “climate justice” and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. On the “climate justice” front, they call the grand initiative “Justice40.” This is Minutes for heads of departments and agencies dated July 20, 2021, teach them how to implement this important initiative. Excerpt:
President Biden is committed to ensuring environmental equity and promoting economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities that have been marginalized and overwhelmed by pollution and underinvestment in housing, transportation, and facilities. water and wastewater infrastructure, and health care.
The basic idea is to ensure that 40% or more of the environmental spending in the Build Back Better plan that was eliminated goes to these “historically marginalized” communities.
In Executive Order 14008, the President directs [various subordinates] to jointly publish guidance on how certain Federal investments can be made to achieve the goal of 40% of the total benefits of those investments for disadvantaged communities – Justice 40 Initiative . The Justice40 Initiative is a key part of the Administration’s government-wide approach to promoting environmental justice.
But then another key part of Biden’s environmental agenda is to drastically reduce so-called “greenhouse gases”. A large part of that comes from cars, nearly all of which today have gasoline internal combustion engines. And so In August, Biden announced his plan to forcibly slow down internal combustion cars and replace them with what he calls “zero-emission vehicles”, otherwise known as electric cars:
[T]The Chairman will sign the Ordinance setting an ambitious new goal of making half of all new vehicles sold by 2030 as zero-emission vehicles, including battery-powered electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles or battery-powered electric vehicles. fuel cells.
One minor issue not covered in Biden’s press release and executive order: electric vehicles cost significantly more than gasoline-powered versions. A lot of low-end new cars can be found than gas-powered ones for $20-25,000, and some even for under $20,000. Opposite, cheapest electric car hardly less than $30,000 – and those with a terrible range of less than 150 miles. The cheapest Tesla car price recently surged to over $47,000.
It should come as no surprise, then, that electric cars mostly appeal to affluent consumers – and hardly appealing to ethnic minorities. In 2018, a market research firm called Hedges & Co. a demographic study of Tesla Owners. The median income of a Tesla owner is reported to be $143,177 for the Model X and $153,313 for the Model S. Regarding ethnicity:
Tesla owners’ ethnicity leans toward white, at 87%. Owners who identify with Hispanic ethnicity make up 8% of Tesla owners, leaving 5% for other ethnicities.
8% of owners are Hispanic which can seem decent until you realize that the majority of Tesla Owners are California, 39% Hispanic. 5% for “other ethnicities” including blacks and Asians, which for some reason did not separate. I bet the blacks’ numbers are so low, perhaps less than 1%, that they’re too embarrassed to report them.
Which brings us to the big Washington Post report just published on December 9: “Without charging stations, Black and Hispanic communities could be left behind in the era of electric vehicles.” (Ed Morrissey at Hot Air suggests that a more appropriate title would be “Come and see the systemic racism of trams.”). It seems that WaPo has made the shocking discovery that there are next to no electric vehicle charging stations in minority neighborhoods in major US cities:
See any map of charging stations in the US and in most major cities, it is immediately apparent that large gaps coincide with the Negro and Latino neighborhoods. Proponents of electric vehicles call them charging deserts. While electric vehicle use is growing rapidly in affluent, predominantly white communities, minority neighborhoods are being left behind.
Of course, there are very few charging stations in these neighborhoods, because blacks and Hispanics don’t buy electric cars. They don’t buy them because they’re too expensive. Internal combustion vehicles work well and they are a lot cheaper. This seems to me as if blacks and Hispanics are making a perfectly rational decision.
But those better than us in the Biden administration and Congress have a smarter idea: force lower-income members of minorities to buy much more expensive electric cars; or, if they can’t afford it, they’ll simply do without. Hey, that’s in their favor.
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