Driving Into Oblivion – Understanding EV Mandates – with Tom Pyle – [Ep. 166]

Linda J. Hansen:  Welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101® Breakroom Economics Podcast. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host and the author of Prosperity 101®- Job Security Through Business Prosperity: The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck, and the creator of the Breakroom Economics Online course, the book, the course and the entire podcast library can be found on Prosperity101.Com. I seek to connect boardroom to break room and policy to paycheck by empowering and encouraging employers to educate employees about the public policy issues that affect their jobs. My goal is to help people understand the foundations of prosperity, the policies of prosperity, and how to protect their prosperity by becoming informed, involved, and impactful. I believe this will lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement and retention, and an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. Listen each week to hear from exciting guests and be sure to visit Prosperity 101.Com.

Thanks for joining with me today. Let's take a road trip. You've got everything packed, your destination is in your GPS, and you set off on your business trip, family gathering, or vacation. All is going along fine. You're enjoying the ride in your new electric vehicle until oh, wait. What's that? Why are you stopped? What's happened? It's not the engine. What is it? Upon closer review, you find your vehicle was stopped by the government because you overused your carbon allotment. Or maybe you were stopped because you posted something on social media they didn't like. Does this seem crazy? I wish it was. Here with me today to discuss this potential scenario is Thomas Pyle. Tom Pyle is the president of the American Energy Alliance and the Institute for Energy Research. For the sake of time, I will not go into his bio because he has been a repeat guest. Tom is a good friend, and I look to him so much for advice on energy issues. And I'm so glad, Tom, that you're back with us today. Thank you for joining with the podcast again today.

Tom Pyle:  Of course. Happy to be here. Sad that we're here talking about this, but definitely happy to be with you again, Linda.

Linda J. Hansen:  Yes, always. It's just always great to see you and to talk about these issues. And that intro seems crazy. It seems like, how could this possibly be happening? But you and I know that this is a possibility, and when we decided to have you back on the podcast, we wanted to talk about electric vehicles and so many more things in the energy industry and the world of government regulation of energy and how it applies to the individual and their rights and freedom. So where would you like to begin?

Tom Pyle: Well, let me start. Because the Biden Administration finally released a fairly significant rule or regulation out of the Environmental Protection Agency last week. What it would essentially do is force automakers to produce roughly two thirds of any new passenger vehicles, new cars, roughly two thirds, would have to be all electric by the year 2032. Now, how do they do that? They have this thing called the Cafe law. The corporate average fuel economy law. It was set up in the 1970s as a way to help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But what they have done over the years is they have manipulated this rule, this fuel efficiency rule, to make it harder and harder and harder for automakers to comply with the rule without making electric vehicles. Because they, the Biden administration is taking their marching orders from the green left. The environmental community the environmental community hates coal, oil and natural gas. We've talked about this in the past. They want us off of these resources completely. So in essence, what they want to do is take away our hydrocarbon based economy, which has made life pretty prosperous. Right? Has made our lives pretty darn good over the years. It has made our lives longer through the medicines, refrigeration, the petrochemicals, the things that these resources produce, hundreds and hundreds of uses, right? They want us to go off of those and they want us to move towards, I would argue, is a minerals based economy because electric vehicles require huge amounts of rare earth material minerals, things like cobalt, lithium, a whole host of different types of metals that you have to mine, okay? They're not reliable. Battery technology is not still not reliable. We could spend the whole podcast talking about all the grand plans that the Fords and the GMs of the world have had and all the problems that they've run into. For example, Ford is boasting about their F 150 electric car. They just announced recently that they had to halt production of that car because the battery was screwed up, and they have no idea when they're going to resume production. Now, to go to two thirds of passenger cars being electric by 2032 would have to take the current fleet, which is roughly five to 6%, up to 67 or 68%. Now, what's the big deal? You say electric cars are cool. They're great. They're wickedly expensive, Linda.

