Biden Invokes Wartime Emergency Powers to Bolster Electric Heat Pump Manufacturing

President Joe Biden is now invoking wartime emergency powers to ram his radical environmentalist agenda down America’s collective throat. On Friday — right after Congress conveniently left town for its week-long Thanksgiving break — the Biden administration announced that it was invoking authority from the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to award $169 million to various sites nationwide to increase electric heat pump manufacturing.

The overall purpose is to further encourage domestic production of “green energy technologies” — at the expense of traditional furnaces that run on gas or heating fuel. According to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, these electric heating pumps will “help families and businesses save money with efficient heating and cooling technology” while allegedly creating jobs and “creating healthier indoor spaces through home-grown clean energy technologies.”

This last, of course, is the real motive. Biden Administration officials have zero regard either for saving money or for spurring economic growth; their ideological imperative is destroying American industry in the interest of staving off climate change. This, and not any feigned solicitude for the well-being of American workers, is the motive for Biden’s war on fossil fuels, the automotive sector, and a wide range of household appliances. And now, they are invoking wartime emergency powers to get their way.

The U.S. will fund nine projects with $169 million from last year’s climate bill to speed manufacturing of heat pumps, systems that can heat and cool homes and businesses more efficiently, the Energy Department said on Friday.

The awards are the first from the department’s authorization invoked by President Joe Biden using emergency authority on the basis of climate change to employ the Cold War-era Defense Production Act (DPA) to boost spending on clean energy technologies.

“Getting more American-made electric heat pumps on the market will help families and businesses save money with efficient heating and cooling technology,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a release.

Heating and cooling homes and buildings, including critical infrastructure like military bases, drive more than 35% of U.S. energy consumption, according to her department.  Compared to boilers fueled by natural gas, heat pumps reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 50%, it says.

The Energy Department said it expects to unveil another round of DPA investments in early 2024.