Biden pushes electric vehicle chargers as energy costs spike

President Joe Biden is highlighting billions of dollars in his giant bipartisan infrastructure deal to pay for the installation of electric vehicle chargers across the country, an investment he says will go a long way to curbing planetwarming carbon emissions while creating good-paying jobs.

Biden on Wednesday toured a General Motors plant in Detroit that manufactures electric vehicles. He planned to use the occasion to make the case that the $7.5 billion in the new infrastructure law for electric vehicle chargers will help America get “off the sidelines” on green-energy manufacturing. Currently, the U.S. market share of plug-in electric vehicle sales is one-third the size of the Chinese EV market.

As Biden toured the plant, he noted that the U.S. was not yet leading with electric vehicles, something he believes his infrastructure package and additional investments in clean energy can change.

“China got way ahead of us,” the president said.

The president got a chance to test drive an electric GMC Hummer, which is being sold at a starting price of $108,700. He climbed into the more than four-ton vehicle with a Secret Service agent, starting off slow and then flooring it. He pulled up near waiting reporters and the delegation.

“Anyone wanna jump in the back?” Biden asked.

Two top White House advisers, writing in the Detroit Free Press, said the legislation will help America regain its global competitiveness, which has waned, they contend, “after decades of delay and decay.”

“Nobody knows this better than Detroit, which has been at the heart of American industrial strategy in the past and now can again, which is why President Biden is coming today,” wrote Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan in an opinion column published Wednesday.

Republicans, even some of those who voted in favor of the infrastructure package, are criticizing Biden for being preoccupied with electric vehicle technology at a time when Americans are contending with a spike in gasoline and natural gas prices.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell took the Senate floor Tuesday to make the case that “the Biden administration doesn’t have any strategic plan to snap its fingers and turn our massive country into some green utopia overnight.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has stressed that the administration is looking at “every tool in our arsenal” to combat high gasoline prices, saying that Biden and his economic team are “quite focused” on the issue.

Biden has asked the Federal Trade Commission to monitor gasoline prices and address any illegal conduct being observed and is engaging with countries and entities abroad like OPEC on increasing supply.

Biden went a step further Wednesday, sending a letter asking the FTC chair to consider investigating “whether illegal conduct is costing families at the pump.”