A Peek Inside 'Build Back Better' - Part 2 of 5
The Murder of Fossil Fuels and the Rise of Electric-Everything
In this episode of “What’s in the Build Back Better Act — Part 2,” we continue our dive into the massive 2,468 page bill. As of today, the bill is still under review in the Senate. The entire House bill, also know as H.R. 5376, can be read in full here.
See here for Part 1 of the review where we looked into Titles I and II. Now we’ll look into Title III. Here we go.
TITLE III—COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
Among general anti-pollution language, this Title seems to be an attempted murder of the fossil fuel industry by trying to turn the world electric. You see, kids, carbon dioxide is bad. But lithium? Well, lithium is good.
Subtitle A—Air Pollution
Under SEC. 30101 CLEAN HEAVY-DUTY VEHICLES, we see that $5 billion is appropriated to contractors for—
(1) replacing eligible [Class 6 or Class 7 heavy-duty] vehicles with zero-emission vehicles; (2) infrastructure needed to charge, fuel, or maintain zero-emission vehicles; (3) workforce development and training to support the maintenance, charging, fueling, and operation of zero-emission vehicles; and (4) planning and technical activities to support the adoption and deployment of zero-emission vehicles.
Within SEC. 30103 GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTION FUND, we see the following amounts of cash raining down “in addition to amounts otherwise available,”
$7.5 billion allotted for grants to deploy zero-emissions technology to low-income and disadvantaged communities (e.g., solar panels on public housing).
$20 billion to make grants for any project that claims to “reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions.”
Well, that’s highly specific (sarcasm, or course).
In SEC. 30108 LOW EMISSIONS ELECTRICITY PROGRAM, $100 million is allotted to “educate” the American people on how using electricity is bad and provide “assistance” to reducing your carbon footprint.
And under SEC. 136 METHANE FEE FROM PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS SYSTEMS, a new fee is made up.
The Administrator shall impose and collect a fee from the owner or operator of each applicable facility that is required to report methane emissions …
An “applicable facility” is essentially any business dealing with oil or natural gas (i.e., production, transmission, storage, import/export).
Don’t be surprised when the day comes that they also tax you on your farts?
Subtitle B—Hazardous Materials
This subtitle appropriates a total of ~$16 billion to reduce pollution. Some of the programs are vague in their objectives, perhaps on purpose.
SEC. 30202 FUNDING TO ADDRESS TOXICS IN SCHOOLS implies that government schools are apparently full of toxins.
In SEC. 30203 GRANTS TO REDUCE WASTE IN COMMUNITIES, they want to make it more expensive for you to throw stuff away by—
increasing fees imposed on the disposal of waste, including organic waste, at landfills.
Is it just me or does that sound completely insane? They are presumably trying to encourage dumping your waste into the recycling bin instead of the trash bin. You see, folks, trash at the recycling landfill makes people feel better than trash at the regular landfill, even though reality is quite different.
Then we get to SEC. 30204 ENVIRONMENTAL AND CLIMATE JUSTICE BLOCK GRANTS. Well this one sounds fun, huh? Interestingly enough, the funds under this program can be used for ANY “activity the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency determines appropriate.” Wow, that’s a red flag, don’t ya think?!
Subtitle C—Drinking Water
Most of this subtitle is about addressing lead in the water supply. For example, you will come across SEC. 30305 GRANTS TO REDUCE LEAD IN SCHOOL DRINKING WATER.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? This implies government schools have been allowing lead in the drinking water to date. Think about that.
Subtitle D—Energy
This subtitle on energy is relatively massive. It’s 130 pages broken up into four parts. I’ll try to provide a high-level summary of each part with some key findings.
