(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Biden's Clean Car Rule Leaves Deniers' Grinding Gears, And Accidentally Justify Policy Support [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-14 "News" from the Daily Caller On Tuesday , we talked about how the "major questions doctrine" is being used to justify opposition to climate policies like the Biden administration’s fuel efficiency standards that will speed up the transition to the cleaner vehicles that the climate needs. Biden is simply telling car manufacturers to make their products more efficient so their customers will save money on gas, but it was only a matter of time until disinformers began shouting that “ Biden is coming for your car .” However, for the first few days since the news broke, the disinfosphere was decidedly distracted, and the response has been slow to roll out. The Daily Caller, for example, buried its coverage half-way down its front page, putting its story on Biden's " strictest-ever car emissions regulations " (that was cobbled together from other outlets) next to "news" about a YouTuber's boxing match and below " allegations of an alien sighting at Donald Trump hearing ." Breitbart didn't seem to notice the news and instead dedicated space to fearmongering about immigrants , the FBI , gun control , the E Street Band's Van Zandt , and trans people drinking beer and swimming . You know, real, important news stuff—just like what Fox was covering . Unlike The Daily Caller, Fox's story did have some originally reported content, though unfortunately, it was from deniers, so that extra effort actually decreased the net information readers would come away with. Thomas Catenacci, Fox's dedicated climate disinfo producer, performed as expected, and his story published at 5:54am on Wednesday included quotes criticizing Biden’s regulations. One quote complaining about "government coercion" was from Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has received funding from tobacco giant Philip Morris, oil company Texaco, three Koch Foundations, Arch Coal, ExxonMobil, and bankrupted Murray Energy , to name just a few of the companies who benefit from claims that government regulations on dangerous products are bad. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) called this rule "anti-American," though like Ebell, is backed by government-regulation-adverse interests. His top contributors are Boeing, the beef industry, and Altria, the rebranded Philip Morris. A tweet from Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) about defunding the EPA is also par for the course, since the oil and gas industry has given Roy $514,445 in funding, with top contributors including pipeline company Nustar Energy, petroleum company Valero Energy, and of course, Koch Industries. Catenacci couldn't find anyone independent of the fossil fuel industry to give a quote about this regulation that would impact the fossil fuel industry, but don't worry, he didn't tell Fox's readers that! On Fox Business , Rick Perry called the regulations "ill-thought-out,” which is saying something, considering the Dancing With The Stars alum knows a thing or two about ill-thought-out decisions, like his " regret " for calling to abolish the Department of Energy after Trump appointed him to lead it. And after being on Dan Bongino's Fox show, Marc Morano sent out an email promoting his appearance, including this choice quote illustrating how transphobia is being adopted more and more frequently by climate deniers searching for audiences: "It is easier to transition your gender than it is your energy, particularly on the energy timescales they're talking about. So if you think it's impossible for a man to have a baby, well, then it's equally impossible to have solar and wind power our entire economy." Ironically, since it's not at all impossible for a man to have a baby , Morano's quote has the opposite meaning from what he intended! But the outlet that put the most visible effort into producing anti-EV disinformation this week was the Washington Examiner, where "Energy and Environment" reporters Jeremy Beaman and Breanne Deppisch got fancy graphic illustrations for three of the five stories they did as part of a "Stalled out" spate of EV stories. On the 10th, they published a piece about the " big obstacles " facing an EV charging buildout, and their April 11 story discussed problems that EV drivers are encountering as a result of insufficient public policy support for EVs, which this new policy addresses. On Wednesday, the Washington Examiner published a straight news piece on the policy announcement, as well as another piece with a headline reading, " EV push threatens to strain power grids and threaten reliability ." The new 'news' in that story is a study published last month that's described as being about the dangers of EV adoption, but is actually about how those challenges can be overcome, and concludes the more EVs the greater the benefits to enjoy. Then on Wednesday afternoon came coverage of a Gallup poll, which informed readers that only 12% of American drivers are "seriously considering" buying an EV. But again, those who click through to the source will get a different understanding, as the Examiner piece fails to mention the category of people who "might consider" buying an EV in the future, which was actually the biggest share of responses at 43%. In other words, the Examiner went to great lengths to highlight all the problems with EVs to try to condemn Biden's move, but it just ended up listing reasons why even more public investment is needed in EV infrastructure! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/14/2163923/-Biden-s-Clean-Car-Rule-Leaves-Deniers-Grinding-Gears-And-Accidentally-Justify-Policy-Support Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/