Record inflation, a tsunami of violent crime, MILLIONS of unvetted illegals pouring over our long forgotten border, a doddering fool provoking nuclear war, but, hey…

https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1585332420978520065

Then, she got serious and talked about the fact that they mostly run on diesel fuel…

Kamala Harris: “95% of our school buses are fueled with diesel fuel, which contributes to very serious conditions that are about health and about the ability to learn.”

Kamala Harris: “95% of our school buses are fueled with diesel fuel, which contributes to very serious conditions that are about health and about the ability to learn.”

pic.twitter.com/UXrBioIcsK

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) October 26, 2022

Harris was discussing the latest wasteful move by the regime to funnel taxpayer money to those who back their green agenda. According to Washington Times:

The Biden administration on Wednesday identified school districts that will receive nearly $1 billion over the next year to purchase new zero-emission school buses and charging stations.

The money will go to nearly 400 school districts across 50 states, the District of Columbia and several Tribes and U.S. territories to purchase more than 2,400 clean buses, 95% of which will run on electricity. The others will operate on compressed natural gas or propane.

The funds are part of a five-year, $5 billion Clean School Bus Program created by last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law.

As Americans struggle to put food on the table and gas in their tanks, the regime is busy pushing their green agenda. This would be laughably ludicrous if it weren’t so devilishly despicable.

The same month, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. Despite its name, the bill is the most significant climate action bill in U.S. history and won’t help inflation, non-partisan third-party analysts say.

Biden’s war on fossil fuels and climate change appears to have escalated in the past few months, but it is only the fruition of a yearslong push by the government and a mammoth private-sector investment fund toward electric vehicles as part of a “net-zero” energy-sector agenda.

In his 2022 Letter to CEOs, BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink wrote in a letter to CEOs earlier this year that “capitalism has the power to shape society and act as a powerful catalyst for change,” but that companies need to work with the state to achieve the desired results.

“When we harness the power of both the public and private sectors, we can achieve truly incredible things. This is what we must do to get to net zero,” Fink said. The letter was only the latest advance in Fink’s yearslong campaign to combine corporate and state power to achieve his climate and political agenda.

BlackRock is advancing its corporate political agenda by accumulating money and exercising power over corporate boards. At the same time, the government is passing laws and regulations that help further BlackRock’s goals.

“In a few short years, we have all watched innovators reimagine the auto industry,” Fink wrote. “And today, every car manufacturer is racing toward an electric future.”

Net Zero Transition

Fink argues governments need to pass certain laws and regulations, and companies like BlackRock need to force change through environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG).

That’s especially true in the transition to “net zero,” which requires replacing internal combustion engine vehicles with electric cars, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The American public has shown little interest in the matter. In 2017, there were 280,000 electric vehicles sold in the United States, according to the IEA. For comparison, total car sales in 2017 were 17.25 million.

In January 2018, Fink sent a letter to the chief executives of the world’s largest public companies that, in essence, told them to commit to Blackrock’s political and climate agenda or risk losing the mammoth fund’s support. At the time of the letter, BlackRock was the world’s largest asset manager—a ranking it’d held since 2009—and, according to its 2018 Q4 report, had just under $6 trillion in assets under management (AUM).

In other words, BlackRock controlled $6 trillion in other people’s investing dollars and threatened to withhold, or withdraw, investments if companies didn’t bow to BlackRock’s demands of establishing specific environmental, social, and governance (ESG) guidelines.

In his 2020 letter, Fink took it a step further and said BlackRock would significantly reallocate its capital from “investments that present a high sustainability-related risk, such as thermal coal producers,” and screen against investing in other fossil fuels. He followed this with a warning to CEOs.

“Last year BlackRock voted against or withheld votes from 4,800 directors at 2,700 different companies. Where we feel companies and boards are not producing effective sustainability disclosures or implementing frameworks for managing these issues, we will hold board members accountable,” Fink wrote.

