The Biden administration recently moved to relax tailpipe emission rules intended to force motorists to purchase electric vehicles. The decision is a not-so-subtle admission that people don’t want what climate alarmist politicians are selling.
While a final rule is not expected to be published until early spring, it appears Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency will give automakers more time to increase their EV sales and will not require massive sales increases until after 2030.
It’s no coincidence the president is moving in this direction, especially considering it’s an election year.
According to a June 2023 survey by Pew Research Center, 50% of people said they are not likely to consider purchasing an electric vehicle, and the share of the public that said it was interested in purchasing an EV decreased by four percentage points from May 2022.
Nearly six in 10 people said they oppose the idea of phasing out the production of gas-powered vehicles by 2035, as California announced it would do.
It’s clear that motorists want choice in car ownership and are deeply skeptical of EV mandates.
This is even more apparent when you consider that, historically, 17 states have followed along with California’s environmental regulations. However, only nine of these states — Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington — have adopted California’s EV mandates outright, while three others have partially adopted them.
Unlike other environmental rules that are routinely adopted by the states that have bound themselves to California’s regulations, EV mandates find politicians in other states pushing back due to their widespread unpopularity among voters.
This has happened in Connecticut, where regulatory efforts to adopt California-style EV mandates crashed headfirst into Democratic opposition last year, forcing Gov. Ned Lamont (D-CT) to back out of the plan.
In Maine, where the Bureau of Environmental Protection is currently considering the adoption of the clean car regulations starting in 2028, a staggering 80% of the public comments submitted to the agency were in opposition to the rules. A final vote is expected sometime this month.
People are smart, and they’re more than capable of deciding for themselves what kind of car is right for them; they’ve been doing it for more than 100 years. Despite climate alarmist politicians’ best efforts to force their will on motorists, auto manufacturers are now actually scaling back EV production because the demand simply isn’t there.
People aren’t interested in purchasing EVs, even with the various tax credits and subsidies available to them; that should tell politicians everything they need to know about the public’s attitudes in this arena.
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When EVs have innovated to a place where consumers feel more comfortable purchasing them (likely, once they can better afford them), politicians won’t need to cajole them with handouts because the market will work exactly as intended.
Until then, politicians must stop claiming the world is going to end unless low-income families plunge themselves further into debt with an expensive EV purchase. Those who insist they know best and seek to force American consumers to buy EVs do so at their own political peril.
Jacob Posik is a Young Voices contributor and the director of legislative affairs at Maine Policy Institute, a free-market think tank headquartered in Portland, Maine.
