Healthcare

I can't believe it hasn't happened. National healthcare became an issue in 2010 during the debate over Obamacare. Private industry spends $1.15 trillion dollars per year to cover 155 million people but as many in government pushed for national healthcare no one suggested that the government take over the private company healthcare and have the companies just send the $1.15 trillion to the government. Companies would go for this since it would remove them from the whole healthcare issue along with any future increases in cost.

Transportation

The Inflation Reduction Act takes aim at the largest source of climate pollution in the U.S.: transportation. It does this by promoting electric cars using tax credits. The question of where will the power to charge these cars come from seems to have eluded everyone. The industry in conjunction with the government should be promoting natural gas for transportation and this would significantly reduce CO2 just has it has done by replacing coal with natural gas in power plants. As nuclear power gains its proper place in the production of electricity the use of hydrogen will replace natural gas and the only bi-product will be water.

Home work

One of the after effects of the pandemic is the argument about working away from the office. Once again this is a benefit to the upper income types. If you work construction or on an assembly line you cannot work from home. People who wait tables, clean motel rooms and do yard work cannot work from home. It is mostly white collar types who make more than average who will get the benefit of not having to commute and not having to buy clothes or eat lunch out. Ole Joe six pack gets the short end of the stick again.

States control infrastructure

The Clean Water Act of 1971 allowed states to stop construction of any project they felt could harm the environment. This is normally what republicans prefer, that is, state control. Trump used executive orders to try and give this power back to the federal government. On June 2, 2022 the Biden administration moved to restore authority to states and tribes to veto gas pipeline, coal terminals and other energy projects if they thought these projects would pollute. Biden is now calling on the oil and gas industry to step up production to relieve high prices but there is concern that states will block his wishes. There is now pressure on democrats to revert back to the Trump regs as many other infrastructure projects could suffer the same fate. The fear is that some states will delay and increase costs for essential energy infrastructure. This should not come as a surprise since the EPA and various environmental groups oppose many new project and they are currently in control.

Inflation Act

In 2009 when President Obama needed 60 votes in the senate to pass Obamacare he was two votes short. One Senator Landrieu of Louisiana and the other was Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. He got Landrieu's vote by giving Louisiana $4.4 billion in extra Medicare funds and Nelson got $100 million for Medicare payments. This week Senator Joe Manchin agreed to vote of the Inflation Reduction Act and his state got a long sought after Mountain Valley Pipeline at a cost of $6.6 billion. The last hold out on the Inflation Reduction Act is Senator Kyrsten Sinema and many are wondering what she will get. This is our federal government at work.

Green nuclear

The mining of rare earth metals poses an environmental hazard and the world's largest mine has contaminated the ground water and is now only a few miles from the Yellow River which is the source of water for 150 million Chinese people. Green people here in the US seem unconcerned perhaps because it is China. These same people pushed the US to reduce coal production by 7% to 44 million tons while China and India increased their production of coal by 200 million tons. The United States is a world leader in protecting the environment and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. From 2005 to 2018, total U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions fell by 12% or 6 million tons. Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose by 6% in 2021 to 36.3 billion tons, their highest ever level, as the world economy rebounded. Greens here live under the delusion that wind and solar can become the sole sources of electricity. Even if the US were able to do this it would not stop global warming. The answer is nuclear power both in the US and around the world. The US should be the leader toward this goal but the Greens are only interested in wind and solar because that is their ticket to increased social programs. It is so disingenuous for them to claim they are fighting global warming while they are interfering in the process of solving the problem.

Wind solar or nuclear

Over the years republicans have labeled democrats as tax and spend and thus the headline about the new bill, Senate Democrats are aiming to pass a major spending bill this week that includes funding for climate change, health care and tax increases on corporations, is appropriate. The bill called the Inflation Reduction Act was passed without informing the whole senate on what was happening and Senator Sinama expressed surprise. Late last year President Biden signed an executive order to boost America’s clean energy economy, which included the goal of attaining 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2030. The Act includes billions for solar panel companies and wind farms. The US currently gets 9% of its electricity from wind and 3% from solar while fossil fuels provide 60% and nuclear 20%. U.S. has 102.9 gigawatts of total solar installed capacity which is equivalent to 965 square miles, roughly the size of the country’s smallest state, Rhode Island. In order to up the current 3% to 100% requires 965 divided by .03 or 32,000 sq miles or the size of South Carolina. It would take 112,000 sq miles for wind. Using nuclear power requires only 1,200 sq miles. Wind and solar are miles away from the usage point and require miles of power lines whereas nuke plants are close to the use point. Here is one example of what happened the last time the government sent money to solar companies. Solyndra received a $535 million U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee, the first recipient of a loan guarantee under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In less than five years Solyndra was broke because they could not compete with panels made in China. Is the government making the same mistake.