Biden’s EV rules don’t go fast enough for the climate crisis
The following is from a Los Angeles Times editorial:
It may be tempting to look at the Biden administration’s new rules boosting sales of electric vehicles as a big step toward slashing pollution.
But the Environmental Protection Agency rules are more an incremental move, too weak and slow to respond appropriately to the gravity of the unfolding environmental crisis. And that’s a shame, because with a divided Congress, administrative action is the only way for the federal government to do big things.
The administration blew this opportunity by caving to pressure from powerful interests during an election year and settling on a watered-down plan that will allow automakers to build more gas-guzzling vehicles for longer and slow down urgently needed pollution cuts. We’re in the race of our lifetime against climate change and President Joe Biden is driving way below the speed limit.
The final rules impose greenhouse gas pollution limits that will force automakers to ramp up sales of new zero-emission cars and light-duty trucks from about 7% of vehicles sold today to more than 67% by 2032. That’s good, of course, but it’s a more gradual requirement than the EPA first proposed, delaying the steepest increases in electric vehicle sales until after 2030 and granting loopholes that make it easier for manufacturers to comply. That’s a mistake. The longer we wait to toughen these standards, the more cumulative carbon dioxide emissions we spew into the atmosphere.
The administration’s softening of its vehicle emissions proposal is an election-year gift to the auto industry, which has pushed to weaken the rules. It’s also a concession to organized labor, including auto industry workers who are understandably fearful about the move to electric vehicles shifting jobs to nonunion factories with lower wages.
But protecting good-paying union jobs should not have to come at the expense of protecting the environment. The Biden administration should be looking at other ways to smooth the transition, such as building on the slew of clean manufacturing incentives that have begun rolling out under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Biden should be doing all he can to get ahead of the climate crisis and dominate the clean energy economy of the future, not easing off the accelerator in hopes that it could help him win reelection.