Senator Ricketts to Fight New Emission Rules

By Gordon HopkinsOn the same day the White House announced new emission standards for light-duty and medium-duty vehicles, intended to divert the U.S. auto market more toward electric vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrids vehicles, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-Nebraska) announced his plans for legislation intended to block those very rules.Ricketts' ResponseOn Wednesday, March 20. 2024, Senators Ricketts and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), both members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, issued a joint statement on the new standards, “This rule is delusional. This is the (President Joe) Biden administration’s attempt to get rid of the internal-combustion engine without congressional authority. Together, we will be introducing Congressional Review Act legislation to overturn Biden’s EV mandate. Congress must take action to keep vehicle costs down, protect our free-market economy, and defend consumer choice. We can’t allow Biden to make us more reliant on foreign adversaries like China who control the critical minerals needed for electric vehicles.“This rule just doesn’t work. Access to a vehicle is a pathway out of poverty for tens of millions of working-class Americans. Biden’s rule will make it harder for them and all Americans to buy and maintain a vehicle. This rule will also create an energy and supply-chain crisis. We lack the power generation, infrastructure, and critical minerals needed to make Biden’s mandate work. Most importantly, current EV technology will not work for states like Nebraska or Alaska. Extreme cold, isolated communities, and long-distance drives will make car graveyards a reality across America.”New Car SalesLast year the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rule that was intended to ensure two-thirds of all vehicles sold were electric by the end of this decade. The rule announced on Wednesday falls short of that goal.According to Kelley Blue Book, EVs accounted for just 7.6 per cent of new car sales. The new rule's target is 35 to 56 percent for EVs and 13 to 36 percent for plug-in in 2032.Charging StationsOne of the problems cited by opponents of EVs is the lack of charging stations. The day before the new emission standards were announced, the White House issued a statement announcing, “new actions to lower the cost of electric vehicles (EVs) for Americans and build a convenient, reliable, Made-in-America EV charging network.”The statement said, in part, “Since the President took office, EV sales have more than quadrupled, with more than four-and-a-half million EVs on the road. EV ownership is more affordable than ever before, with prices down over 20 percent from one year ago. The number of publicly available charging ports has also grown by over 70 percent, with 170,000 publicly available EV chargers across the country, putting us on track to deploy 500,000 chargers by 2026 – achieving the President’s goal four years early.”The White House also reported, “Departments of Transportation and Energy are announcing $325 million in new investments this week across three programs to increase the reliability and resilience of publicly accessible chargers, advance EV technologies, and support workforce development for EV charging deployment and maintenance. This new funding for EV chargers will repair and replace existing, non-operational chargers across the country; reduce costs for deploying charging in underserved communities; and cut battery costs. These investments follow the $623 million in awards announced last week to deploy public charging in communities and fill gaps in the national network.”

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