Can the Biden administration have its climate change cake and eat it, too?
With a new goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, vast portions of the U.S. economy and the federal government would have to shrink emissions quickly.
But pressed by the need to engage in great power competition, the Department of Defense has little room to give before emissions reduction efforts affect military capabilities.
The Biden administration faces a clear choice: Accept a less capable military by diverting scarce funds to green innovation endeavors or remain focused on modernizing the U.S. military for the future.
Recent actions give rise to worries the Biden administration may return to the failed experiments of the Obama administration in trying to pursue a greener Department of Defense faster than what current technologies and costs allow.
First, President Joe Biden’s team is committed to replacing the entire federal government’s fleet of vehicles, some 645,000 cars, with electric vehicles. The down payment on such an acquisition will cost upwards of $20 billion.
Of the 645,000, the Department of Defense alone operates approximately 170,000 non-combat vehicles.
More important, however, will be how the Biden administration’s environmental policies affect the Pentagon’s actual military capabilities. After all, past attempts to be environmentally conscious in defense operations have been incredibly costly, without much to show for them.
Take, for example, the Navy’s efforts in 2012 to shift fuel supplies from conventional petroleum-based fuels for ships to advanced biofuels.
Under then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, some naval operations in the Pacific began using a 50-50 mixture of petroleum and biofuel, costing the Navy $12 million in one exercise alone.
The same sum could have purchased six times as much oil.
Promises from the Obama administration claimed that a “Great Green Fleet” would be operational by 2020—something that never came to pass.
Green??? WTF. THEY CANT AFFORD TO GO WOKE!!!!
Biden doesn’t know if it’s Tuesday or July, so what do we expect? Thanks again, Democrats!
From now on, all military uniforms will be made of that new miracle fabric, hemp.
Wake up CONgress…..the military or us cant afford this green initiative. There is no money, nor will we afford electric cars. Stop it, figure out using the earth better. Fossil fuels are natural. Reinvigorate infrastructure, improve refinement now…not windmills that dont move without wind and are not cost effective long.term. get your heads outta your a$$es.
Electric fighter planes?
This green bullcrap is going to put an end to this country as China laughs.
The only global warming that is happening is in all the computer model.
EVERY ONE OF THE COMPUTER MODEL PREDICTIONS IS WRONG!
Every prediction that the watermellons (green on the outside, red on the inside) have made has been wrong!
Demetia Joes is taking advice from Gretta Thunburg (Scoldilocks)