They cost about $60,000 per car on average, okay? Most of the vehicles that you want to get into don't even start until like, 80, $85,000. These cars are what I call luxury lifestyle products, much like those fancy watches that cost thousands of dollars that none of us can afford. In many cases, they're the fourth or fifth car for some people. But the government, this administration, is fixated on forcing the auto industry to go all electric. Now, do I have sympathy for the automakers? A little bit, but not much because they have largely gone along with this over the past decade or so. They have largely said, fine, you want us to make electric vehicles? Just pay us. And so how they have been paid is by getting subsidies from the federal government, from state governments, from local governments. They have subsidized this shift. Now they're taking it to the next level and trying to force it down our throats. Now, why is this all a problem? Because the technology is not there. Most people aren't familiar or comfortable with these cars. They're way more expensive. As I mentioned, they're not as reliable, and they have all kinds of problems. Every time you read something about them, you see more and more problems with them, right? Most people who live in the real world use their vehicles for their jobs, right? Construction, HVAC folks and things like that. They all need diesel engines to get around or to move stuff. And we've seen time after time that these cars are not as reliable and not as powerful. So there's all kinds of problems with it. But the biggest problem goes back to what you were saying in the beginning. This is the beginning of the government telling us what kind of cars we can drive. Another example, they've been pushing us a ban on gas stoves, what kind of stoves we can use, right? This is government. Where is it in the Constitution that says article what says, thou shalt determine what consumers can drive? They've gone way out of control. But they also have a motive here, because to get to that number by 2032, they would require so much mineral and materials that we don't even produce here.

There isn't even enough to meet not only our numbers, but global like. There's other governments around that are trying to force this issue. So what does that mean? Linda? It means there are less cars that are going to be available on the market for us to even buy. And what that means is they're going to be even more expensive. And so they're socking it, punching the poor in the face. They're punching seniors in the face. They're punching the middle class in the face. And what they're telling them is, let them take the bus. Right? Let them eat cake. The real agenda of the Greens is to force us out of cars altogether. They want us to live in some little house in the prairie utopian world that never existed. And on top of that, when you electrify everything, it leads to potentially exactly what you described in the very beginning of the podcast, which is they can turn them on and off. They can decide whether or not you're a good citizen for whatever social things that they want to do. They want to do something called vehicle mile traveled, right? So they want to charge you instead of the gas tax. They want to charge you for the vehicles that you the miles that you travel. That means they have to track the miles you travel. That means they track where you go. Why on earth would we want the federal government being able to manage to be able to peek into our movements on a daily basis? It's bad enough, like you said, with our credit cards and everything else, right? So anyways, there's just a whole host of problems with this. The main one is it's out of reach for most Americans who are trying to get their first car so they can go back and forth to a job, so they can have freedom and have opportunity. It's way too much government intervention in our lives telling us what kind of cars we can drive. And it just goes against all of the things that you and I believe in, in terms of principles and values and free markets and everything else. It is a doozy. It is a doozy of a rule, and folks are going to start to feel the impacts of it in a really short period of time unless we stop it, which we at AA and I are fully intended to devote a lot of our mind share to doing. So that was a really long session there, but I wanted to sort of lay out all the situation, the foundation of the problems that we're having with this stuff.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, I appreciate the expanded information, and I'm sure the listeners do, too. I'm always amazed when I hear from listeners about different issues that I promote on the podcast, and they tell me they've never heard of this. Mainstream media doesn't cover certain angles to different issues. Of course. They only want people to hear what they want them to hear and to get people funneled into the areas where they can be controlled. You mentioned about the miles traveled and things we look at the Global Society, World Economic Forum, World Health Organization. All of this working at this one. World Globalist Movement, the Great Reset, all of that. They want people down into 15 minutes, cities where you can just walk everywhere and you can be monitored. I mean, in China, they have the social credit score. They have video monitoring everywhere. I mean, everyone is monitored all the time. I mean, Georgia Orwell was a prophet, but his 1984 didn't even go as far as what we're already experiencing today. And if we think it sounds crazy, it's because it is crazy. But it is a fact. This government surveillance is everywhere. Not only is it going to be our cars, our stoves, our air conditioners, all these different ways that we power our lives, but our currency. I've talked some about the central bank digital currency, not having any cash, no cash.

