As the energy crisis drags on, California is quickly moving to follow the examples of Germany and Switzerland in ordering its residents to not turn their thermostats down “too far” when running their air conditioning units. (They aren’t talking about throwing anyone in jail if they fail to comply yet, but that’s probably coming sooner or later.) Many Democrats in Congress as well as the Biden administration have gotten on board with this idea as well. Since everyone is so keen on saving energy (which is clearly important at this point), Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa has come up with a marvelous idea. We should ensure that the autocrats issuing these rules are walking the walk as well as talking the talk. She has just introduced the Lead By Example Act of 2022. The bill would require the Department of Energy and the EPA to set their own thermostats to 78 degrees at a minimum. Ernst said that if these Biden agencies want to impose arbitrary rules on Americans, it’s time to “make ’em squeal and sweat.” (Fox Business)
New legislation introduced by a Republican senator aims to turn up the temperature on federal environmental regulators – literally.
Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst filed a bill Monday that would require the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to dial up their thermostats to a minimum of 78 degrees at their headquarters when the air conditioning is running in order to fall in line with California’s recommendations for their residents in the midst of a statewide energy crisis.
The legislation, dubbed the Lead By Example Act of 2022, would also require Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and EPA administrator Michael Regan to submit reports to Congress describing at which temperature their headquarters’ respective thermostats have been set at since the Biden administration began.
In addition to requiring the thermostat settings to be at least as high as these agencies are telling citizens to do, Ernst’s bill would also require maintenance reports showing the thermostat settings that have been in place since Joe Biden took office. Presumably, this information would all be made available to the public and the press.
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Given how bad so many (primarily Democratic) officials were at following their own face mask rules during the pandemic, it would not be terribly surprising to find that these same people had their own thermostats set in the upper 60s while telling everyone else to sacrifice for the greater good. And be honest. Would you really be surprised?
If I could offer Senator Ernst some unsolicited advice, there are a couple of amendments that might freshen up this legislation even further. These are the same people who have been telling everyone to buy electric vehicles but not to recharge them during peak hours. How many people at the EPA and the Department of Energy are already using electric vehicles for official business travel and for their own personal use as well? And among those who are doing so, when and where have they been recharging them? Most of the newer cars have computers built into them that record such data, so I’m sure it could be produced and published.
On a related topic, everyone is supposed to be efficient and economical in fuel usage for non-electric vehicles, right? Who is carpooling or at least driving the most fuel-efficient models of cars? And what about air travel? Who is flying private jets everywhere to get around and who is traveling in economy class? Let’s start with John Kerry since he is once again holding an official government position. Come on, John. Let’s see your full travel record with that private jet of yours.
All of these things should show up in this bill. The public would likely be very interested in those statistics. Of course, there’s no way that the hypocrites in Washington are going to pass a bill like this. But they should be called out for failing to support it.
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