Biden EV Mandate Unites Business and Labor to Save Jobs, Our Cars

At the recent “Save our jobs! Don’t ban our cars!” rally in Trenton NJ, PMA stood alongside the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, the United Steelworkers, International Oil Workers, UA Pipe Trades, several refineries throughout the Mid-Atlantic, and local and state government leaders. Hundreds of advocates joined in calls to push-back the de facto electric vehicle (EV) mandate being pursued by the Biden Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In April, the EPA finalized rules to mandate 44% of new vehicles sold in 2030 by dealerships to be EVs, and 56% by 2032. According to the National Automotive Dealers Association, gas-powered vehicles currently comprise 92.9% of the market, but this newly mandated market share could be cut to just 29% by 2032. The EPA mandates would far outpace consumer behavior as EV popularity has been dwindling. Moreover, a McKinsey Mobility Consumer Pulse report concluded that 46% of EV owners are “very likely” to switch back to a gas-powered vehicle.

There’s good reason for current consumer behavior as the McKinsey study reflects. A lack of charging infrastructure, higher overall cost upfront, and higher repair costs are the main reasons a vast majority of American’s don’t want to make the switch.

But besides just consumer behavior, there’s a deeply concerning underlying issue: grid reliability.

PMA’s Carl Marrara spoke at the rally and stated, “Ironically, President Biden’s EPA is scheming to put only electric cars on the road while also stifling the production and distribution of actual energy.” He continued, “More stress on our electrical grid while prematurely shuttering compliant power plants equals less capacity for our already fragile systems to keep the lights on. Simply put, it’s a recipe for disaster.”

Earlier this spring, a group of twenty-two states, led by California (but including Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and others), are intervening by filing a motion in a lawsuit saying they could be harmed if the EPA did not require future emission reductions from automobiles.

However, the technocratic bureaucracies of California have quite literally left their citizens in the dark over the past several years as rolling brownouts and blackouts have become regular occurrences. It’s a simple equation: fewer power plants generate less power while EV mandates increase demand, further straining the electric grid.

And the impacts here aren’t just local, they’re global. China dominates the global supply chain for mining and processing the strategic minerals used in EVs, batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines. Any policy mandating electric vehicle adoption and cutting off consumer access to new gasoline-powered cars jeopardizes U.S. energy security to China’s advantage. China is the world’s largest producer of silicon (20x America’s output) and that production is contaminated by slave labor from internment camps in occupied East Turkistan (Xinjiang). Moreover, the cobalt needed for EV batteries comes at a high-human cost as it’s been reported more than 2,000 people die a year in mines in the Democratic Republican of the Congo while also facing exploitation and child slave labor. Reliance on these inputs comes at a high environmental, social, and geopolitical cost.

For all the differences between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservative, even business and labor – we should all agree to this: No American should have to compete with slave labor; and no American consumer should be exposed to slave-made goods in the U.S. Marketplace.

The vehicles we drive today are cleaner, safer, and more efficient than ever before. Even the newly released EV-hybrid vehicles can’t meet these new EPA standards. By mandating vehicle choices for Americans, the EPA is limiting technological advancement, consumer choice, and energy reliability.