Biden-Harris Admin’s Multi-Billion Dollar Electric School Bus Program Is A Huge Gift To China, House Report Finds

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

The Biden-Harris administration’s $5 billion Clean School Bus Program uses nearly 400% more taxpayer dollars per school bus and benefits the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a House report revealed Tuesday.

The 51-page report from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce found promoting electric school buses and other electric vehicles (EVs) enriches the CCP as the EV supply chain is roughly 90% dependent on China, raising both national security and human rights concerns. It also highlighted immense expenses for taxpayers, with the average electric school bus under the first iteration of the Clean School Bus Program — the first of three iterations — costing $381,191, nearly four times that of a typical full-sized diesel school bus.

“It is clear the $5 billion Clean School Bus Program is overall a failure and, in many cases, a waste of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said in a statement regarding the report’s findings. “The program, led by the radical Biden-Harris EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], props up a market that relies heavily upon a supply chain dominated by the Chinese Communist Party.”

Funded by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Clean School Bus Program provided the Biden-Harris EPA with funds over five years to “replace existing school buses with zero-emission and clean school buses.”

Kamala Harris led the Biden Administration's $5,000,000,000 EV school bus program.

After 3 years, just 60 buses are on the road.

That's over $83,300,000 per bus.

A vote for Kamala is a vote to waste more tax dollars on failed green programs.

— Daniel Turner (@DanielTurnerPTF) July 29, 2024

China currently accounts for approximately two-thirds of global EV battery cell production, while the U.S. manufactured just 7% as of 2022, raising national security concerns as the U.S. would likely have to depend on Chinese EV technology for its electric school buses, according to the report. Furthermore, the government-subsidized purchases of electric school buses under the Clean School Bus Program incentivize pre-existing human rights abuses in the EV supply, including the use of Uyghur forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region.

The report also identified limited range as an issue, with standard electric school buses from leading manufacturer BlueBird able to travel just 120 miles on a single charge, while some propane models can travel 400 miles before needing to refuel. The range problem can also be exacerbated by cold and warm weather conditions, with a study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory finding electric transit buses lose roughly a third of their range at 25 degrees Fahrenheit compared to ideal conditions.

Electric school buses also increase the risk of fraud due to a lack of documentation requirements for contractors, with the EPA relying solely on self-certified applications and estimates created by applicants, according to the report. A separate July report from a Maryland county’s Office of the Inspector General resulted in millions of dollars in “wasteful spending.”

“The EPA launched the Clean School Bus program without sufficient safeguards and considerations for practical hurdles applicants may face. For example, the EPA did not require documentation for some of the required application information and allowed contractors enthused at the opportunity to receive federal funding to apply on behalf of unknowing school districts, some of which eventually withdraw from the program,” the report states. “The EPA failed to account for the considerable electric infrastructure upgrades that electrifying a school bus fleet could require, potentially leading to delays for schools in utilizing their new buses.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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‘Source Of Profound Regret’: Firm Pays Half Billion Settlement To Avoid Criminal Prosecution For Fueling Opioid Crisis

Published on December 14, 2024

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Adam Pack

A consulting giant that helped fuel the United States’ deadly opioid epidemic agreed to pay a massive settlement to avoid criminal prosecution, according to court papers filed Friday.

McKinsey & Company, an international management consulting firm that advised Purdue Pharma to “turbocharge” sales of Oxycontin during the height of the opioid crisis, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) that will require the firm to pay a $650 million settlement over five years.

A former senior McKinsey employee also pleaded guilty to an obstruction of justice charge for destroying records detailing the consulting giant’s work for Purdue.

The McKinsey settlement is the latest in a string of lawsuits seeking accountability from corporations and consulting firms for contributing to the opioid crisis.

The epidemic, created in part from the work of Purdue and McKinsey to market OxyContin to millions of Americans, has taken more than 500,000 lives and left a trail of devastation in its wake, particularly in parts of rural America.

“McKinsey schemed with Purdue Pharma to ‘turbocharge’ OxyContin sales during a raging opioid epidemic — an epidemic that continues to decimate families and communities across the nation,” U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy for the District of Massachusetts, who sued McKinsey alongside an attorney for the Western District of Virginia over the firm’s consulting work for Purdue, wrote following the settlement. “Consulting firms like McKinsey should get the message: if the advice you give to companies in boardrooms and PowerPoint presentations aids and abets criminal activity, we will come after you and we will expose the truth.”

“We are deeply sorry for our past client service to Purdue Pharma and the actions of a former partner who deleted documents related to his work for that client,” the consulting firm wrote in a statement following the settlement. “We should have appreciated the harm opioids were causing in our society and we should not have undertaken sales and marketing work for Purdue Pharma. This terrible public health crisis and our past work for opioid manufacturers will always be a source of profound regret for our firm.”

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Some Canadian Premiers Call For ‘Robust’ Response To Trump’s Tariff Threats

Published on December 12, 2024

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Ireland Owens

Some Canadian premiers are calling on the government to respond strongly to tariff threats from President-elect Donald Trump, Canada’s Finance Minister said Wednesday, according to Reuters.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with premiers as well as other government ministers Wednesday to discuss Trump’s vow to impose tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico when he returns to the Oval Office, according to Reuters. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Wednesday that Canada could stall energy exports to the U.S. in response, Reuters reported.

Under the previous Trump administration, Canada responded to U.S. tariffs by placing tariffs on various goods including bourbon, cherries and Harley Davidson motorcycles, Reuters reported.

“A number of premiers offered strong support for a robust Canadian response that included some of the premiers proactively naming critical minerals and metals that their provinces produce, and which are exported to the United States,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters on Wednesday, according to Reuters.

The president-elect has embraced tariffs, previously calling them the most “beautiful” word and proposing sweeping tariffs across various industries. Trump threatened in November to impose 100% tariffs on any BRICS nation that abandons the U.S. dollar and vowed in September to impose 200% tariffs on John Deere products if the company relocates its manufacturing operations to Mexico.

Trudeau met with the president-elect in Mar-a-Largo in November after Trump threatened to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada unless both countries do more to control their border with the U.S. to prevent the flow of illegal drugs and illegal immigrants into the states. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also hinted at retaliation if Trump imposes tariffs on her country.

There has been a surge of illegal migrant crossings at the northern border under the Biden-Harris administration. There were 18,944 encounters at the northern border in August alone, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). There have been 198,929 total encounters at the northern border in the 2024 fiscal year, compared to 189,402 total encounters at the northern border in fiscal year 2023, the CBP data shows.

Bank of Canada Gov. Tiff Macklem said Wednesday that Trump’s proposed 25% tariff on imports could cause disruption to Canada’s economy, according to The Wall Street Journal. Over 20% of Canada’s gross domestic product is linked to trade with the U.S., the WSJ reported. U.S. goods and services trade with Canada amounted to an estimated $908.9 billion in 2022, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

“It’s going to be difficult for businesses to take decisions against that background,” Macklem said. “There is a risk that [business] investment is weaker.”