GOP rides EV opposition hobby horse

When I bought my new electric car last year I named it Holly, after state Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, who has been out in front of the GOP’s use of proposed Connecticut EV mandates as a political wedge issue.

I know Cheeseman is way too smart to believe some of the more outrageous GOP talking points about EVs she has used, like saying they put drivers at risk of electrocution or that businesses might have to install a charger for each employee.

EVs are now part of the culture wars, and Connecticut Republicans are using them very effectively as a scare tactic, just as they successfully scored a political win by stopping tolls.

Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, as with his reasonable tolls proposals, is having a hard time dragging his party over the line toward Connecticut’s adoption of California clean air standards and its faster timetable, with a 2035 deadline, for requiring new cars to be electric or hybrid. Gas cars would still be on the road for many years after that.

Never mind that Connecticut, despite pollution that leaves it woefully in violation of federal clean air standards, has fallen behind much of the rest of the Northeast in adopting the so-called California standard of more aggressive pollution controls for cars.

Connecticut voters, legislators sense, are more susceptible to GOP fear mongering about the government coming after your polluting gas guzzler than they are to arguments that the pollution is not only contributing to global warming but is literally making us sick, the cause of debilitating asthma among seniors and children.

The argument against clean cars makes me think of smokers, in the early days of consciousness about smoking’s horrific health risks, saying they should be allowed to continue to blow smoke in offices, restaurants and other public spaces.

EVs are part of a necessary and important bridge to a better, safer and healthier future. Nothing really good for you is usually easy.

Lamont, despite his popularity in the state, has not been a very good preacher for this new future, which he wholeheartedly supports. At least he doesn’t seem to be turning the tide of public opinion in his state.

His administration made some good arguments on a pending bill that would create a council to study ways to better transition to an EV future.

Connecticut needs to keep improving charging infrastructure, for instance, and find a way to tax EVs to replace the gas tax that fuels roads spending.

Lamont’s agencies argue in testimony to the legislature on the pending bill that a timely transition to EVs

will prevent tens of thousands of child asthma attacks and save $1.4 billion in health care costs by 2050.

The arguments based on science, though, were lost in the public hearing testimony on the study bill by the overwhelming avalanche of submitted opinions in opposition, fueled by GOP talking points about battery fires and the lack of charging stations.

The bill itself, which seems to have a rocky future, was a retreat from proposals to adopt the California standards that exist in neighboring Northeast states, which contend with the same levels of pollution.

The Republicans have argued they don’t even want to study that, that the bill is a Trojan horse for tougher standards.

I get it. When your party is busy denying aid to Ukraine, blocking gun controls to curb mass shootings, pushing abortion bans and peddling lies about how the 2020 election was stolen, you probably want to cast about for things voters can sink their teeth into and get angry about, like the government taking away their V8s.

I paid almost less for my American-built Tesla car than a pretty ordinary Subaru.

It’s a pleasure to drive and much cheaper to run and maintain than gas cars. Not only have I not been electrocuted but I’ve never spent much more than 20 minutes or $30 at an easy-to-find charging station on an hourslong road trip.

Drivers of gas cars spend almost as much time standing next to a pump, squeezing a nozzle and watching the gallons and dollars roll higher.

I’d welcome the representative from East Lyme to join me any time for a ride. She can drive.