PART 1—CLEAN ELECTRICITY PERFORMANCE PROGRAM
This part essentially rewards electricity providers with subsidies for providing inefficient electricity to the people:
… the Secretary [of Energy] shall issue to an eligible electricity supplier a grant under this section for a performance year in an amount equal to $150 for each megawatt-hour of qualified clean electricity …
PART 2—RESIDENTIAL EFFICIENCY AND ELECTRIFICATION REBATES
~$13 billion in rebates is made available to homeowners and others for “energy-saving retrofits.” The way it works: the government takes your money to pay for these rebates, then gives you some of your money back in the form of these rebates. But, you only get a rebate if you elect to invest in equipment that may save you money on electricity usage. Seems a bit silly that there is a middle-man needed here to “save” you money, but that’s just me.
PART 3—BUILDING EFFICIENCY AND RESILIENCE
As evident by the title, this Part appropriates money to States for use in improving “efficiency” and “resilience” of public buildings, including some medical facilities. Some of the eligible projects are quite vague and likely will result in waste simply due to lack of definition. For example, an eligible project is one that
increases— (i) the resiliency of an eligible facility, which includes— making improvements to public health and safety; … improving indoor air quality; … making any modifications necessitated by the COVID–19 pandemic; … energy efficiency; … the use of renewable energy; …
PART 4—ZERO EMISSIONS VEHICLE INFRASTRUCTURE BUILDOUT
This Part continues the murder of the traditional fossil fuel vehicle industry by providing ~$13.5 billion to develop the infrastructure required to charge electric vehicles.
PART 5—DOE LOAN AND GRANT PROGRAMS
~$30 billion will be available for the Secretary of Energy to guarantee loans for various other “zero-emission” energy projects, such as manufacturing of electric vehicles, trains, maritime vessels, aircraft, and Hyperloop technology. Elon Musk is seeing dollar signs in his eyes.
PART 6—ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION
As with Parts 4 and 5, this section is more subsidization of the electric vehicle industry, particularly for transmission infrastructure, such as prepping the electric grids to handle the surge. Does no one wonder how electricity is made for the most part? It ain’t all wind, sun, and rainbows.
Instead of letting the electric car industry compete in the market, they will kill the gasoline/diesel vehicle industry through legislation and give rise to the electric revolution through hand-outs. In this environment, you will get lower quality electric performance and electric infrastructure because there will be less incentive to compete.
PART 7—ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEWS
~300 million is provided for “for more efficient and more effective environmental reviews.”
PART 8—OTHER ENERGY MATTERS
~25 billion more in grants awarded for more of the same “clean” energy projects at the discretion of the Secretary of Energy. It’s a pot of gold for the politically-connected and those that are savvy enough to game the grant system.
Subtitle F—Affordable Health Care Coverage
Everything the government touches turns to dung. The stated intention of the existing Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care) was to make health insurance affordable. In that act, they established a “Health Insurance Affordability Fund.” Well, it had the opposite effect. Health insurance got more expensive. And so now, well, they’ll try again by adding one more word to the name of the fund.
SEC. 30603 of the Build Back Better bill establishes the “Improve Health Insurance Affordability Fund.” Adding the word “improve” to the program is a slam dunk pathway for success, am I right?
Subtitle G—Medicaid
There are roughly 80 pages describing an expansion of the Medicaid program. It will take someone who isn’t me some time to digest what all that entails.
Subtitle H—Children’s Health Insurance Program
This establishes a permanent extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, among other programs. This section just screams, “Oh boy, the insurance lobby is going to have one hell of a Christmas! Cha-ching!”
Subtitle I—Medicare Coverage of Dental, Hearing, and Vision Services
Similar to Subtitle G, this section seems to be a general expansion of the Medicare program. Nothing too interesting jumped off the page.
Subtitle J—Public Health
Subtitle J is broken up into 5 parts, but I’ll only go through a few of them with items that piqued an interest.
PART 1—HEALTH CARE INFRASTRUCTURE AND WORKFORCE
This section appears to be full of funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with a relatively vague description for which that funding is to be used. This is a red flag.
There is funding for various other healthcare-related programs as well.
PART 2—PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS
In SEC. 31021 FUNDING FOR LABORATORY ACTIVITIES AT THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, the law allows the arbitrary use of funds—
“as determined by the Director to be important for maintaining public health.”
