No more masks on planes or at airports; Good news on nuclear power; Bad news on infrastructure
On Monday, a judge ruled against the mask mandate for airports and planes. Soon after the ruling came out, virtually every airline announced that masking was optional. Uber and Amtrak soon followed suit. Whether the ruling is right on the merits, i.e., whether the CDC had the authority to continue requiring masks on planes and at airports, is beyond my expertise. That said, I am very glad in terms of the outcome. It is long overdue for that rule to go.
It makes no sense to require masks on planes and at airports when almost no other place requires them. Worse, the requirement was pure theater. Travelers had to wear masks at airports, but not when they were sitting down eating and talking to each other. Masks had to be worn on planes, but not when someone was eating. Masks were required, but they could be any kind. There was nothing science-based about any of that.
Before the rule was struck down, airline executives had requested that it be rescinded. Given that they wanted it gone and announced that masking was optional right after the ruling came out and with so many travelers now going mask-free, I think it is safe to say there was no popular demand for the rule remaining in place. People may have said in polls that they wanted to keep it, but their actions suggest otherwise. Biden himself has said that travelers should be free to choose whether they want to wear a mask. Some of his staff may feel differently, but luckily he is the president and not them.
Judging by the Biden Administration’s actions, it is clear they are happy to see the rule go. They are appealing the decision, but are not asking for a stay of it. They are basically saying that the date the rule was set to expire, May 3, was the final date and they had no intention of extending it any further, ruling or no ruling. I wish the rule had been rescinded a long time ago, but better late than never.
One thing that irked me in listening to Biden Administration officials’ justification for keeping it as long as they did was the claim that it was the CDC’s decision. That is a cop out. The CDC works for the president, not the other way around. The CDC does not have any authority independent of the president. They cannot on their own make anyone do anything. Their role is purely advisory. The president can defer to them, but that is a choice, not a requirement.
Any regular reader of this blog knows that I have nothing but contempt for how the CDC has handled the pandemic from the start. I have written about their failings before so feel free to check it out for more detail. In a nutshell, the CDC has been caught flat footed repeatedly and has failed the most basic task of communicating effectively. Dealing with a pandemic is not something they are cut out to do. The people working there have the lowest risk tolerance imaginable and do not understand that nobody else is like that. They only think about diseases and public health and have no understanding of tradeoffs.
One concern that has been raised about the court ruling is that it could hinder the CDC’s authority to make rules in the future even if the president allows it. That is the idea. The CDC should not be allowed to impose rules on everyone. If we are going to impose any kind of mandates, which may be necessary in the future, that needs to be done by elected officials who are accountable for their actions. Nobody at the CDC is accountable to voters. They do not have to weigh tradeoffs like elected officials do. We have to be able to try to balance competing interests and ultimately it is elected officials who are best positioned to do that. For all the ridicule politicians get, they are better at weighing tradeoffs than virtually anyone else.
At the end of the day, the question about whether to mandate masks is a question of values and tradeoffs. Invoking science only gets you so far and does not provide any definitive answers. The CDC may be right, strictly speaking, in that requiring masks would reduce the likelihood of spreading the virus and that would be the wise course of action to take if that was the only consideration. But that is just one of many considerations. Before vaccines were available, I supported mask mandates. As much as I did not like wearing one, it was justifiable given that many people were vulnerable and it was important to limit the spread of the virus. With vaccines being available, plus antiviral pills, that justification is gone.
Good news on the nuclear power front
Yesterday, the Biden Administration announced a $6 billion effort to save nuclear plants from closing. Several nuclear plants have closed in the last decade and more are scheduled to close in the coming years. That should not be allowed to happen. We need to expand nuclear power much more from where it is today, but first we have to ensure that existing plants stay open.
The money announced was part of the infrastructure bill passed last year. Nuclear power is not only a crucial part of the effort to fight climate change, but also enjoys bipartisan support. In fact, Republicans are more likely to champion it than Democrats are. If Democrats in Congress are really serious about taking action on climate change, there is actually a ton of room to do things on a bipartisan basis. Expanding nuclear power is one of those areas.
Some potentially much bigger news regarding nuclear power is that utilities in many states are looking at replacing coal plants with smaller scale nuclear reactors. I had no idea that was even a thing, but I really hope it works out. Several states, including West Virginia and Indiana, have passed legislation allowing for smaller reactors to be placed at coal plants. Part of the appeal of these efforts is that they would employ workers who currently work at coal power plants so they would not lose their jobs. That would go a long way towards easing resistance to closing down coal plants in many areas.