So what you were talking about the young person getting the first car to go to a job or whatever. I think about my kids, their first cars were like $500. That made them earn their own money to get their first car, pay their insurance, pay, their own gas. And they're too young for at that point, too young for a credit card or something, so cash was king and these are important things. It's important milestones too, and for the government to say, well, no, you can't have that $500 old Toyota that's been through seven other people before you as you learn to manage money and drive and hold down a job. We're just limiting freedom. We're limiting choices. And I'm so glad you brought up the stoves, because I think people think of the electric vehicles and those mandates being kind of far off. So they're not touching our lives right now. They're not touching our lives right now. But every time I turn on my gas stove, I think of what this administration is talking about regarding gas stoves. And I know that in some areas of the country, they're already putting in regulations that if there's new construction, new homes being built, gas lines are not allowed to be run to the homes. I mean, this is insanity. And especially even in areas where gas is used for heating or cooling, this is life threatening. This is life threatening. We're looking at our entire energy grid being upended by these crazy policies. And I'm glad you mentioned that there is a way to stop it, but before we talk about how to stop it, go in a little bit more to the whole gas stove.

Tom Pyle: Yeah. This one pleasantly surprised me, because the invited administration earlier in the year floated a trial balloon where they said, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a guy named Richard Trump, who, by the way, is the son junior, is the son of the big labor leader, Richard Trump Senior. He he tweeted out a video saying that we got to take a look at these gas stoves and the safety of them because they're causing all kinds of health problems in children. He used a very dubious study that we've thoroughly debunked and Linda, I can send you that. We can put that in the show notes for folks, which basically aggregated all these different emissions from gas stoves in little tiny apartments in Europe and extrapolated that to the United States and said, this is a problem, so we need to really think about banning these things. Man, that caught fire, right? I was very surprised and pleasantly surprised at the level of opposition to that because all the things you said I mean, people love gas stoves, right? I love gas stove. I love to cook, and I'm happy to explore other options later on, but I don't want to be forced to change my mind by the government. And also, they're more expensive, and they suck up more electricity. And this is, again, this agenda is sort of this fantasy notion that we can electrify everything and power it with wind and solar and store and battery storage. Now they want to replace all our coal plants, our gas plants, with wind and solar. The only way you can store that is either with backup hydro, backup gas, or batteries. Well, if you're going to make batteries to store power, that is intermittent from wind and solar. When the wind doesn't blow, doesn't produce electricity. When the sun doesn't shine, solar doesn't produce electricity. You're now doubling the demand for the minerals and the materials that go into the batteries. So now you're sort of forcing this accelerated market for batteries both in EVs and in electricity storage. There isn't enough material. What does that mean? There's less of it.

You can't produce what doesn't exist. So, again, going back to electrification of everything is a recipe for dependence on China, which we've talked about because China controls 80% of the of the mining and the materials and more importantly, the processing of these of these battery components and solar panels and things like that. So our government, right now, their top agenda is to force us into electric cars and to exchange our newly hard fought energy independence with an utter dependence on China, which has shown that they do things in retaliation for countries that they don't like or that don't play ball with them. And I'll give you a perfect example. They let their people starve and die and freeze to death last winter because they had a spat, because Australia had the audacity to say that COVID was from a leak, a lab leak, and that the Chinese were covering it up. So they suspended their imports of coal for months and months and months during a cold snap in China, which killed thousands and thousands of their own people. So if they're willing to kill their own people to achieve a political objective, what do you think they're going to do to the United States once we're hooked on Chinese minerals and materials? So it flies in the face of our freedom, our personal choice. It invades the most minute things in our lives. Our cars, which are deeply personal. Right. People have preferences for vehicles for various reasons. Soccer moms need minivans. Right. Middle agers like me, who have a midlife crisis, want a Corvette, maybe, who knows? Right. But they won't be available to us. Right. And the last thing and the most dangerous thing is that we are literally banking on China to provide us with what we would need to power our economy. And then going back to your point about encroachment and making sort of forcing behavior changes, if you don't play ball, we're going to turn off your car. Right. It sounds ridiculous, like you said, but we're heading in that direction, right?

Linda J. Hansen: We are.

Tom Pyle: Direction.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, we are and it's been my understanding that a lot of these new cars are being manufactured with kill switches in them so that they can be deactivated, they can be stopped from a remote location.

Tom Pyle: It's just a moving computer.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, that's really what it is. It's very dystopian, in a sense, but it's here and it's now, and we need to stop it. I interviewed someone recently who called electric vehicles, coal powered cars, and people don't think about that. You mentioned about how the electrification of all these things is supposedly supposed to be so good, while we're relying on these minerals, not to mention how the minerals are mined, and the human rights.

Tom Pyle: Abuses, and the child labor and slave labor.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes, the slave labor that is used and the health and wellness of the miners is so impacted. I mean, this is just a travesty. But also you can't have large manufacturing facilities that manufacture vehicles Backups, helicopters, planes. You can't have these large manufacturing facilities that just run on wind and solar. I mean, it is not even well.

