Exploiting the pandemic to swindle $150B from taxpayers for electric vehicles

By Mark J. Perry.

"From my op-ed today in the Washington Examiner “Electric vehicle advocates want to exploit pandemic to swindle $150B from taxpayers“:

As industries grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, the new normal it brings, and a slow-but-steady reopening of business, there is no shortage of proposals in Washington for how the federal government can provide assistance to businesses and industries most harmed. Some of these proposals are smart and may be necessary in the weeks and months ahead. Others appear opportunistic and more intended to advance a special-interest agenda than solve a problem.

A proposal put forth by the Transportation Electrification Partnership (a collection of foreign automakers and Tesla, utilities, electric vehicle proponents, and even the California Air Resources Board, brought together by the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator) has all the makings of one such opportunistic, rent-seeking proposal. The group recently wrote to Congress, urging lawmakers to use the pandemic as a platform to transition the transportation sector to electric vehicles.
The main objectives of the proposal are simple and monstrously expensive: The partnership wants Congress to fund a $150 billion program that would expand the electric vehicle federal tax credit program, subsidize electric vehicle manufacturing, and dump billions of dollars into a nationwide electric vehicle charging network. The proposal also advocates transitioning public transit to electric.
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In recent weeks, Congress passed trillions of dollars in stimulus and recovery bills to address the needs of those most harmed by the pandemic. Taxpayers will foot the bill for this recovery for years to come, but these moves were perhaps necessary to keep our economy afloat. What won’t serve taxpayers well at all is spending billions of dollars on unnecessary and unrelated special-interest pet projects under the guise of COVID-19 recovery."