While eastern Sussex County becomes more affluent and the economy becomes more dependent on the service and tourist industries, the plight of those who work hard in support roles is being overlooked. Your restaurant workers, hotel employees, etc., who find many of their jobs close to the tourist spots near the beaches are hard pressed to find affordable housing. Meanwhile, hundreds of acres of our precious forests are being leveled to build high-end expensive homes that take up a much larger footprint than affordable housing such as apartments and affordable condos.
This clear-cutting also adds greatly to the flooding in tidal inland areas near rivers (such as Milton). Everyone understands that forests and open grassland assist with drainage of heavy rains and tidal flooding. Every time developers obliterate these natural resources and replace them with concrete and asphalt, there is less area for water to drain naturally into the ground. It has to go somewhere. As the words of the song go: "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."
The second way that the struggling working poor are being overburdened is by the government and the DNREC-supported EV mandate. There are so many reasons this mandate is wrong it would take too much space to list here. I would encourage you to read the portion of the article in this newspaper regarding emissions dated Dec. 4, particularly the comments by Rep. Rich Collins of Millsboro where he states, among other things, that opinion polls are strongly against the EV mandate. This newspaper's poll recently showed that only 17% of those polled would consider an EV for their next vehicle purchase.
How does this impact the working poor? Consider the cost of an EV and the ultimate cost of replacing the battery. You may be surprised. The alternative to an EV purchase when the mandate takes effect is to retain your current vehicle with higher and higher repair costs added to the cost of bringing those older vehicles up to the new stricter emission standards of the DMV.
Automakers are losing money on the manufacture of EVs. This shows that nationwide most people don't want an EV.
Who actually profits from the production of electric vehicles? China produces approximately 75% of all EV batteries. They also happen to be the country that produces the most carbon emissions of any country, and over half of their energy comes from coal plants! You may also want to research how EV batteries are made and what natural resources are destroyed in the process of mining for lithium and other components.
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