This could be anything. Doesn’t that give you the warm and fuzzies?
In SEC. 31022 FUNDING FOR STRENGTHENING VACCINE CONFIDENCE, there is propaganda funding appropriated to keep Big Pharma rich and happy.
Amounts made available … shall be used to— (1) strengthen vaccine confidence; (2) strengthen routinely recommended vaccine programs; and (3) improve rates of vaccination …
SEC. 31023 FUNDING FOR SURVEILLANCE ACTIVITIES AT THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION provides approval to use funds to—
enhance and strengthen early warning and detection systems, including public health and health care surveillance; … global and domestic genomic surveillance; … surveillance based in hospitals and other health care providers or facilities, and outpatient facility surveillance … as determined by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be in the interest of public health …”
Doesn’t all that arbitrary surveillance make you feel comfortable and safe?
SEC. 31025 FUNDING FOR PUBLIC HEALTH AND PREPAREDNESS RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND COUNTERMEASURE CAPACITY gives—
$2,000,000,000 to support expanded global and domestic vaccine production capacity, including by developing or acquiring new technology and expanding manufacturing capacity through construction, expansion, or modernization of facilities …
Again, keeping Big Pharma rich and happy.
PART 4—MATERNAL MORTALITY
SEC. 31046 FUNDING FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING AT HEALTH PROFESSIONS SCHOOLS TO IDENTIFY AND ADDRESS HEALTH RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH CLIMATE CHANGE
I had to read that section title a few times to understand what it means. Even so, I’m not so sure I do. There is $85 million appropriated for the—
development and integration of education and training programs for identifying and addressing health risks associated with climate change for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals.
In addition to developing education efforts to identify health risks to maternal women (I can’t foresee what one single risk could possibly be), there is the even-stranger provision to educate on the climate change effects of—
implicit and explicit bias, racism, and discrimination in providing care to pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and individuals with the intent to become pregnant.
I don’t even know what to say about that.
Subtitle K—Next Generation 9–1–1
This section established the Next Generation 911 system. Essentially it is to transform the existing analog 911 emergency system into a digital format. This is actually an interesting development if it works out well. The intent is to enhance the emergency service by allowing use of photos, videos, and text messages to flow alongside voice calls.
There is a part of this bill that establishes a Cyber Security Center as part of the overall system. How the system will respond to cyber security emergencies is beyond my understanding.
Subtitle L—Spectrum Auctions
This section appears to open up auctions to purchase rights to transmit signals over the band of frequencies between 3100 megahertz and 3450 megahertz. This is something I know little to nothing about, so I have zero to say about this.
Subtitle M—Distance Learning
$4 billion is appropriated to support distance learning in public schools with the funds available through September of 2030. If your kids were forced into the public system of distance “learning” during the Covid lockdowns, you and your kids most likely ended with a sour experience. To see this program potentially continue and expand for another 8 years is disappointing.
Subtitle N—Manufacturing Supply Chain
It appears this program shells out money to study and/or relieve the supply chain bottlenecks — an exercise private companies have been doing on their own since the bottlenecks first surfaced. The government thinks that businesses just sit there staring at the sky waiting for the government to come help solve their particular supply chain problems. There is $10 billion dollars appropriated for this. It is worth reminding that the supply chain problems are largely a result of absurd Covid policies and lockdowns brought to you by the government in the first place.
Subtitle O—FTC Privacy Enforcement
$1 billion is set aside for the creation of yet another bureau — a Privacy Bureau.
The Federal Trade Commission shall use the funds … to create and operate a bureau … to accomplish the work of the Commission related to unfair or deceptive acts or practices relating to privacy, data security, identity theft, data abuses, and related matters.
The grossest violator of American’s privacy is creating a Privacy Bureau to protect American’s privacy. Huh …
And that’s a wrap for today’s review of Title III — Committee on Energy and Commerce. But that’s not all, folks. Tune in next time for Part 3 of the Monetary Current review of Build Back Better.
For a preview of what’s to come, the following Titles remain: