White and blue. Where’s red?
Bloomberg has reported that President Trump “helped nix” — or pretty much killed — any hope of the EV tax credit extension that we were hoping would pass for 2020. In fact, White House officials told lawmakers that if they tried to expand the EV credit as part of a compromise spending bill, they would stop it.
The article goes on to say that Republicans view the credit as benefiting “rich Californians and Tesla,” but what they don’t seem to realize is that those “rich Californians” are Americans, are not all rich, and probably don’t have the benefit Republican politicians have who don’t have to ever pay for health care for the rest of their lives. That’s relevant when the topic concerns pollution and one of the top sources of heart disease, lung cancer, asthma, and other health problems.
Hey @GM, you happy you sided with Trump over California? "Trump helped nix electric car tax measure sought by Tesla and General Motors" https://t.co/YsrcKj3ynG via @bpolitics
— RL Miller (@RL_Miller) December 16, 2019
Why wouldn’t you, a lawmaker, want your economy to prosper? The tax credit supports a young, home-grown, manufacturing-reviving auto company as well as the country’s oldest auto companies, which have struggled in recent years. It’s too bad they don’t think like this — their voters do.
The more we vote for greedy politicians who care nothing about us but act at the behest of large oil companies to retain power, then the more this country will suffer — especially the poor and middle class.
It’s Not About The EV Tax Credit.
“I don’t know why the White House would want to stop jobs and the future of the auto industry,”
— Senator Debbie Stabenow, MI (D).
While millions of Americans struggle to pay their bills, we are actually paying $20 billion in fossil fuel subsidies a year. Subsidies are monetary bonuses to “lower the cost” of production or consumption of these fossil fuels. They fund more drilling and mining, more oil, gas, and coal use. In essence, we are paying the fossil fuel industry to kill our planet and kill our fellow Americans (and maybe us) prematurely. Meanwhile, giving an average American an EV tax credit to help buy a clean car is rejected.
Remember, this is the president who threw paper towels at the victims of Hurricane Maria while they were without power and basic sanitation due to an abnormally strong and destructive hurricane. This is also the same president who left the Paris Agreement, which every country in the world had agreed to, and rolled back Obama-era coal rules aimed at protecting our health and our childrens’ health.
It comes as no surprise that the Trump administration killed the proposal for the EV tax credit extension and expansion by cutting it out of the $1.4 trillion federal spending bill. It’s horrible for America nonetheless.
Some of us think about red, white, and blue. Others only think about red, which harms us all. Photo by Zach Shahan | CleanTechnica.
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