Obama to use Nixon era law to scale down US industry including exports of coal and nat. gas. No mention that US imports toxic electric car batteries whose manufacture requires highly polluting China rare earths

.
10/4/12, "Electric cars 'pose environmental threat'," BBC
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3/14/13, "Obama Will Use Nixon-Era Law to Fight Climate Change," Bloomberg Business Week, Mark Drajem

"President Barack Obama is preparing to tell all federal agencies for the first time that they have to consider the impact on global warming before approving major projects, from pipelines to highways.

The result could be significant delays for natural gas- export facilities, ports for coal sales to Asia, and even new forest roads....

The Environmental Protection Agency and activist groups say that review should be broadened to account for the greenhouse gases emitted when exported coal is burned in power plants in Asia....

Lawyers and lobbyists are now waiting for the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality to issue the long bottled-up standards for how agencies should address climate change under the National Environmental Policy Act, signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970....

The White House is looking at requiring consideration of both the increase in greenhouse gases and a project’s vulnerability to

flooding,
drought or
other extreme weather 

that might result from global warming,

according to an initial proposal it issued in 2010."...

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6/10/11, "Electric cars may not be so green after all, says British study," The Australian, Ben Webster

"ELECTRIC cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries, a study has found. An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime."...(orig. published in UK Sunday Times)

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Rare earths mine in Communist China from DailyMailOnline, Jan. 10, 2010

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China says Obama is environmental hypocrite to demand rare earths from China:

3/15/12, "Rare earth case reveals US hypocrisy," China Daily, Chen Weihua, by Deputy Editor of China Daily

"US President Barack Obama announced...that the United States, joined by Japan and the European Union, has filed complaints with the World Trade Organization over China's rare earth export quotas. He said this as an effort to give "American workers and American businesses a fair shot in the global economy".

His words, however, imply that he does not really care about the environmental degradation caused by China's disorderly and excessive mining of rare earth materials, as long as US workers and businesses can profit from China's cheap supply.

This is shocking for a president who likes to portray himself as pro-environment when he fights Republican presidential candidates over clean energy issues, or when he tried to restore the US' leadership role at the UN Climate Change Conference, in Copenhagen, in December 2009....Instead of buying from China, Obama should propose tapping the US' own (rare earths) deposits."  

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1/16/13, "China's Green Leap Backward," The Nation, Lucia Green-Weiskel

"Consumption patterns have eroded one of China’s most promising areas for low-carbon development: electric vehicles. A recent McKinsey & Co. report ranked China’s EV market a dismal fifth behind Japan, the United States, France and Germany. Even with generous subsidies for consumers and manufacturers, EV sales are sluggish....

The major buyers of EVs are local governments and large state-owned corporations, not individuals....My colleagues and I at the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation recently completed a study of China’s EV industry in which we discovered that,

on average, EVs produce more greenhouse gas emissions per kilometer

than their traditional internal-combustion counterparts. That’s because EVs draw energy from electricity grids, some of which rely on coal—the dirtiest of fossil fuels—for up to 98 percent of generation.

Only in regions where the grid depends on nuclear and hydro energy did the EV reduce its carbon footprint."...

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8/15/12, "Electric Cars Face Bleak Prospects As Europe Sales Stumble," Neil Winton, Winton's World

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12/29/10, "China will cut rare earths export quotas," BBC

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10/27/10, "Rare earth minerals shortage feared by US and EU," BBC

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More tax breaks for the 1%. "The average income of the Chevy Volt’s buyers is $170,000 per year, says GM CEO Dan Akerson:"

2/17/12, "Obama Provides More Tax Breaks for the Toys of the Rich," Planet Gore, Henry Payne

"When President Obama isn’t steering taxpayer dollars to corporate cronies for their green energy projects, he’s comforting the well-to-do with tax breaks to buy electric cars. 

“The White House intends to boost government subsidies for wealthy buyers of the Chevy Volt and other new-technology vehicles – to $10,000 per buyer” from the current $7,500, reports The Daily Caller’s Neil Munro of the increase buried in the president’s 2013 budget .

The average income of the Chevy Volt’s buyers is $170,000 per year, says GM CEO Dan Akerson, putting them in the top 7 percent of U.S. income earners and slightly above the household income of buyers of BMW, Lexus, or Cadillac luxury vehicles. Recipients of the current electric subsidy have included such needy cases as actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Senator Carl Levin.

“The ruling political class has determined that people who may not be able to afford a new car of any kind should subsidize affluent buyers of electric cars,” says energy expert Russ Harding of the Mackinac Center."...

Below, Leonardo di Caprio with an electric car.