In the wake of California's bold plan to ban the sale of all gas-powered vehicles by the year 2035, what would that mean for the rest of the country? And what would it actually do to the state s economy? Plus, RFK Jr exposes himself as just another leftist, and Sacramento declares itself a sanctuary for child castrators. Finally, the media declares that anyone who asks any questions about the Baltimore bridge collapse is a conspiracy theorist.
00:05:24.540So on a supply side, we're challenged by these extremes.
00:05:29.660And on a demand side, not surprisingly, people are turning up the AC.
00:05:35.360So as of 2022, when that footage aired, more than one-third of California's energy came from renewable sources, including solar and wind power.
00:05:43.740Gavin Newsom has said he wants that number to be 100 percent by 2045.
00:05:48.120And as you saw, Gavin Newsom acknowledges that these renewables, quote-unquote, are one of the reasons that California's grid had just collapsed.
00:05:55.500But despite all that, he doesn't roll back the EV mandate.
00:05:59.340He doesn't change his plan for renewables in any way.
00:06:02.100In fact, just a couple of weeks after he declared a statewide emergency due to a lack of power caused by renewable energy,
00:06:08.360Newsom again reiterated his commitment to the EV mandate and to a renewable energy grid.
00:06:14.740It's because Gavin Newsom, well, he lacks any capacity for shame or self-doubt.
00:06:19.940And what you may not know, though, and what's truly hard to believe, is that California's bad ideas are no longer confined to California.
00:06:28.400Somehow, seven other states, as well as the District of Columbia, have signed on to California's plan to rid the world of gas-powered vehicles,
00:06:35.820which is known as the Advanced Clean Cars 2 Rule.
00:06:38.800The states that have signed on include Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington.
00:06:46.480Basically, all the states that you would expect to be first up to bat on this, anyway.
00:06:52.100And to be clear, when I say that they've adopted California's plan, I mean that they are explicitly adopting it by name.
00:06:57.560The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, for example, says that it's eager to adopt the, quote, California standard.
00:07:03.160Each of these seven states, like California, now plans to ban all sales of new gas-powered cars starting in 2035.
00:07:12.640And specifically, the rules say that only cars with zero emissions, including EVs and a small number of plug-in hybrids, can be sold.
00:07:21.020And by the way, there's a gradual ramp-up to the total ban.
00:07:23.660And California's rule requires a third of new car sales to be zero-emission vehicles by 2026, so just a couple years from now.
00:07:31.200And roughly 70% of new car sales to be zero emissions by 2030.
00:07:36.580Existing gas-powered vehicles aren't affected, meaning you can still have those.
00:07:40.840For now, for now, you can still have those if you've already bought them.
00:07:44.780Personally, I would expect that that's probably going to change.
00:07:46.640There are other states that have adopted rules to limit the number of gas-powered vehicles on the road, including New Mexico, Delaware, Colorado.
00:08:00.620But the state-by-state discussion is becoming moot because the Biden administration has just quietly issued its own rule that will essentially have the same effect as California's ban.
00:08:09.780The federal government is trying to phase out all gas-powered vehicles, and they're going to do it in the same undemocratic, ham-fisted way as all these states have done it.
00:08:19.700They're not going to pass a law or let voters decide the issue.
00:08:25.140Instead, the feds have issued new emissions standards, which function as a de facto ban on many of the gas cars that many of us are already driving.
00:08:34.940The Environmental Protection Agency is rolling out new pollution standards for passenger cars.
00:08:41.140The tailpipe emissions rules are aimed at fighting climate change and will apply to all new vehicles starting with model year 2027 through 2032.
00:08:49.940CBS News national correspondent Dave Malkoff has more from Smyrna, Georgia.
00:10:13.760The reporter assures us that this EPA rule isn't anything like an EV mandate because it doesn't strictly require that automakers only manufacture EVs.
00:10:50.520Two, incidentally, that happens to be the same line that the EPA administrator trotted out when he announced these new rules.
00:10:56.620He claimed that the agency is simply expanding, expanding consumer choice.
00:11:00.700By telling us things that we can't have and can't drive, they're actually expanding our options.
00:11:08.280It's addition by subtraction, apparently.
00:11:11.460Because, of course, in reality, rather than expanding our choices, they're doing the opposite.
00:11:15.040And that talking point completely obscures what's really happening.
00:11:18.180The Biden administration is using the EPA, using a bureaucracy, using unelected bureaucrats to effectively pass a law banning the sale of most gas cars without ever consulting the voters and without ever getting the legislative branch of the government involved at all.
00:11:33.320And they're supposed to be the ones who actually come up with the laws.
00:11:36.020Specifically, the EPA's new rule demands that car manufacturers slash emissions on all new passenger cars, SUVs, crossovers, minivans, light trucks, and pickups by roughly 50% by the year 2032.
00:11:49.540And by the EPA's own estimates, that means that up to 56% of new vehicles will have to be EVs, and at least 13% will need to be plug-in hybrids.
00:11:58.300That is a massive reduction on the number of gas-powered cars that will be allowed on the road.
00:12:02.980So, Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, assessed that under these rules, quote,
00:12:08.660Even if Toyota scrapped all its vehicles and just manufactured its best-in-class Prius, the company's fleet average tailpipe CO2 emissions rating would still be more than double the EPA's 2032 standards.
00:12:22.020Clearly, automakers cannot comply with the EPA's performance-based GHG program without rapidly phasing out internal combustion engine vehicle sales and rapidly ramping up electric vehicle sales.
00:12:32.520As CEI states, this is one of the most extreme rules that's ever been proposed by a federal agency, any federal agency.
00:12:41.640Similar regulations are already in the works for the trucking industry, which would, of course, destroy the nation's economy.
00:12:47.300California is, once again, the leader in those regulations, with some already in effect.
00:12:52.040But CBS News has no problem with any of this.
00:12:54.120They're happy to tell you that there will be less smog in the air.