Republican Senator Proposes Taking Away US EV Tax Credit
A Republican Senator from Wyoming thinks it’s not a good idea to help clean up our air, lead the world in an extremely fast growing industry, and stop global scorching. US Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) has proposed killing off the federal electric vehicle tax credit via a bill he has introduced in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), the “Fairness for Every Driver Act.”
Barrasso seems to be a fan of irony. After his party passed a massive tax cut for the super wealthy and the nearly super wealthy (which has been the party’s modus operandi for decades), he claims that the EV tax credit should be removed because it “largely benefits the wealthiest Americans.” Wait, what?
The senator ignores the massive health savings — which help the poor more than anyone else — from cleaner air. He also ignores that stimulating quicker EV adoption means lowering the cost of batteries more quickly, which means getting electric cars into the hands of the masses more quickly, which means more health savings, financial savings, better quality of life in our cities and suburbs, and a stronger economy.
“My legislation levels the playing field for all drivers across America. Gas, electric, and alternative fuel vehicles use the same roads,” Barrasso claims. Levels the playing field? Gasoline cars have gotten a century of subsidies and continue to be heavily subsidized. As a recent report from the conservative International Energy Agency (IEA) notes, fossil fuels get $300 billion of subsidies a year globally, and those are largely for oil.
There’s more nonsense in the introduction to the bill and in the bill itself, but I’m not going to waste my time on that. This is essentially epic trolling from a powerful member of an oil-controlled party that repeatedly supports pollution over people, supports more cancer over public health, and supports subsidies for fossil fuels but not for clean technologies. Bills like this to pull the plug on EV incentives while retaining oil & gas incentives. Republican Congressmen like Barrasso cut taxes on billionaires who wouldn’t even notice if $10 million was missing from their bank accounts, but then troll the public at large and those of us working to help the middle class and the poor. Well, it is trolling at best, and yet another dishonest, inhumane scheme at worst.
As I noted the other day, at least 67 environmental laws have been repealed under Trump. These counterproductive moves include killing clean water rules, clean air rules, and climate action on the national level. Independent research estimates 80,000 extra health-related deaths per decade due to Trump and the GOP’s environmental policies. The lack of humanity is staggering and nearly unbelievable. But money is a powerful thing, and the addiction to power is as well. Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen take millions of dollars per year from oil & gas companies (see the Open Secrets chart below). Democrats get almost nothing from the oil & gas industry (find the blue in that chart). It’s not hard to see what the oil & gas industry gets in return for its support.
Top image by Gage Skidmore (some rights reserved), blue Chevy Volt by me (Zach Shahan), chart by Open Secrets
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