“[BlackRock] will be increasingly disposed to vote against management and board directors when companies are not making sufficient progress on sustainability-related disclosures and the business practices and plans underlying them.”

A major lever in Blackrock’s power arsenal comes from its control over corporate boards. Many corporations are set up so that a part of their board of directors is directly appointed by the top shareholders, who usually hold nowhere near the majority stake—their share could be as low as 5 percent or even less. In addition to the direct appointments, the top shareholders hold major sway over the vote on other board members.

According to Fink’s letter, the company exercised this corporate board power over 2,700 companies, all in pursuit of its political, social, and climate agenda.

Blackrock exercised its power further through strategic investments to advance specific policies and agendas.

Financing the Electric Vehicle Transition

BlackRock invested in all three of the world’s largest lithium mining companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and put a sizeable amount in Tesla.

Blackrock holds 8 percent of the shares of Albemarle, a U.S.-based mining firm valued at over $33 billion. Blackrock is the second top institutional holder of SQM and FMC, holding three and nine percent of the total stock, respectively.

Tesla is the most influential electric vehicle manufacturer on the planet, with a market cap of over $960 billion. BlackRock, once again flexing its institution might, is the second top institutional holder at Tesla, with around 5.3 percent of total shares.

Anything between five and 10 percent of direct or indirect holdings in a company is considered a “significant shareholding.” It gives the holder a fair amount of power when voting on how a company operates. Consequently, BlackRock has sway in some of the biggest mining companies and Tesla.

State and Corporate Guidance

Fink doesn’t believe companies can, or should, act alone in advancing social transformation.

In May 2021, IEA released the “world’s first comprehensive energy roadmap” that included the requirement that there are no new sales of internal combustion passenger cars by 2035.

The IEA said it intended its roadmap to inform high-level negotiations at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in November 2021.

At COP26, 153 countries committed to new 2030 net-zero commitments, and “developed countries” committed to delivering a $100 billion climate finance goal by 2035.

COP26 reported that “Private financial institutions and central banks are moving to realign trillions towards global net-zero” because of the new rules, regulations, and climate goals. Months earlier, at BlackRock’s 2021 Future Forum, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry alluded to the need for rules, regulations, and goals.

“Government is going to have to step in and … provide the guideposts and the rules of the road in order to excite that capital and obviously to give that capital the security, the sense of confidence it needs to have in order to make the longer-term investments,” Kerry stated.

At the forum, Kerry also pointed to BlackRock’s leadership in pushing the private sector to meet “climate goals.”

“There is a massive movement in the private sector which we’ve been working with very closely. BlackRock has been a leader in that effort and other American banks, the six largest American banks have been key to putting about $4.16 trillion on the table to help affect and speed up, accelerate this transition.”

As part of BlackRock’s leadership in the “energy transition,” it launched the Future of Transport Fund in September 2018.

BlackRock also launched the Global Renewable Power fund, which invests in infrastructure—something that’s needed to power the electric vehicle transition. BlackRock said it sees a $5 trillion infrastructure growth opportunity over the next 15 years.

These funds are ways to bridge the gap “between where that investment needs to occur … and where the capital currently resides,” BlackRock stated in its Future Forum.

BlackRock launched the Future of Transport fund after Fink sent his 2018 letter to CEOs demanding their companies commit themselves to improving the community and environment. The fund’s most significant jump happened in 2020, the same year Fink wrote to CEOs, stating that a “fundamental reshaping of finance” was underway.

The Temporary Trump Wrench

When Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, he threw a monkey wrench in the United States’ steady push towards “tackling climate change,” energy scientists bemoaned. And as he implemented an “American First Energy Plan,” energy independence and the stock market soared, while gas prices plummeted. As a result, interest in electric vehicles was marginal.

But when Biden defeated Trump in 2020, BlackRock released a statement saying the win allowed the markets to “return” to where they were before Trump’s victory.

“We see an increased focus on sustainability under a divided government, but through regulatory actions, rather than via tax policy or spending on green infrastructure,” BlackRock stated.

