Vice President Kamala Harris says she will not ban fracking, she will not confiscate your guns and she will not take away your gas-powered car.
“Contrary to what my opponent is suggesting, I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive,” the Democratic presidential nominee recently told a Michigan crowd.
However, like her previous promises, Harris has a record that contradicts her current stance. In fact, she co-sponsored the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act of 2019, which would have ended the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2040. Except the version Harris backed actually moved that date up to 2035.
“Ending sales of new gas-powered cars is part of Kamala Harris’ climate change plan,” as the Sacramento Bee headline said.
“We’re facing a climate crisis that must be met with bold action,” Harris said.
The ending of gas-powered vehicles was also an issue in the New Hampshire Democratic primary for governor. Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington ran on an energy plan that included the state of New Hampshire achieving “net zero” carbon emissions by 2040, ten years ahead of Massachusetts. She lost to former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, who offered a more modest energy proposal. Craig calls for taxpayer subsidies of electric vehicles, but she declines to say how much she wants to spend.
Harris’s defenders argue that her aggressive proposals to end gas-powered cars were part of her 2020 presidential strategy of running in the progressive lane. Now that she’s the vice president, they claim her true colors are on display.
As vice president, Harris has supported “net zero emissions” by 2050 and ending the use of gas-powered cars to achieve that goal.
Harris also included a social justice element in her current arguments, claiming that low-income and minority communities are disproportionately affected by pollution from gas-powered vehicles.
“The pollution from vehicles powered by fossil fuels has long harmed the health of communities around our country — communities overlooked and underserved,” she said in 2021.
“But there is a solution to this problem. … Electric cars, trucks, and buses.”
So, what’s behind Harris’s shift on gas-powered vehicles? Americans don’t want EVs.
“It’s become very clear in the last year or two that there’s a lot of consumers that just don’t really want electric vehicles,” said Kenny Stein, vice president of policy at the Institute for Energy Research.
About 14 million new cars were sold in the United States in 2022, and 1.6 million were EVs. Many of those sales came with generous federal and state tax subsidies. As more Americans become familiar with electric vehicle technology, their interest in owning an EV is fading.
The 2024 Mobility Consumer Index found that only 34 percent of U.S. consumers plan to buy an electric vehicle — fully battery or hybrid —for their next car. That’s down from 48 percent a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the Biden-Harris administration has continued to pursue policies to push Americans into EVs. The Environmental Protection Agency wants tailpipe emissions standards that will make gas-powered cars impossible to manufacture.
The EPA’s emissions standards mean that gas-powered cars can make up no more than 30 percent of auto sales by 2032.
“Make no mistake: This is a coerced phase-out of gas-powered cars,” the Wall Street Journal wrote.
Meanwhile, taxpayers who don’t drive EVs pay taxes to subsidize their sales.
According to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, direct state and federal subsidies for EVs average $8,984 per vehicle over 10 years.
To achieve the EPA and Harris’s goals, billions more taxpayer subsidies will be required. And most environmentalists concede that, regardless of Harris’s protestations that if you like your car, you can keep your car, regulations that keep gas-powered vehicles off the market will be needed, too.
The costs are already rising. The Inflation Reduction Act was primarily a green subsidy program. The Tax Foundation estimates that, over the next decade, its energy tax credits are likely to cost more than $1 trillion.
“The IRA’s credits for electric vehicles and charging infrastructure in particular are proving to be much more costly than anticipated, costing about $180 billion over the next decade,” it reports.
In September, House Energy and Commerce Committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., called out the Biden-Harris “radical rush-to-green energy agenda.”
“The EPA’s latest tailpipe emissions rule is not really about reducing air pollution — it’s about forcing Americans to drive electric vehicles.”