Tom Pyle: All you have to do is look at Europe and see the mess that they've created there just as a foreshadowing. But also, you can't dig dirt with an EV, right? I got a power blower, I got an electric power blower. It's perfect. The batteries, the technology has improved enough that it gets the job done. It's a twelve minute job, right? That's it. And then it's done. And if you get into the charging, just an example, the average range for a 2021 gas powered vehicle is about 400 miles. Okay. On a tank, you run out, you fill it up, it takes three minutes, four minutes, and right. If you run into the store and get a pack of gum and Pepsi, it takes you longer than it does to fill the tank. And then you're gone. Right. Another 400 miles. The median full charge for 2021 EV is about 230, about half, and it takes 20 to 30 minutes. And that's with a fat. Those are with some of the faster chargers.

Linda J. Hansen: And that's if you can find a charger.

Tom Pyle: If you can find one. Exactly. And the government has a solution for that too. They're taking our tax money and they're paying people to build charging facilities around the country. Like, if this is such a great thing and everyone wants it, why is the government paying to paying people to do it? Why is the government mandating it? You got to ask that. Well, the answer is they just don't know what they want, or they don't know what's good for them, or they don't know what's good for the environment. Right. It goes back to the point you made in the beginning. That's the start of it. That's the beginning of it. And then it's like, well, you're too stupid to make your own decisions, so we have to make them for you. Right. Get in line. It's terrible stuff. It's all across the board. It's terrible stuff. I don't fault anyone who wants an EV. If you want one more power to you. I have a dear friend who just retired from IR who owns a Tesla. He owns a Tesla because he has trouble, he's got a lot of bad arthritis and he has trouble driving. And the auto drive features, the features of the Tesla for that kind of stuff is good for him. So he was happy to buy it, right? If it makes sense, do it. But don't make me. Don't tell me what choices I should make for myself and my family.

Linda J. Hansen: Exactly.

Tom Pyle: I think that's why the gas dope thing really resonated. And I think that's why as this thing starts to ratchet up, if it ever is fully implemented, people are going to feel the pain and there's going to be a backlash. I just hope we don't get there. I hope we kill this stuff beforehand. And that means doing the necessary hard work of educating folks like on this podcast and then those folks engaging and writing their rep saying don't tell me what kind of car to buy. Right? Write your rep, say oppose this regulation. Tell the Biden administration, hell no. I want my pry my gas power car out of my cold dead hands, right? We've got to activate and energize and protect our freedoms even in these goofy weird regulations and things like that. Because once they're gone, it's impossible to get them back.

Linda J. Hansen: You brought up a really good point that it's coming and we have an opportunity. Now, I was just going to ask you before you even said that, my next question was going to be what can listeners do now to make sure this does not become reality for everyone? This is already here, this technology is here. They're already wanting to implement it. They're already pushing this. And you mentioned earlier in the podcast how we had become energy independent. We have the oil, we have everything we need to be energy independent and we proved we could do so. But now with this administration, now we've become dependent on other nations, which is risking our national security and we are following these crazy policies that are limiting our freedom. And so what can people do? Now you mentioned educating people, writing to your senators, your congressmen, really getting everything out to people so that they can become aware. But there may be people listening who want more information. I know they can go to your website, Institute for Energy Research and American Energy Alliance. We'll make sure we give the web addresses. But you have great articles there about not only electric vehicles, gas stoves and all these regulations that come upon us. I call them regulations without representation because regulations are something that are imposed and not necessarily voted on in Congress or had any input from individual citizens, but they're just imposed upon us. But we the people and we the people of America who know what's going on can actually hopefully put a roadblock intended, put a roadblock here and stop this from becoming the reality.

