Horowitz: Why House Republicans must remove electric car subsidies and mandates from the budget

Without much fanfare or a vote from Congress, the EPA proposed a rule last week designed to destroy the American automobile and price out most Americans from ever affording the vehicle for freedom and unrestricted movement. Unless Republicans immediately roll back these policies in the appropriation bills, we will all be placed inexorably on the path toward “fifteen-minute cities,” owning nothing, and being content eating bugs paid for with our small bank accounts at the central bank monitored by vaccine passports and ESG.

Last week, the EPA announced its goal of waving its magic wand of regulation and subsidies to ensure that 60% of all cars sold by 2030 and two-thirds by 2032 are electric vehicles. Evidently, a $7,500 tax credit per electric vehicle and billions in subsidies for battery production and charging stations are not enough to destroy the traditional automobile. The EPA now wants to make the emissions standard on cars so prohibitively stringent that it will become a de facto electric vehicle mandate that will achieve the 67% target market share they are gunning for in nine years. Concomitantly, they are adjusting the vehicle fuel mileage standard equivalent for EVs to make the playing field even more favorable for electric vehicles.

But as we’ve always known, promotion of electric vehicles is not a permanent agenda for the climate fascists; it’s merely a temporary grifting operation to juice up a favored industry on the way to abolishing personal cars altogether. Elite statists know that EVs can never replace traditional cars and actually account for most automobiles on the road (they currently account for 5.8% of cars). That is why the new proposed rule also makes EVs more expensive by mandating an eight-year warranty on EV batteries, when they know all too well that even minor damage to those batteries makes them irreparable, meaning the consumer will bear the cost.

As the Wall Street Journal editorial board observed recently:

For many EVs, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents, forcing insurance companies to write off cars with few miles. ... EVs with only a few thousand miles are piling up at salvage yards.

Thus, a requirement for an extended warranty will continue to guarantee that EVs are out of reach of the middle class, even as they ensure that traditional cars are also either too expensive or scarce for them to purchase.

This is on top of all the logistical problems, electric grid capacity challenges, and natural resources needed to transition the world’s cars to freakish EVs. The green grifters know all too well that we will never be able to produce enough lithium, manganese, and cobalt to produce the millions of batteries that would be needed each year to service the same level of automobile ownership in the U.S. that we have today. And the degree to which we can produce a percentage of the requisite supply will enrich China, which controls 78% of global cell manufacturing capacity for EV batteries

Then, of course, there is the issue of the cost of electricity and strain on the grid. Even if the green statists grift their way into turning every inch of America into a charging station parking lot – courtesy of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars – who will pay for the cost of the electricity, which is rapidly becoming more expensive than gasoline?

According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, coal-fired electricity generation in the U.S. for the first quarter of this year was down more than 25%. Coal now accounts for just 17% of the power market, the lowest share ever. Overall, our electricity generation from coal power plants is down by nearly two-thirds since 2008, and we are left with just 24 coal plants, less than a quarter of China’s inventory, even while our recoverable coal assets are enormous – 60% greater than China’s reserves. China, on the other hand, mined 4.5 billion tons of coal last year, an increase of 9% from 2021.

The dearth of coal, of course, is being replaced, in part, by unreliable solar and wind just in time for the surge of electric cars. So while we destroy the auto industry and human freedom by flooding the market (at a steep cost) with electric vehicles, those pushing these policies are also ensuring we have as little electricity-generating capacity as possible. And while we commit energy suicide, China will continue building its own fossil fuel empire while benefitting from a monopoly over our self-immolating electric vehicle fetish that China itself would never adopt. Talk about hanging the last capitalist with the rope he paid for!

So who is going to stop the destruction of our freedom? Republicans roundly repudiated the EPA’s lawless attempt at lawmaking last week, but how do they plan to stop it? Will these same liberal GOP senators like Shelly Moore Capito commit to opposing any appropriation bill that fails to block illegal climate and EV rules? Will they join House conservatives in blocking any debt ceiling increase without the passage of the REINS Act, which would require any costly administrative rule, such as EPA emissions standards, to stand for congressional approval?

Unless we fight the EV climate hell now, within a few years you won’t be replacing your favorite SUV with a Tesla. The political elites will be the ones with the Teslas, while you ride your bike, fully equipped with “eco-friendly” tires.