FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sara Robertson (Sara.Robertson2@mail.house.gov)

Crawford Slams Biden’s Absurd Electric Vehicle Rule 

4/13/2023

WASHINGTON—The Biden Administration announced on Wednesday a new policy to require two out of every three new cars sold in 2032 to be electric vehicles (EVs). The new mandate, to be imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and take effect spring 2024, comes on the heels of plans by President Joe Biden to limit or ban gas stoves, incandescent light bulbs, most current refrigerators and washing machines, inexpensive coal and clean natural gas, and other necessary items.

“President Biden’s war on middle class families continues, and this time, he’s coming for your cars,” said Congressman Rick Crawford, Chairman of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “Why should Joe Biden or some Washington bureaucrat decide what kind of car you can buy?”

Electric vehicles on average run about $20,000 more than gas powered cars, and were fewer than 6% of new cars purchased by Americans in 2022, even with massive taxpayer-funded EV subsidies. (More than 98% of used car sales are gas-powered.) EVs remain substantially a California phenomenon: with 12% of the US population, California accounted for 39% of all EV registrations in 2021.

“In the midst of persistently high inflation and rising interest rates, the president will put the cost of new cars further out of reach in the name of the climate. But EVs pose major environmental concerns of their own,” Crawford added.

According to the Manhattan Institute: “A lithium EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds. [It] typically contains about 25 pounds of lithium, 30 pounds of cobalt, 60 pounds of nickel, 110 pounds of graphite, 90 pounds of copper, about 400 pounds of steel, aluminum, and various plastic components.” And much of this extraction and processing comes from China, which generates more than half of its energy from coal and has notoriously lax environmental standards.

Crawford concluded: “This latest Democrats-know-best mandate is bad news for middle class families. With the average cost of an EV currently more than 40% higher than a gas-powered car, we simply cannot afford more of Joe Biden’s disastrous Green New Deal policies,” Crawford concluded. 

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