The words “regulatory actions” proved prophetic. Since taking office in 2021, Biden signed several executive orders related to climate regulations and gave the Environment Protection Agency teeth by passing the Inflation Reduction Act.

Meanwhile, Biden’s revocation of the Keystone XL pipeline permit and other anti-fossil-fuel actions have led to skyrocketing gas prices. California joined the movement on the state level with the 2035 ban on the sale of new gas-powered vehicles.

Consumer interest in electric vehicles has increased since 2018, with 36 percent of Americans saying they plan to buy or lease an electric car, Consumer Reports recently found.

BlackRock Signals the Market

BlackRock has positions in 5,832 companies, according to its filings. And in 2021, it had “the strongest organic growth in our history,” generating $540 billion in net inflows (extra cash flowing into a company).

Also, in March 2021, BlackRock joined the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative as a signatory, committing itself to net zero alignments by 2050 or sooner.

As part of the move earlier this year, BlackRock announced that “an orderly transition to net zero by 2050 would benefit the global economy and our clients in aggregate.” Thus, “by 2030, at least 75 percent of BlackRock corporate and sovereign assets managed on behalf of clients will be invested in issuers with science-based targets or equivalent.”

In response to BlackRock’s move, Mindy Lubber, CEO and president at Ceres, said in a statement, “When the largest asset manager in the world ups its goal from 25 percent of such assets invested in science-based-target issuers to 75 percent of those assets, others should take note.

Lubber added that BlackRock’s new bar signaled to the rest of the market that “they need to adjust their investment strategies accordingly” because “the investor transition to a net zero emissions economy is well underway.”

BlackRock stated in its June 2022 Investment Institute report, the “transition towards a decarbonized economy is underway” and involves “a massive reallocation of resources.”

“Nearly 90 percent of the world economy now has net-zero commitments, while about half of major companies and financial institutions do,” the report said.

The corporate-government push to transition to net zero and electric vehicles is happening, and if companies get in BlackRock’s way, they risk financial loss. BlackRock did not return a request for comment.

Image by Blomst from Pixabay. Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.

The Sierra Club and numerous other “environmental” groups are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prohibit natural gas use at home, calling it “deadly pollution” that must be eradicated in order to save the planet from overheating.

Not only are gas stoves on the chopping block but so are gas furnaces and gas fireplaces, which the Sierra Club et al. want to force people to replace with expensive electric or solar alternatives. (Related: Are these same crazy environmentalists responsible for destroying natural gas production and transport facilities across the United States?)

Homeowners could, if the effort is a success, be forced to replace all of their existing gas-powered appliances. At least one state lawmaker, Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg (R-Colo.), has called the proposition “out of control,” which it most certainly is.

“The petition, sponsored by the Sierra Club, claims fossil fuel-fired home furnaces, water heaters, clothes dryers and stoves emit enough nitrogen dioxide (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO2) that they must be classified as ‘new stationary sources’ of air pollutants, placing them in the same regulatory regime as power plants and factories,” reported the Denver Gazette.

61% of American electricity comes from fossil fuels – so how is it “green?”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) also slammed the “unelected bureaucrats” that are pushing for this transition, explaining that they “do not have the power to unilaterally decide major questions” like this.

“We are facing the worst energy crisis since Jimmy Carter, yet these inflation-loving leftists are more worried about how to take away Americans’ reliable heating than they are about creating viable solutions,” Boebert went on to say in a statement.

The Left’s obsession with electric-powered everything is laughable, considering that electricity production often requires heavy fossil fuel usage. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), around 61 percent of American energy comes from fossil fuels, whether it be coal, natural gas, petroleum or other gases.

Another 19 percent comes from nuclear energy, which is “clean” until there is a meltdown or other catastrophe. This leaves just 20 percent of the grid as “renewable,” which can hardly be considered green.

Natural gas, meanwhile, is plentiful, easy to obtain, and clean as a whistle, which makes the greenies’ crusade against it irrational and just plain ridiculous.