To be sure, plenty of barriers exist. None of the smaller reactors are operating yet and there may be a lag time between when the coal plants close and when the reactors start working. It will likely be towards the end of the decade before the smaller reactors can become operational and that is assuming red tape does not kill them first.
The major source of red tape is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It is most likely the biggest obstacle given that it has never approved a single reactor in its entire existence. I would think this could be another opportunity for bipartisan action on climate change. It should not be a hard sell to get both parties to agree to simplify the approval process. Democrats would get a win on climate change and Republicans would get a win on keeping coal workers in their states and districts employed. For too long, approval processes have erred excessively on the side of caution. Dealing with climate change will require changing that calculus.
Smaller reactors, should they get approved and work well, can be replicated fairly quickly. That will make deployment much easier. It is inevitable that coal plants will continue to close and anyone promising to keep them open or reopen closed ones is selling a false bag of goods. The reactors offer workers at coal plants a chance to stay employed and to keep using the knowledge and experience they have accumulated. That is an outcome nobody could possibly not want. People want to have jobs that pay well. Satisfying that while fighting climate change is a win-win if there ever was one.
Bad news on infrastructure
Despite the good news of the infrastructure bill providing support for nuclear power plants, there has been some accompanying bad news. The Biden Administration announced guidelines that require all projects financed by the infrastructure bill to use steel and iron made in the US. That sounds so wonderful! Who could possibly be against that?
If you want the bill to be efficient, i.e., finance the most things possible and get the most bang for your buck, requiring everything to be made in the US is a sure way to not do that. Why? Because things made in the US often cost more compared to the same things made in other countries. The infrastructure bill has a set amount of financing available so the more a project costs, the less money will be available for other projects.
The new guidelines are part of the obsession with “Buy American.” It sounds great, but in reality is just a form of protectionism. It works out well for the companies that benefit from it, but it is bad for most everyone else because they are not getting their money’s worth. They are paying more for less. There is certainly nothing wrong with making things in the US and we do plenty of it. If companies here can make some items the most efficiently, then by all means lets buy from them. But that is not the case for every last thing and requiring everything to be made here is a great way to waste money and reduce the bill’s impact.
“Buy American” is basically just another version of Trump’s dubious promise to bring back manufacturing jobs. It is based on outdated thinking and is pure fantasy. The manufacturing jobs from the days of yore do not exist anywhere today. They are not even in China, which has been losing the manufacturing jobs that came in part from the US many decades ago. Those jobs are not going to come back and saying or implying they will be coming back is misleading at best. The one bit of good news with the new guidelines issued is that they offer exemptions from the “Buy American” guidelines. Here’s hoping they wind up negating much of the guidelines’ impact.
In any event, the US does not need to create more jobs right now. I know politicians love to talk about creating jobs and I understand the appeal of it. Who could possibly be against that? The good news is we have plenty of jobs in the US right now. In fact, we have more jobs than we have people looking for jobs. Our policy right now needs to be focused on reducing costs, short-term and long-term, not creating more jobs. This is the best time to find a job in a long, long time.
Another worry I have is that the Biden Administration this week restored environmental review requirements requiring projects involving the federal government to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This reverses a decision made under Trump. The new rules require projects such as highways and pipelines to undergo reviews to determine their impacts on climate change. In addition, the new rules allow local communities affected by any such project to have more input in the approval process.
NEPA is a major impediment to action on climate change. It has been used to block all kinds of environmentally friendly projects. It is an environmental review law, not an environmental protection law. NEPA does nothing to prevent factories from polluting air or water. What it does is require years of paperwork. By giving greater input to local communities, the new rules will only make such projects harder to implement. Local input sounds wonderful, but in practice the only people who will take part in it are NIMBYs of all sorts who do not want anything to change.
The infrastructure bill by definition will involve the federal government and so every single project it finances could potentially be challenged under NEPA. That will mean any challenged project could take years just to get started on and have huge cost overruns. The Biden Administration is risking sabotaging its own legislation. If the goal is to upgrade our infrastructure, everything from highways to ports to water pipes, years of delay and cost overruns are a great way to make that extremely difficult.
The intentions behind the new rules are good. I worry that in practice they will have the opposite effect of helping with climate change and infrastructure. I especially worry about giving local communities more input. If the new rules work out like other such provisions have in the past, it will be a small group of NIMBYs that hold up vital projects for years and maybe even prevent many of them from happening at all. Dealing with climate change requires a substantial reduction in the scope of NEPA.