Tom Pyle: Yeah. So we try to American Energy Alliance to give people tools to make it easier for them to do that kind of stuff. So eventually, if we haven't have it posted yet, we're going to have a link where you can write your rep and you just plug in your zip code and your members will pop up and you can write the letter right there and send it in. Write your car company if you love GM, tell them stop. Stop them. Insanity, right? General Motors is destroying it is destroying itself. It has been one of the worst offenders, in my view, of playing along with the government to where the point that this what I call this sort of Chinese style industrial policy that's taking place in the United States where big companies no longer care about their consumers or, or their customers. They're just trying to please their masters in Washington, chastise them, and say this is not America. This is not baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet anymore. Right? I don't want you to do this to me. Don't force me to not buy your cars anymore or whatever your brand is. Write them. Share this information with folks. It’s coming, folks, whether you like it or not, it's coming here. Yes, thank you. It's here. And if the auto companies what they do this is the other irony. They have stated this publicly. In order to provide for the electric vehicles that the government is asking us, asking, quote, unquote, to make we have to lay workers off. They're laying off workers in order to comply with these rules. That doesn't sound like progress to me. Right. They're losing billions of dollars on these cars. Ford just announced they took a 3 billion with a b dollar loss on their EV division. How do they make up for that? They increase the cost of the cars that we like to buy. So there's a hidden subsidy on the cars that we like, the SUVs or whatever it is. And that is increasing the cost of the gas powered vehicles as well. And we could spend a whole podcast talking about this environmental stuff. It's a red herring. It's a canard. It's not legitimate. It's not legitimate. Everything has an environmental trade off. Everything, every decision we make has an environmental trade off. The amount of mining that needs to take place, the processing of these materials creates toxic sludge. Where are we going to store all this stuff? Is it going to be in a landfill or are landfills going to be Superfund sites when these batteries, you know how batteries work, right? We all have them in our phones. They start to drain once the juice is gone. It's increasingly less efficient over time. And that's exactly the same as these batteries. The technology is not different.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, well and you talk about all of these different things and I think about impacting the environment. We've looked at what's been happening with our infrastructure. This is a whole another thing, a whole another episode we can talk about. And you and I have discussed many things over the different episodes. But the amount of train derailments the Biden administration had this big infrastructure bill. We were going to make sure everything infrastructure was okay. But in reality, what happens is consumers, taxpayers, individuals, the moms and dads, the young people who are with their first job, we are getting fleeced right and left. We're not only providing the tax money for the subsidies, but then we're being forced to pay higher prices for things. We have fewer choices and our whole life is being upended and they're giving the bill to us. It's coming out of our pockets. While the government goes into more debt, global government just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. We're giving up our sovereignty, our energy security, our individual freedom. It is just a hornet problem.

Tom Pyle: Doesn't sound that good to me.

Linda J. Hansen: Right. The thing that gives me hope and for any I know, the thing that gives me hope is my faith. And I just remember God is still on the throne. And if I look back through history and I look in Scripture, he's overthrown kingdoms. And for people who don't know the Bible or whatever, there's a story about the Tower of Babel where they were building this tower and they were going to be like God and they were all going to fulfill their goals, and they felt they had so much power, and he just pretty much took care of that right and dispersed them and things. And I just keep praying that that's what will happen with this globalist agenda and all of the people who are working in lockstep to control everyone. But there's more of us than there are of them. And the problem is that the majority is silent and we have to speak up. So listeners, if there's ever been a time where you think, oh, maybe I should actually be a person who writes my senator, maybe I should actually be a person who calls my congressman, maybe I should go to those office hours when they're in the area, we all get the postcards. We all get that. And most people just go on about their daily life and they don't think about it. But it's time for the majority of Americans who are getting fleeced right and left with all of this that is taking away their freedom. It's time for us to stand up and make a difference. And before I forget, I do want to just add we always like to say, like, employers, employees, how does this affect businesses? How can employers help employees understand this? When you were talking about electric vehicles, I was thinking about all of the companies that have fleets, the trucking companies, the companies that have traveling salespeople and they have company cars, they have fleets. Rental car companies. It just goes on and on and on. The effect that this will have not only on individuals, but on businesses and then the people that work for those businesses, it's crazy.

