Well, he’s done it again. Joe Biden has clearly decided that he can simply violate the rules however he likes to achieve his goals when he can’t convince Congress to advance his agenda. (Or, to be fair, perhaps his aides made the decision.) For the second time, Biden has invoked the wartime powers of the presidency and declared the use of the 1950 Defense Production Act for something that has nothing to do with warfare or any external threat to the nation. This time he seized $169 million from the taxpayers to distribute to fifteen sites around the nation for the purpose of building more electric heat pumps. This is part of the ongoing war against gas furnaces, which the climate cult wants to see replaced by heat pumps. (Fox News)

President Biden invoked a Cold War-era law in a surprising move Friday to pour taxpayer funds into domestic manufacturing of electric heat pumps, an alternative to gas-powered residential furnaces.

In a joint announcement with the White House, the Department of Energy (DOE) said the federal government would award a “historic” $169 million for nine projects across 15 sites nationwide in an effort to accelerate electric heat pump manufacturing. The significant level of funding was made possible after Biden utilized the 1950 Defense Production Act (DPA) to increase domestic production of green 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,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

Fox quotes Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who correctly described this announcement as “ridiculous.” There is no shortage of heat pumps in this country, so handing out cash in this fashion is no more than blatant corporate welfare.

It’s also once again worth pointing out that the United States is not currently at war. We’re fighting some proxy wars, to be sure, that shouldn’t be a trigger for Biden invoking wartime powers. This is a blatant case of inappropriate execution of executive powers and misuse of taxpayer funds that were not appropriated by Congress for this purpose.

The last time Biden used the DPA, it was to boost lithium mining and production in the United States and relax tariffs on Chinese solar panels. Those were also completely illegitimate actions. The DPA was written to allow the President to “influence domestic industry in the interest of national defense.” But this White House has effectively declared climate change to be a national emergency and they are tipping the scales in favor of green energy using every bit of leverage they can manage.

It’s bad enough that the new DOE regulations will essentially outlaw gas furnaces unless they are the larger, far more expensive condensing models. But if Biden and John Kerry get their way, even the condensing furnaces won’t last for long. They want everyone to install electric heat pumps. If you look into the technology behind heat pumps, you’ll learn that they’re not exactly ideal for all applications. And nobody from the Biden administration is explaining where all of the electricity to run these heat pumps will be coming from.

Returning to the primary issue here, this isn’t really a debate over how good or bad heat pumps may be. It’s a question of a president invoking the Defense Production Act in ways that wouldn’t qualify for its use even if we were actively at war. He’s basically reaching into all of your wallets and plucking out 169 million dollars and handing it off to the climate cult. You are no more “secure” because of this than you were last week. And if he gets away with this trick you can rest assured that he’ll keep doing it for as long as he’s in office.