Dumb Donald Savages Low Carbon Construction Initiatives

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Back in the 1950s, before the TV industry discovered the public’s unending fascination with shows like NCIS Timbuktu that feature a lot of people punching other people in the face and stalking around with guns drawn, Americans watched a rather pedestrian show called You Asked For It. Well, America, when you voted for Trump, you asked for it, and, boy howdy, are you getting it.

America is now the laughing stock of the world as the overweight preening peacock of Mar-A-Loco continues to shoot himself in the foot with idiotic schemes. His foolish nonsense makes him look like a candidate for the Nincompoop Award With Oak Leaf Clusters. In today’s entry into the “How Stupid Can You Get” sweepstakes, the president with the most ridiculous comb-over in history has decreed an end to federal programs that promote low carbon construction materials like green steel and cement.

Why is Dumb Donnie so mad at low carbon construction materials? Who knows? Maybe there’s a dead worm in his brain like the one in his nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services. Or maybe it’s because he thinks sea levels have only risen a quarter of an inch since Napoleon got banished to Elba. Or maybe it’s because the companies that are trying to lower the carbon emissions from steel and cement factories didn’t pay him big enough bribes the way the oil and gas industry do on a regular basis. America is for sale to the highest bidder and the profits are all flowing into the pockets of our own Dear Leader.

A War On Low Carbon Construction Materials

Canary Media reports the putative president has rescinded an executive order that established the federal Buy Clean program, designed to encourage federal agencies to use low carbon construction materials for public works projects. In theory, because of its massive purchasing power, the federal government could jumpstart the US market for steel, cement, and other products that are less carbon intensive. Proponents say Buy Clean programs can play a crucial role in curbing carbon pollution from heavy industrial sectors by discouraging high carbon operations and by spurring public and private investment in low carbon alternatives. “We feel this is going to really slow down the pace of adoption of innovative technologies in the United States,” Yong Kwon, a senior policy advisor for Sierra Club’s industrial transformation campaign, told Canary Media.

The federal initiative also aimed to unify the patchwork of Buy Clean programs underway in a handful of states, including California, Colorado, and Washington, and to boost existing efforts by industry groups to compile and share emissions data. Many of these initiatives are expected to continue in the years ahead, although it is unclear how quickly and deeply they can transform industries on their own. “It makes it a lot harder to do,” said Michael Williams, a senior fellow at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress. ​“But I would say that the impact of Buy Clean still has a lot of potential.”

One particular initiative that launched under Biden, the Federal-State Buy Clean Partnership, will move forward through the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of two dozen governors. Through the partnership, 13 states said they will continue to collaborate on and support the procurement of low carbon construction materials in state funded projects.

Buy Clean efforts began a decade ago in California as a way to boost business for local steel producers who were losing out on state contracts to Chinese manufacturers offering cheaper but more carbon intensive metal. Today, the broader Buy Clean concept has evolved to include prioritizing materials made not just from cleaner conventional facilities but also from next-generation projects, including potentially steel mills fueled by green hydrogen or cement plants that use low carbon technologies. About half of the funds from the Buy Clean initiative went to the General Services Administration to procure low carbon construction materials for new buildings and renovation projects. The GSA established environmental reporting requirements for federal contractors and set the first ever ​“low embodied carbon” standards for asphalt, concrete, glass, and steel.

The Environmental Protection Agency last year awarded $160 million in IRA funding to dozens of businesses to develop environmental product declarations that measure and report the carbon emissions associated with extracting, transporting, and manufacturing individual products. Just last month, the Federal Highway Administration granted another $1.2 billion to support 39 state agencies who are on a mission to study, track, and buy cleaner materials for road transportation projects.

Much of that IRA funding has already been disbursed or legally obligated, which makes it much harder for the Trump administration to try to claw it back, yet as of this week, the policy directives and task force underpinning the Buy Clean agenda no longer exist. Executive Order 14057, known as the ​“Unleashing American Energy” order, also directed federal agencies to ​“prioritize cost effectiveness” when procuring goods and services ​“to the greatest extent.”

