Barasso (R-WY) Delivers Another Bushel Of Bullshit On EVs, W. An Assist From The Wall Street Journal
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Senator Barrasso has reportedly sent a letter to Republican colleagues in the Senate, advising them not to extend the electric vehicle (EV) tax credit. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board cheered Senator Barrasso’s act in an editorial published Tuesday. The deception and falsehoods are so rife in the WSJ editorial that it that begs for rebuttal. So here goes.
The piece itself opens with a whopper “Washington has been underwriting EVs for nearly 30 years.” We asked the WSJ editorial board for a reference, but haven’t yet received a reply. The EV tax credit wasn’t introduced until 2009, and government research and development (R&D) spending on EVs was relatively small in preceding decades. In fact, in 1990, the federal government spent roughly $194 million on all energy efficiency programs, a small percentage of which may have been steered towards transportation electrification. It’s worth noting that this $194 million was less than half of the R&D support provided to both the nuclear industry and fossil fuel industries.
Possibly they are referring to California’s Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, introduced in 1990. But, of course, California isn’t “Washington,” and a mandate isn’t exactly “underwriting.”
Later, the board writes: “Itʼs hard to imagine a more blatant income transfer for the well-to-do. Electric cars are significantly more expensive than the average vehicle, with a starting price of around $36,000.” Actually, according to Kelly Blue Book, the average price for a new vehicle in the United States was $37,577 in December 2018.
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https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/09/04/wall-street-journal-barrasso-koch-electric-car-tax-credit-myths