RUTHFULLY YOURS

The old joke in which one fellow asks what the socialists used for lighting before candles and the other fellow answers “electricity” could use some updating. Substitute “socialists” for “U.S. Democrats.” But it won’t be just the Democrats using candles, it’s going to be all of us.

When the power goes out, most of us just have to wait until it’s restored to get back to our normal lives. In the meantime, as we wander through a dark house flipping useless switches out of habit, we make sure we don’t open the refrigerator and we put off anything we had planned that requires us to burn electricity. The more-prepared among us, though, buy fossil-fuel-powered generators to avoid interruptions

Their future, though, is in doubt. The Biden administration wants those generators to go the way of the incandescent light bulb.

“Just months after a Biden-appointed regulator teased a ban on gas stoves, the administration is working to enact a rule that would prohibit the manufacturing of nearly all portable gas generators on the U.S. market,” the Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this week.

This proposed rule would limit the amount of carbon monoxide a product can release, establishing a benchmark beyond the reach of all but a few current generators. The Free Beacon says the Consumer Product Safety Commission admits “that 95% of portable gas generators on the market cannot comply with its new standard.”

Should the rule become “law,” industry officials expect a shortage of generators will follow, as manufacturers would have only have six months to develop a compliant design. Under normal conditions, that would take years, according to the Portable Generator Manufacturers’ Association.

While some homeowners use standby generators, which have more permanence about them, to provide power when the lights go out, portables are used as well, with “far more people” choosing them because of price. What the cost-conscious consumers didn’t know when they made their purchases is that one day they would be punished for their choice. But those who have standby generators shouldn’t feel too smug. The Democrats will eventually come after those, too.

We know this because Joe Biden and his party have been on a banning and regulatory spree, targeting gas stoves, washing machines, and refrigerators. Other modern conveniences in the White House sights: water heaters, ceiling fans, and lightbulbs. The justifications for the bans and regulatory impositions are always the same: to cut greenhouse gas emissions and save energy.

Never mind that few of us asked Washington to force us to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and even fewer have asked Washington to hand down energy-savings regulations that raise consumers’ costs. If so, then why is the White House so zealously trying to take us back to a darker era? Maybe Hunter Biden invested the family’s millions in a candle company.