“Washington state lawmakers are considering a measure to charge them a $100 annual fee — what would be the nation’s first electric car fee,” AP reported on the left’s eco-holiday of “Earth Day” yesterday.
Complete with a video clip of the classic “you f***ed up, you trusted us” scene from Animal House, Ed Morrissey responds that electric car buyers in Washington State f***ed — they trusted their state government:
Now taxpayers in Washington who bought the government’s line about electric cars being a better deal will have to pay the state a unique penalty for complying, if the state legislature gets its way. That’s on top of the penalty of still paying too much for the class of car purchased, and the penalty of the eventual battery replacement and disposal costs that will make the resale value on their vehicle something close to nil.
Ed adds:
Actually, according to the EIA, hydroelectric supplies almost three-quarters of Washington’s electricity now. However, when car start plugging in rather than filling up, Washington’s going to need a lot more electrical generating capacity, and it’s doubtful it will come from hydro. (Do you think environmentalists will cheer the building of new dams? Neither do I.) Unless they start building nuclear power plants now, they’re going to have to burn more coal to meet the increased demand.
These days, environmentalists cheer the destruction of dams — and last year, even got American Express to help bankroll their anti-economic message:
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If more hydroelectric dams are needed to be built, they won’t be coming from the Federal Government anytime soon, according to Joel Kotkin in the Politico last fall:
When FDR commissioned projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, he literally brought light to darkened regions. The loyalty created by FDR and Truman built a base of support for liberalism that lasted for nearly a half-century.
Today’s liberals don’t show enthusiasm for airports or dams — or anything that may kick up some dirt. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Deanna Archuleta, for example, promised a Las Vegas audience: “You will never see another federal dam.”
Harold Ickes, FDR’s enterprising interior secretary, must be turning over in his grave.
Kotkin’s piece, from October of last year is titled, “How Liberalism self-destructed.”
I prefer to think of it as a case of going “Forward, into the Past:”
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