Figures Lie & Liars Figure

The question, of course, is how is cost effectiveness to be calculated? The rabid actors swirling around the newly anointed president exclude climate damage and health risks from their calculations. They are happy to see communities like Maui or Los Angeles suffer because they are infected with socialist scum from shithole countries but no such indignities must be permitted to besmirch Mar-A-Loco or any Trump-owned properties like the Doral Haven For Rich White Men Country Club. It’s easy to claim victory when you are cooking the books.

Kwon said he’s less concerned about what happens to the federal funding than he is about losing three years’ worth of progress on developing expertise, publishing data, and establishing relationships among government workers, contractors, and manufacturers. The White House website has taken down many announcements and resources related to Buy Clean. It’s unclear whether national databases on emissions inventories and product declarations will remain online and accessible, though the US Climate Alliance said it will house and sustain work related to the federal-state partnership ​“That learning is something that should be safeguarded, along with the money that we’ve already put into the system,” Kwon said. ​“Let’s expand that learning, not waste it.”

Rescinding the Buy Clean program also adds uncertainty for new US facilities that received federal funding to demonstrate low carbon manufacturing methods. Under Biden, six cement projects were selected to receive awards from the Department of Energy to demonstrate everything from carbon capture systems to alternative cement chemistries. Federal agencies were meant to serve as crucial early customers to help lower the risk and open the doors to private buyers.

Sublime Systems, one of the award recipients, is set to receive nearly $87 million to build its first commercial-scale facility in Holyoke, Massachusetts, which is expected to begin producing materials for the market by 2028. The startup has developed an electrochemical process for making cement in a way that doesn’t emit carbon or require high temperature kilns that burn fossil fuels. Joe Hicken, Sublime’s vice president of business development and policy, said that reducing public procurement policies like Buy Clean ​“is a miss for domestic manufacturing and domestic innovation.” Still, he says the company “has been mindful not to rely on it for our business model and financial projections. Companies like Sublime must be able to scale resilient, commercially competitive products that are viable and attractive to all customers.”

For US steel producers, such market competition could push the industry to address emissions from existing and future facilities, even in the absence of a federal Buy Clean policy. The American Iron and Steel Institute, a nonprofit trade group, said it will continue working with its members to document and reduce the carbon emissions associated with making steel. Private sector buyers such as automakers and architectural groups are increasingly looking to source materials with lower embodied emissions, said Kevin Dempsey, the institute’s president and CEO. “It’s not just in the U.S.,” he said. ​“Every international steel conference I go to, people from all over the world are talking about sustainability and steel. What’s the best way to measure [emissions], what’s the right methodology to use, and what are the technologies that can facilitate further emissions reductions going forward?”

Dempsey added that Buy Clean is just one tool for advancing lower emissions industrial products. Another approach, one that could gain traction under the tariff-friendly Trump administration, could be to adopt trade policies that penalize imports of steel made in highly polluting overseas facilities. Making cleaner domestic steel ​“is a competitive advantage for us,” he said.

And while the federal Buy Clean strategy was pivotal, Michael Williams of the Center for American Progress said he expects state agencies to broaden their own Buy Clean strategies to curb industrial pollution within their states. California, Washington, and Oregon are working together to boost the use and production of low carbon construction materials across the region. “You can see this starting to coalesce together into something bigger,” Williams said. “We can still have a pretty substantial impact on public procurement.”

The best way to deal with this deliberate know-nothing nonsense is to direct a blizzard of ridicule at its purveyors. China is beating the world in low carbon technology, whether it is electric cars, wind turbines, or solar power. The West can beat its breast and proclaim its historical superiority, but the truth of the matter is it — and especially the Untied States — have allowed China to obtain a commanding lead in the technologies needed to keep the Earth from becoming a baked potato. Now the US is doubling down on its slothful ways, which will help the Chinese establish and even wider lead in those critical technologies. Well played, Dumb Donald. Well played.