Freedom

By Addison Smith

President Joe Biden announced plans on Wednesday to require that two-thirds of all U.S. car sales by 2032 be electric vehicles and impose the “strongest-ever” emissions restrictions on gas cars. Like much of the Biden green agenda, the proposals stand to raise costs for everyday Americans while swelling profits for Democrat megadonors.

A recent CNBC survey found that 58% of Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck, and 70% feel financially burdened due to inflation, rising interest rates and more. At the same time, the average cost for an EV as of February was around $58,385, according to CarEdge. 

Cars are already more expensive than ever. Average monthly payments for new vehicles hit a record high of $730 in the first quarter of 2023, a more than 11% increase year-over-year. As more Americans are pressured into buying EVs, increased demand will only drive those prices higher, prompting responses from Republican lawmakers on behalf of consumers.

“Electrification” is the “road to higher prices” for everybody, said Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso, ranking member on the Senate Energy Committee in response to the 1,475 pages of new rules unveiled Wednesday by the EPA. 

Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) also weighed in, noting the average cost of an EV was “more than the household income of 46% of American families.”

Citing “massive price increases,” Power the Future spokesman Larry Behrens told Just The News, “Families are hurting as they struggle to make ends meet” at the same time Biden “takes fossil fueled transportation to yet another vacation.”

He added: “We’ve witnessed the highest gas prices ever, the worst inflation since Jimmy Carter and it’s all due to Joe Biden’s war on American energy.” 

It isn’t only car and gas prices that are soaring.

Americans have seen their utility bills rise sharply amid Biden’s assault on the carbon-based energy economy. A March survey from GOBankingRates found that three-quarters of Americans claim their utility bills have increased by a minimum of 25% within the last year alone. Of the respondents, 22% said they’d seen a 50% increase in their bill, while 10% said their utilities bills have more than doubled over the previous year.

Connecticut has seen a near doubling in electricity costs, according to EverSource, which reports that the price of kilowatts per hour in the state has jumped from 12 cents to 23 cents within the last six months. 

Behrens warned that “continu[ing] down this road” will result in “less energy that is more expensive and an America that is less secure and weaker in the world.”

Manhattan Institute energy expert Mark Mills expressed similar price concerns in an interview on the John Solomon Reports podcast, lamenting that Biden has “made good on his promise” to transform the energy industry in America, much to the disadvantage of “the average person.”

“The problem,” Mills said, is “the average person will pay more. Not just for electric cars if that’s what they’re required to buy; they’ll pay more for used cars … they’ll pay more for gasoline to drive it because of the hostility towards drilling, they’ll pay more for electricity … all the trajectories push this towards higher costs for everybody,” which “the wealthy can afford” but “the average person cannot.” 

As middle class consumers struggle under the weight of exploding costs, wealthy green energy investors allied with the Democrats will reap an economic windfall thanks to Biden’s market interventions on their behalf.

“To say [the federal government] is putting its thumb on the scales is an understatement,” said Mills. “It’s putting the whole weight of the body of government on the scale.”

A February investigation by the Washington Free Beacon found that Biden has awarded billions to green energy companies that billionaire Democrat donors Bill Gates and Laurene Powell Jobs have a stake in.

Gates and Jobs are both seed funders for electric battery companies Ioneer and Redwood Materials. Over the past few months, Biden has channeled nearly $3 billion in loans to those two companies alone. While the results haven’t fully played out yet, Ioneer has seen its stock price rise by as much as 33%. 

During the 2020 election cycle, Gates’ foundation gave approximately $70 million to a “payroll reporting agent” for dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund, which in turn gave tens of millions of dollars to left-wing Super PACs, including some who backed Biden, according to investigative news outlet Sludge. Jobs, long a major Democratc donor, gave more than $2 million to Jon Ossoff, Angie Craig and several other left–wing campaigns and PACs in 2020, according to FEC records. 

Gates also launched Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), a company dedicated to reaching net-zero emissions. Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Jack Ma, Richard Branson and more are all cofounders of the energy mammoth, according to CNBC. By 2019, BEV investors had already raised $1 billion and touted over a dozen energy companies in their investment portfolio. 

The list of billionaires having skin in the renewables game is long. Billionaire John Arnold has “ultimate voting or investment control” over Centaurus Capital LP, an investment fund with a “specific focus” on the renewable energy industry, according to the Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation. Centaurus Capital LP reportedly owns more than 131 million shares of Ioneer, the same green lithium-boron supplier Gates is tied up with and which Biden generously helped fund. 

Arnold has bankrolled a wide array of left-wing causes, from ranked-choice voting to litigation against Republicans. Through their foundation, he and his wife have given to both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, a leading Democratic PAC and more.