Numerous bureaucratic agencies are merely doing their jobs to enforce regulations to keep the disadvantaged from emissions, at the expense of the other 40 million Californians.
Published on June 18, 2023 by CFACT https://www.cfact.org/2023/06/18/californias-emissions-regulatory-death-spiral/
Ronald Stone is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy at the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book Clean Energy Exploitations.
I just got back from a two-hour lunch with one of the staff who serves on working groups and committees for the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), and he shared his frustrations at work with me with these agencies.
The frustration stems from the devastating impact that an enormously complex system of rules and regulations involving federal, state, and local government agencies is having on individual companies and entire industries in California and the rest of the United States.
No one can argue that some level of regulation of business practices is necessary to protect employees, the public and the environment from the adverse effects of their business activities. But over time, federal, state, and local regulations have not only increased in number, complexity, and cost, but they have also become so overwhelmingly onerous that it has become economically impossible to ship certain products anywhere other than outside the United States to create states.
Ironically, this outsourcing of our once-proud domestic manufacturing capabilities has strengthened the economies of our allies and our enemies alike.
Here in California, for example, bureaucratic agencies like CARB and SCAQMD will follow federal law and enact even more Californian laws in the form of additional rules and regulations, meaning they will do whatever they can to eliminate all emissions from the oil industry Oil production and manufacturing, i.e. refineries .
While the bureaucracies in CARB, SCAQMD, and other aviation districts feel safe developing and enforcing an endless barrage of regulations, none of them have, and don’t worry, a substitute for the fossil fuels they are actively ridding the state of about the unintended consequences for ALL of humanity as they slowly oust the oil industry from California and impose restrictions on the supply chain of products that form the basis of our economy.
Without a substitute for the fossil fuels California is trying to rid the state of, manipulation of the crude oil supply chain is causing supply shortages and rising prices for thousands of products that serve the NEEDS of the entire medical industries, military, airport, electronics, communications , merchant ships, container ships and cruise ships, as well as asphalt for roads and fertilizers to feed the world. Product shortages fuel (no pun intended) inflation by causing serious damage to energy and resource infrastructure.
The law of supply and demand guarantees continued inflation and shortages as fewer refineries are available to process crude oil into derivatives that make up more than 6,000 products for society, and to produce the fuel for 50,000 jets, people and transport products. and more than 50,000 merchant ships for global trade flows and the military and space programs.
In recent years, California has closed two refineries (Phillips 66 in Rodeo and Marathon in Martinez), both in Northern California, that once produced many of the fuels and oil derivatives that have gone on to make thousands of products for mankind, and which now only… the production concentrate renewable diesel fuel.
Today, Bay Area AQMD (BAAQMD) in Northern California is targeting the Chevron Richmond and PBF Martinez (the old Shell site) refineries. If the courts uphold the recent BAAQMD Rule 6-5 for further reductions in particulate emissions, both the Chevron Richmond refinery and the PBF Martinez refinery have said they will close before spending a billion dollars at each location spend on retrofitting their refineries to meet further particle emission reductions to 2.5 microns or less.
With two more California refineries potentially lost in the coming years, Northern California’s gasoline and kerosene needs will be imported from China and India to supply military bases and the major international airports in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and Sacramento. as well as many oil derivatives that were closed at California refineries are no longer manufactured.
As the folks at CARB, SCAQMD and the other Air Districts continue to do their jobs under the regulations in their hands, they are just tinkering with the emission reductions needed to meet our emissions targets and reducing fossil fuels from the supply chain while increasing demand for fossil fuel derivatives and fuels continues to increase worldwide.
Because emissions from manufacturing processes and the production and use of fossil fuels know no community or international boundaries, those living in underserved communities or developing countries will see little or no benefit from this vast body of government regulation.
While wind turbines and solar panels are seen as a promising source of renewable electricity for the fossil fuel transition, it is important to recognize their limitations. Two of the main disadvantages are their inability to continuously generate electricity and, most importantly, their inability to manufacture goods to meet the demand for products for the world’s growing population.
Because California is the fourth largest economy in the world, California may have gotten itself into a emissions reduction death spiral. The few in California’s disadvantaged communities will benefit from a reduction in emissions in their backyards, while the state’s other 40 million residents and others around the world bear the costs associated with the supply chain impact of the reductions in products and fuels that are now made from oil are helping the 8 billion people on this planet.
Ronald Stein, PE
Ambassador for energy and infrastructure
Energy literacy website
Wikipedia page by Ronald Stein (energy consultant).
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