America's Talking - ‘Ambitious’ Biden Regulation Would ‘Force’ Most Americans Out of Gas Cars, Critics Say

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

Will the Biden administration’s latest energy regulations force Americans out of gas vehicles and into more expensive electric cars? Lawmakers in the U.S. House held a hearing Wednesday tackling that key question. The hearing, held by the Oversight Committee’s Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee, focused on newly proposed Environmental Protection Agency tailpipe emission rules that the federal agency itself called “ambitious.” Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America and Focus, powered by the Center Square. I am Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper. Dan, I have to ask you. Oh, boy. You recently received a little award. Do you want to tell us about that briefly? Not really.

Do I have to? Great. Yeah, you do, actually. It's really, it's not an award. It was just a recognition, editor and publisher magazine, which for years has been sort of the preeminent magazine. covering the news, particularly the newspaper. We're not a newspaper, of course, at the Center Square, the Center Square.com, or a news website. Just me and me as one of, I think it was 12

editors across the country who were doing good things. I consider this a staff award. Casey, I'll even put you in on that because of the great things we're doing at the Center Square. Cover all 50 states. We, of course, with you, our Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief, we cover the federal government. And as a Newswire service, we share our content with other media outlets who don't have the resources to cover what we do. That said, our listeners don't care about that kind of stuff, Casey. Well, congratulations. Thanks for the credit.

And I've always been in awe of your humility, Dan. So thanks for sharing it. But yeah, we do have news. So I'll let you take us there. So you wrote this week about new Biden administration proposed regulations regarding the automobile industry and their goal to essentially have two-thirds of all new light duty and 46% of all new medium-duty vehicle sales by. 2032 being electric vehicles. And there's been some pushback on that. Tell us about the new regulations

and what the concerns are. You're right, Dan, it's been very controversial and a lot of concerns have been raised about it just to quickly lay out how this happens. It's not like President Biden can just announce, hey, we have a new regulation starting tomorrow. There's a long, there's a very lengthy complex process by which these regulations are made. And one of the first steps of that is the relevant agency proposes a regulation. So they make this proposed regulation public, And then all the various, you know, political and industry interests and, you know, everyday Americans as well, can comment and make their voice heard on how they think this regulation is good or bad or it would hurt them. And so that's where we are in this.

And this is just a proposed regulation. But it's, it is a train that has left the station. And unless someone derails it, it will, it will reach its destination and become a regulation. So it's not, I don't, I want to make clear this is not gone into effect yet. But it's also unless someone steps in its opposite, it will. Right. And so what is the regulation? Well, it is kind of technical.

it's about tailpipe emission rules and changing those. But what it really, its true purpose is to force gas cars off the road and replace them with electric vehicles. And the Environmental Protection Agency itself called this regulation ambitious. And I mean, to me, that was such an interesting. You know, agencies don't,

if a federal rulemaking agency like the EPA, even they think the rule is ambitious, that should raise your, you know, interests a little basically. Wow, even the EPA says this is pretty aggressive. And so they've also projected that two, two out of three light duty cars will be electric vehicles by 2032. Dan, that's, you know, 10 years from now. And then they say 46% of new medium duty vehicles. So I think you could, you know, just round it out and say by 2032, they think that half cars are going to be electric.

Yeah. And let me just interrupt you here. And if I'm right, and I think I am. Probably not. Let me hear you. Fewer than 5%. And I think it's significantly fewer than 5% of vehicles on the road today are electric vehicles. So they have this, if they were to get to half of vehicles by 2032, that's a big, big gap to fill in in just a few short years. Yeah, it's actually less than 1% of vehicles in the United States are electric. I'm no math expert, Casey, but is less than 1% less than 5%. Less than 1% is actually less than 5%. Well, let me, yeah, calculator checks out. Yeah, it is less than 5%.

But I just want to, you know, hone in on your just such well-said point. which is a less than 1% of cars right now. And Dan, we know why that is. I mean, there's a very obvious reason. People, I mean, people don't necessarily hate electric cars or are opposed to the idea of electric cars. I mean, Tesla's are cool, right? But they're expensive. You know, I mean, you want a $5,000 Toyota Corolla or you want a brand new Tesla.

I mean, of course, you want the Tesla, but you can't afford it. Well, not only that, too, Casey, large parts of the country, the infrastructure isn't in place to charge those electric vehicles. What happens when your electric vehicle runs out of battery power? And it does that after, you know, just a few hundred miles. And there's nowhere to charge your car. You're pretty much screwed. Yeah, that's true. And now the Biden would say that he's actually made that a priority in spending an infrastructure

to build these electric car charging stations all over the country. He wants to spend billions of dollars to do that. And he's working on that. But that's going to take a lot of time. And so I think we're, you know, 2032 is really embanking. And what you don't want to do is ban the current solution before you've developed the next solution. You don't want to really force gas cars off the road before electric vehicles are ready to replace them. There's other concerns about, you know, does having an electric car make you more susceptible to the grid and the government because they can shut your car down?

Your car could be hacked. I mean, there's other more nuanced arguments like that. But just very practically, the cost and the infrastructure, as you said, doesn't exist for these electric cars to replace. gas cars right now. Yes, and I think most Americans agree, myself included, that we should be moving towards more green, sustainable energy. But the problem becomes you have to do it smartly, right? You have to make sure the infrastructure is in place.

You have to make sure the power grid is sustainable and able to handle this shift. So you have to be deliberate about it. You just can't set these artificial targets until you know the U.S. grid is able to handle it. And that's, I think, the biggest concern among many Americans is, yes, let's move towards green energy, but don't do it so fast that it's going to mess things up. Right. And there was a congressional hearing this week about this very topic. And one of the things that was brought up that is not talked about enough is questioning some of the environmental benefits of electric cars because electricity sounds clean and, you know, it is. But where does electricity come from? Right. So, of course, you know, there is a move towards wind and solar. But that, you know, there is a move towards wind and solar. but that is not at all the majority of where our electricity is produced. And the 60%, about 60% of U.S. electricity is still powered by coal and natural gas, right? So you may just be removing yourself one step from the coal and the natural gas,

but the electricity you're putting in your electric car, your Tesla is still created by coal and natural gas. So at least for now, I mean, it's not really solving the whole solution. We're just still using this coal, using these different things to create the electricity. And so I think I hate it when people always say, just let the free market decide because I think it can be kind of like a lazy answer. I do believe in the free market. Free markets are very important, of course. But in this case, it may be a case of the free market is getting us there. And politics wants us to get there faster.

But federal officials trying to force something to happen faster than the market is taking it may cause a lot of issues. Well, this is a fascinating conversation, Casey, and one that's not anywhere close to being. over. We'll be talking about this, I'm sure, for years. Listeners can keep up with this ongoing story and more at thecentersquare.com or Casey Harper. I'm Dan and Caleb. Please subscribe. And thank you for listening.