“The Sierra Club is always looking for ways to ban natural gas, but Americans like natural gas because it’s safe, affordable, and convenient,” said Colorado Oil and Gas Association President and CEO Dan Haley.

“Consumers will not take lightly the Sierra Club taking away their gas fireplaces, stoves, and barbecue grills. This petition is going nowhere.”

Sonnenberg added in his own statement that both state and federal regulators, at the goading of the Sierra Club and others, are “creating uncertainty by trying to move everyone to use anything electric, which we don’t have enough electricity to power.”

“Nobody wants that except for the regulators who refuse to see the harm they are doing,” he added. “The power that these agencies want to exert over families trying to make ends meet with the high inflation is ridiculous. I trust the people to make the decisions that best fit their budget and needs, rather than government telling them they know what is best for these families. Eliminating consumer choices to one option is never a good policy.”

The latest news about the “green-ification” of America – meaning no more cheap and abundant energy for prosperity – can be found at GreenTyranny.news.

Sources for this article include:

• WND.com
• NaturalNews.com
• EIA.gov
• NATURAL NEWS

As we reported, the European Union (EU) is slated to bring oil and gas production into the green energy fold – something that even just a year ago would have been unheard of.

Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin’s decision to stop the deep state from using Ukraine as a proxy nation to commit atrocities led to sanctions, which led to energy shortages, which led Western Europe to realize that if it does not revert back to fossil fuel use, it will be lights out very soon.

Even the corporate-controlled media, which has long praised green energy, is now admitting that we had better get those oil pumps and drilling operations going or else we can all expect a third-world style collapse come winter.

“… an energy-starved world is turning to coal as natural-gas and oil shortages exacerbated by Russia’s war against Ukraine lead countries back to the dirtiest fossil fuel,” the Journal reported.

Going “green” means destroying your economy and going into POVERTY

It turns out that fossil fuels do not have to be the “dirty” sources of energy that the greenies have long claimed they are. There are clean, safe and efficient ways to pull up fossil fuels from the earth and use them to power businesses, homes, vehicles and so much more without destroying the planet.

The EU plans to keep policies in place to ensure that fossil fuels are generated cleanly and responsibly, but no longer will they be on the chopping block for a full phase-out and ban like before.

Even “clean coal” is making a comeback as it is needed along with the others to keep heaters going, plants growing and the world economy flowing. Wind, solar and wishful thinking are simply not enough to keep the lights on.

“… from the U.S. to Europe to China, many of the world’s largest economies are increasing short-term coal purchases to ensure sufficient supplies of electricity, despite prior pledges by many countries to reduce their coal consumption to combat climate change,” another report explains.

There is actually now so much demand for coal that prices in the global market are spiking dramatically – or at least this is the reason we are being told for the massive jump on the charts that has been seen ever since early 2021.

Benchmark prices for coal reached new records this year, one example being spot coal prices at Australia’s Newcastle port, a key supplier to Asia. There, oil topped $400 a ton for the first time ever last month.

“Hilariously, the push for coal is being led by Europe, ground zero of the ‘green movement’ which finally realized that one can’t burn fake virtue or melt posing in front of camera in the winter to keep warm, and is boosting coal purchases to ensure it can keep power flowing to homes and factories after Russia cut gas supplies to the continent,” reported Zero Hedge.

“Germany, which not long ago promised to eliminate coal as a power source by 2030, is among the nations now importing more.”

Instead of phasing out coal completely by 2030, Germany could be more reliant on it than ever before by that time. The same goes for its nuclear power plants, which were slated to shut down but will now be resurrected and put back to use in order to avoid a total economic collapse.

More of the latest news about the “green” scam can be found at GreenTyranny.news.

Sources for this article include:

• ZeroHedge.com
• NaturalNews.com
• NATURAL NEWS

On July 4, Power the Future founder and executive director Daniel Turner told Fox News that a “huge energy shortage” is underway and that there is no place “that is truly safe.”

