Lamont – Hartford Business Journal |
The Western Journal, little read by
Connecticut’s top-heavy, neo-progressive political establishment, notes, “When
even Ned Lamont believes phasing out internal combustion cars by 2035 is a lost
cause, you'd better believe it's a lost cause.”
Following deep blue California’s lead, Lamont had vowed to
end the sale of gas powered vehicles in Connecticut by 2035.
An avalanche of objections, some coming from minority
Republicans, buried the proposal, and on January 6 Lamont wisely retreated. Few
people in Connecticut wish to follow California down a rabbit hole, destination
unknown.
"On Monday afternoon,” the publication noted, the
state’s Legislative Regulation Review Committee, equitably divided between
Democrats and Republicans nixed the proposal.
“The move was celebrated as a victory for ‘common sense’ by
legislative Republicans.
“Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly said that Lamont's
‘decision to withdraw the regulations is a reasoned approach to address the
growing concerns raised by working and middle class families.
"’Common sense has prevailed,’ he said. ‘Adopting California
emission standards which ban the sale of gas-powered cars is a substantial
policy shift which must be decided by the General Assembly.’”
Later in the week, House Speaker Matt Ritter stepped forward
in a brave attempt to pull a string of lost pearls from the rubble.
Ritter, the Hartford Courant noted, “compared
the situation to NASA.”
It now appears that Lamont’s date certain was always an
aspirational goal, not at all abandoned by majority Democrats, whose election
successes have in the past been advanced by deep pocked environmental groups.
“Why do I talk about NASA,” Ritter asked at a news
conference. “They [NASA] set goals. They set goals for when they want [sic] to
land on Mars. There’s a reason that you do that. If you don’t have a goal, and
you don’t have a target – especially when you’re dealing with government – it
doesn’t happen. You need to have plans to get where you want to get 11 years
out, or whatever it may be.”
Lamont has not given up on his plan to phase out purchases
of gas powered vehicles in the near future, but his plan, such as it is, has
now been referred to a congressional committee, the usual burying ground for
plans gone awry.
The state of Connecticut, Republicans feel, should not
become a ward of China’s increasingly fascist state. China produces most of the
elements necessary in the production of wind turbines and electric car
batteries. Then too, Connecticut, California and others sleeping the sleep of
the just in an increasingly crowded rabbit hole, are not ready for such
cultural and economic rapid change.
To put the matter briefly, NASA’s goals are far more
rational and realizable than Ritter’s. That is because the people who work for
NASA are not romantic idealists, like Ritter, Lamont, environmental extremists,
and Don Quixote, who spent too much of his time unprofitably tilting at
windmills, thinking them redoubtable opponents in a 12th century chivalric
medieval tournament of heroes.
Connecticut Democrats have seized on the issue of
eliminating gas powered vehicles throughout the United States as an omnium-gatherum mechanism that will
ferry votes, public support and money to Democrats in the upcoming 2024 elections.
Showing that chivalry in the 21st century is not
entirely dead, Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly generously allowed that
Lamont's "decision to withdraw the regulations is a reasoned approach to
address the growing concerns raised by working and middle class families.
Common sense has prevailed. Adopting California emission standards which ban
the sale of gas-powered cars is a substantial policy shift which must be
decided by the General Assembly. There are too many questions regarding the capacity
of our electric grid, the cost and location of grid improvements, and the
negative impact on urban, rural and working poor families.”
Bad ideas don’t become better when they are laundered by
legislative committees.
A genuine future solution to environmental degradation
likely will come from the usual quarters, advancing technology – the production
of hydrogen cars, for instance – and technological advances in nuclear power,
such as the tokamak JT-60SA.
The World's largest nuclear fusion reactor, the tokamak
JT-60SA, we are told by The Register, is due to come online
by 2025:
“The extremely high
temperatures inside the tokamak JT-60SA, could eventually be enough to force
the hydrogen particles to overcome their natural electromagnetic resistance,
and fuse together to create helium – releasing energy in the form of light and
heat. It's a process that mimics the inner workings of the Sun.
“Many – from
scientists to climate change activists to energy industry professionals – have
pinned hopes on using this process to fuel the world, as it is hoped to
generate more energy than goes into producing it. Unlike nuclear fission, which
splits atoms rather than fusing them, and produces dangerous waste products,
fusion is considered clean.
"The Generation
of fusion energy does not produce carbon dioxide – making it an important
technology in the path to net zero emissions. The fusion reaction is
intrinsically safe: it stops when the fuel supply or power source is shut down.
It generates no high-level long-lived radioactive waste,’ explained the
European Commission's Directorate-General for Energy.”
If all this sounds too Quixotic for Ritter, perhaps he
should convene another committee to examine alternative approaches to the
nation’s environmental problems before Connecticut commits to problem solving
measures that, some scientist argue, solve only political problems.
The good news is that Lamont, by revoking his pledge, has
shown that he has a nodding acquaintance with popular opinion and
representative democracy.
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