Tom Pyle: It's the small businesses that get hit the hardest because they don't have ironically, they don't have those massive fleets because if you buy in bulk so. To speak. You can get a discount, right? It's those mom and pop companies that have two or three trucks that are going to get hit the hardest because they have to pay way more for them. There's more maintenance. Their profits are getting sucked into just trying to get back to where they were when things were great, when they had a reliable, powerful vehicle. I want to go back to the one other thing you said. These folks are not don't get all intimidated by these politicians. I've spent 30 plus years in Washington. I've worked on Capitol Hill. I've worked for very powerful people. I've seen all of them come and all of them go. Trust me, they ain't all that in a bag of they're not all that they're narcissists and they've got big egos, but they pay attention to the pulse, right? The good ones put their finger out and sense the public. And I'll give you a perfect example. One of the biggest culprits of all of this is a gal named Debbie Dingell. He's a congresswoman from Michigan, and her husband was John Dingell, who was a famous politician. Same seat how that goes. She's been the main driver of all this, pardon the pun. She said after the rule came out, she said, quote, everybody cares about global warming, which isn't necessarily true, but I'm hearing from too many people in this country, I mean, strong Democrats, that they can't afford an electric vehicle. So it has an impact. Don't feel like you got to know everything. Be an expert. Just be you. Just be you and go and tell your story. And that is more powerful and more effective than all the stats and figures and blah, blah, blah that you could bring to the table. Just tell your story. And that I'm telling you, folks, that has an impact.

Linda J. Hansen: And that's a great way for us to wrap up. I mean, listeners, just be you. You don't have to be an expert. You have to know enough to realize how this will affect you. But don't be afraid. Remember, those people put their pants on one leg at a time, just like you do, and they have doubts, insecurities. I mean, they're just human, just like we are, right? And just because their name is in the news doesn't make them any better than the person who is working behind the counter at the local fast food place. We are all important, and we all make up the fabric of our society. So listeners, please tell your story. Like Tom said, don't be intimidated. And you can go to the websites. Institute for Energy Research, American Energy Alliance. Could you give the websites, Tom, and help you?

Tom Pyle: Yeah, it's instituteforenergyresearch.org So it's all one word and then americanenergyalliance.org, right? And once you get on there, you get those annoying pop ups, but sign up, and then you'll get this stuff delivered to your inbox so you don't have to hunt around, but just spend a little time. Energy matters. Energy is everything, especially in this country, because we take care of our workers, we have a high labor costs, we compete globally on affordable and reliable energy. And your own government is trying to take it away. Your own government is trying to make you pay more for the stuff that you used to count on, used to take for granted that when you flip the switch, it went on when you press the start button. Now. But in the old days, when you turn the key, your car ran, right? You could depend on that. You could spend your mind share worrying about the stuff that matters, like figuring out what to do with your kids and how to make them better and stuff like that. So don't let this government, these bureaucrats and lawyers take that away from you.

Linda J. Hansen: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Tom. I know I will have you back again sometime in the future, but it's always great to have you on the podcast. And listeners, please do sign up for their newsletters and keep listening to the podcast. Make sure you subscribe to Prosperity 101® so that you can get every episode. And if you go on the website Prosperity 101® dot and go to the podcast tab, you can just put in the search bar Tom's name and Tom Pyle, and his last name is spelled Pyle. And you can see all of the episodes that we've done. You talked about being able to turn on the switch, and I think one of the episodes we did, it was during a big blackout or brownout in California, and I think the title of that one was Green New California Will Your State Be Next? And we've done several episodes focusing on different areas of the energy industry, but all are educational, and even if one was done a couple of years ago, it's still very relevant, so please go back. And he was really a trooper. One of them he did while he was very sick with COVID So make sure and listen to that one. But I really appreciate all that tom has shared the work of their organization, and it's really important. So go to Prosperity 101. Com, hit the podcast tab, subscribe to all the podcasts, but then also search for his name and you can see all of the episodes that he has done with me, and you will get a really good, broad understanding of energy issues. So when you do show up at that town hall with your senator, your congressman, or your state legislator, you will have a little more information where you can feel confident to share your thoughts on this issue. So thank you again, Tom. Thank you for helping us drive with Freedom to cook on our gas stoves with Freedom, and thank you for all that you do to protect freedom, especially regarding the energy industry.

Tom Pyle: Oh, thank you so much.

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you.

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you again for listening to the Prosperity 101® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share, and leave a great review. Don't forget to visit Prosperity101.com to access the entire podcast library to order my newest book, Job Security Through Business Prosperity: The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck or to enroll you or your employees in the Breakroom Economics online course. You can also receive the free e-book, 10 Tips for Helping Employees Understand How Public Policy Affects Their Paychecks. Freedom is never free. Understanding the foundations of prosperity and the policies of prosperity will help you to protect prosperity as you become informed, involved, and impactful. I give special thanks to our sponsors Matthews Archery, Inc. and Wisconsin Stamping & Manufacturing. Please contact us today at Prosperity101.com to let us know how we can serve you. Thank you.