As fossil fuel plants get replaced with solar and wind farms, energy reliability declines. And that is the direction in which the United States has been going in recent years. (Related: The Wall Street Journal is also warning about nationwide blackouts.)

“The areas of the country I’d be most concerned about are the ones that already have inherent weaknesses,” Turner added.

“Texas, California, New Mexico, New York, all of New England. These are areas whose policies and political decisions have weakened their electric grid.”

Every place in the world where so-called “green” energy is replacing reliable fossil fuel energy has seen its electric grid weaken. Now, the entire country is at risk of an energy collapse because of the transition.

Are you ready for a dark winter?

While many Americans are used to hearing about periodic blackouts in places like California, they are not so aware of the fact that the Midwest, for instance, is now in similarly dire straits.

Rolling blackouts and brownouts are expected this summer in places like Illinois and Missouri – places where a decade ago you never would have thought would have an energy crisis.

“A recent generation capacity auction has revealed that the Midwest could fall short of needed generation capacity to serve the summer peak load under certain conditions,” announced the Southeastern Illinois Electric Cooperative in a recent letter.

“In the event that this happens, your Cooperative would be directed to disconnect a portion of the load in order to prevent an electric grid failure.”

Several electric carriers in Michigan sent out similar letters to their customers warning that they “need your help to keep the lights on in Michigan this summer and beyond,” to quote Thumb Electric Cooperative General Manager Dallas Braun.

“Electric reliability is at risk today and demand is projected to grow. As soon as this WEEK Michigan regulators are considering closing down more power plants in Michigan. Please join ME in telling them that reliability matters and that they shouldn’t prematurely close these plants.”

Michigan is expected to face power shortages this year as capacity shortfalls in both the north and central regions of the country, resulting in an increased risk of “temporary, controlled outages to preserve the integrity of the bulk electric system,” says JT Smith, executive director of the state’s Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO).

MISO, which operates the power grid for about 42 million people in 15 central states, says it has never had to implement controlled power outages in Michigan. What is happening, in other words, is unprecedented in our nation’s history.

“Michigan is going down the same route that before it New Mexico has gone, California has gone,” Turner added during the Fox segment.

In the comment section, someone noted that once the power goes out, everyone who relies on electric cars and electric bicycles (e-bikes) to get around will no longer have transportation available to them – unless they have solar panels and it happens to be a sunny day.

“Just wait until they mandate that we all drive electric cars,” interjected another about the Orwellian future of electric vehicles.

“The problem is that this is exactly what they want. It is not about green energy or the environment, it is about having total control over us!”

The latest energy news can be found at PowerGrid.news.

Sources for this article include:

• TheEpochTimes.com
• NaturalNews.com
• NATURAL NEWS

During the last two years, the federal agency has provided $1,369,000 to fund some 40 climate-focused projects. The 29 such grants approved for fiscal year 2022 include support for multidisciplinary artist Hajra Waheed’s collaboration “with researchers and organizers on issues such as land sovereignty and food and climate justice”; development of a Baltimore Center Stage production titled, “A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction”; and a grant to the Dance Exchange in Takoma Park, Maryland, to use “movement and storytelling to explore the ways different landscapes and communities are navigating climate change.”

Never mind the prospect of reins on executive climate action in light of the Supreme Court’s stinging regulatory rebuke last week: These art projects are one small piece of an explosion of climate spending since President Biden called during his first days in office for a “whole-of-government approach to combating the climate crisis.” In response, every department, bureau, and agency has climate-related budget lines, responding to Biden’s mandate by claiming a slice of the climate pie.

Where the Trump administration’s 150-page budget overview for the fiscal year 2020 mentioned the word climate just once (and that was a reference to “school climate” – that is, educational environment), the current White House 2023 budget overview mentions the word “climate” 187 times and the phrase “climate crisis” 33 times in its 158 pages.

The administration’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2023 calls for “a total of $44.9 billion to tackle the climate crisis,” $16.7 billion more than climate spending in 2021, according to the president’s budget.

“Climate change is not only a real and growing threat,” Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan said, “but it also presents an economic opportunity.” These include:

• The Department of Health and Human Services plans to boost spending on the CDC’s Climate and Health Program from $10 million to $110 million, to “identify potential health effects associated with climate change and implement health adaptation plans.”
• The National Institutes of Health are ramping up research on “climate change impact on health,” with grants for projects “that address the impact of climate change on health” and technologies for measuring “the effects of climate change and extreme weather events on human health.”
• Even as it struggles with the growing crisis on the southern border, the Department of Homeland Security in its 2023 fiscal year budget asks for $55 million to battle climate change. Of that, $2 million will be spent “to stand up a Climate Change Program Management Office,” and $4 million will go to the bureaucratic activities of “tracking, monitoring, and auditing … environmental planning compliance actions.” DHS is also committed to electrifying half its fleet of motor vehicles by the end of the decade.
• The State Department is seeking $2.3 billion for a broad range of climate-related expenditures including $2 million on “support for post-led climate diplomacy”; $7 million for “global climate diplomacy”; $2.6 million for the “Climate Change Public Diplomacy Fund”; $7.9 million for the “Center of Climate and Sustainability”; $17 million for “Overseas Climate Resilience, Building Energy, and Sustainability Projects”; and over $16 million to support the “Special Presidential Envoy for Climate” — aka John Kerry currently.  State is also seeking $5 million to buy or lease electric vehicles for the department.

Linda J. Bilmes, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government who studies the federal budget, says that the Biden administration is “trying to send a message that in everything we do, we should be attentive to the issue.” Part of “the problem of dealing with an issue so big,” Bilmes added, “is that responsibility is so fragmented.”

Increased funding to protect coastlines, inspect wind turbines and solar farms, and promote the use of carbon-free energy sources directly align with Biden’s call to address what he calls the “existential threat” of climate change. But there are other organizing principles – reflecting progressive concerns – that inform the budget requests. Chief among these is Biden’s belief that climate should be addressed across the government as an issue of “environmental justice.” The NIH supports that agenda, stating that “Research has shown the impact of climate change differs across populations depending on socioeconomic advantages.”

The Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to spend over $1 billion in “climate resilience and energy efficiency improvements.” For example, HUD promises to advance “climate resilience and environmental justice by redeveloping and replacing distressed public and multifamily housing and neighborhood amenities with resilient and energy-efficient structures.” It might be pointed out, however, that one of HUD’s main responsibilities is to redevelop distressed public housing. Is HUD’s commitment to confronting the threat of climate change a new imperative, or just a new way to justify the department and its activities?

The Environmental Protection Agency is also pursuing environmental justice. Under EPA’s new strategic plan, the top goal is to “Tackle the Climate Crisis.” Following a close second is Goal 2, which commits the EPA to “Take Decisive Action to Advance Environmental Justice and Civil Rights.” In practice that means embedding environmental justice into all of the agency’s “Programs Policies and Activities.”

It isn’t clear, however, whether the EPA will be able to re-invent itself as a ministry of environmental justice, given the Supreme Court’s consequential decision Thursday limiting what powers the agency can exercise without explicit authorization by Congress.

The Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, with its requirements that regulators stick to their lanes, may also put the brakes on President Biden’s efforts to turn every department and agency into climate police.

At least for now, the Department of Justice is committed to “environmental justice” too. Don’t confuse the new effort with the old. The Environment and Natural Resources Division at DOJ, has been enforcing federal environmental laws for more than a century. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced in May a new DOJ Office of Environmental Justice. “Although violations of our environmental laws can happen anywhere, communities of color, indigenous communities, and low-income communities often bear the brunt of the harm caused by environmental crime, pollution, and climate change,” he said.

The Army Corps of Engineers is tasked with advancing environment justice, as is the Department of Energy. DOE recently awarded $3.6 million in cash prizes to fund “Climate solutions for underrepresented communities.” Climate change isn’t just a crisis, it is a crisis that demands redistribution, which in turn calls for greater intervention by the federal government. The prizes involved various offices and entities within Energy – the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, and the Office of Technology Transitions.

In response to the president’s call for “climate adaptation plans” across the government, the Department of Education came up with a “Green Ribbon Schools” award for institutions that “teach effective environmental and sustainability education.” This year’s Green Ribbon School winners were announced in April. One awardee was Escuela Verde in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a public charter school devoted to “ecopedagogy.” The Department of Education celebrates the “school’s emphasis on food and food justice” which “has led to an entirely vegetarian school lunch.”

“I’ve seen this before,” says Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute. “When an issue gets hot, every federal agency knows they can maximize their budget by tailoring their programs and messaging around the hot theme.”

Among the topics that have been used to justify spending are everything from rural broadband to gender and structural racism. “Even the Department of Transportation is receiving money to deal with past racial discrimination related to the Interstate Highway System.”

The sweeping agenda has also inspired projects that tap into New Deal nostalgia. With overtones of the Great Depression program to put young, unemployed men to work on public lands – the Civilian Conservation Corps – the Department of the Interior proposes to launch a new Civilian Climate Corps. And Interior is hardly the only department getting into that action: The Department of Labor proposes spending $10 million “to partner with AmeriCorps and other agencies to establish a Civilian Climate Corps.” Among those agencies is the department’s Employment and Training Administration.

Kate DeAngelis, international finance program manager for Friends of the Earth, says she is pleased with the Biden administration’s whole-of-government approach. She’d actually like to see even more of it. “Unfortunately,” she says, “not every agency is doing its fair share to combat climate change.” DeAngelis’ complaint is that agencies such as the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the U.S. International Development Corporation continue to support fossil fuel projects around the world, “despite the devastating impacts it will have on the climate.”

Still, some agencies appear to be hard-pressed to find a slice of the climate pie they can call their own.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is promoting new building codes, calling for research on “the impacts of climate change” to shape those codes. (One easy approach might simply be for state and local governments to deny permits for oceanside high-rises built on sand.) FEMA shows how departments and agencies have been using the specter of a climate crisis to build political support for government actions. One of FEMA’s main goals is to “Drive public action on building codes,” an effort spurred by using “climate science messaging to increase public demand for building codes and standards.”

Agencies few Americans have ever heard of are trying to get in on the action. Among the environmental initiatives being promoted at the Department of the Treasury are those found at the office of the Inspector General for Tax Administration, or TIGTA. With a proposed budget for the 2023 fiscal year of $182 million, TIGTA has many responsibilities. It is tasked with protecting taxpayer information, improving tax compliance, and overseeing Internal Revenue Service “efforts to implement tax law changes.” The tax IG investigates scams targeting the elderly; prosecutes cyber criminals who attack IRS web sites; and improves “the integrity of IRS operations by detecting and deterring waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct.”

Treasury promises that in its audits and investigations TIGTA will support the department’s strategic goals. Among them, “Combat Climate Change.” But how? TIGTA points to its fleet of 200 vehicles and promises to replace them with electric vehicles.

But that may be easier said than done. Plans to replace government cars and trucks with electrics, whether at TIGTA, Homeland Security, or the State Department, “are not to be taken seriously,” says Benjamin Zycher, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Eliminate every vehicle used by the federal government and the effect on the climate – even under the worst-case scenario calculations – would be vanishingly small. Even if one were to eliminate the auto emissions of the entire federal government, the change in expected global temperatures would be “essentially zero.”

Professor Bilmes says that energy efficiencies are important across the federal government, and particularly at the Department of Defense, given that DOD “is the world’s single largest purchaser of fuel and vehicles.”

“We spend so much money on government,” says Bilmes, “that government should be in the vanguard of being energy efficient.”

Image by COP26 via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Article cross-posted from Real Clear Investigations.