“Barron Roundtable” speakers discuss why some automakers are scaling back plans to launch electric vehicles.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign team said the Democratic nominee does not agree with an electric vehicle mandate despite her record on the topic.
In a “fact-check” email, Harris campaign rapid response director Ammar Moussa wrote that Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, would “without a doubt lie” about things like: “Harris wants force every American to own an electric vehicle.”
“FACT: Vice President Harris does not support an electric vehicle mandate,” Moussa wrote.
“Donald Trump railed against the Inflation Reduction Act while the Biden-Harris administration oversaw the creation of tens of thousands of new clean energy jobs in Michigan and provided innovative subsidies and tax credits for electric vehicles”.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks after touring the New Flyer electric bus final assembly plant in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Feb. 9, 2023. (Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Despite the Harris campaign’s attempt to flip the script, the vice president has long pushed for an electric vehicle mandate.
Dating back to her Senate career, Harris was an original co-signer of New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Markey’s 2019 Green New Deal, which worked to establish a blueprint to shift the 100% clean energy nation by 2040.
The measure failed in the Senate.
Vice President Kamala Harris receives a briefing on electric vehicle investments at the Brandywine maintenance facility in Brandywine, Maryland, on December 13, 2021. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
After candidate Biden-Harris won the 2020 election, Harris continued to lead climate change initiatives, most notably taking responsibility for the Clean School Bus program.
The EPA-backed program was created nearly three years ago as a provision under the Biden-Harris administration’s 2021 infrastructure bill and set aside $5 billion for the program.
The EPA has since made $1 billion in grants available to help provide nearly 2,500 electric school buses to school districts across the nation.
Vice President Kamala Harris sits in the driver’s seat of an electric bus as she visits a manufacturing plant in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, Feb. 9, 2023. (Stephen Maturen/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Harris and EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan were touted by the federal government as the point people for the program, but it has delivered only 60 battery-electric or low-emission propane-powered school buses, the Washington Free Beacons.
“Every school day, 25 million children ride our nation’s largest form of public transportation: the school bus. The vast majority of these buses run on diesel, exposing students, teachers and bus drivers to toxic air pollution,” Harris said previously about the program. this year.
“Today we are announcing nearly $1 billion to fund clean school buses across the nation. As part of our work to address the climate crisis, the historic funding we are announcing today is an investment in our children, their health and their education . also strengthens our economy by investing in America’s manufacturing sector and America’s workforce.”
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on Aug. 20. (Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Harris was also tasked with helping lead the Electric Vehicle Charging Action Plan in December 2021 to ensure 50% of car sales are electric vehicles by 2030.
This year, the Biden-Harris administration further cracked down on the plan with one of the most significant climate regulations in U.S. history. This would force half of all new cars and trucks to be sold 2030 will be electric.
“Together, we have made historic progress. Hundreds of new factories expanded across the country. Hundreds of billions in private investment and thousands of good-paying jobs. And we will meet my 2030 goal and run ahead in the years ahead .” “Biden said in March about the plan.
The $7.5 billion federal program, which was part of the 2021 infrastructure bill, aimed to install half a million electric vehicle charging stations across the nation, but as of May produced only eight federal charging stations.
Hummer electric vehicles on the production line at an electric vehicle assembly plant in Detroit, November 17, 2021. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst/File photo / Reuters Photo)
AS Democrats continue to defend After the frenzied push for electric vehicles, former Republican presidential candidate President Trump vowed to end the Biden administration’s “mandate” to increase electric vehicle sales.
“I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one, thereby saving the U.S. auto industry from complete destruction, which is happening right now, and saving U.S. customers thousands and thousands of dollars per car,” he told the Milwaukee RNC. .
President Trump greets Elon Musk, left, at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 3, 2017. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Trump talked about electricity again vehicles in his interview with Tesla founder Elon Musk earlier this month. Musk’s Tesla is the nation’s largest electric vehicle maker.
Trump explained that Musk’s cars are “incredible,” but that fossil fuels are also deeply intertwined with building electric vehicles and that the United States needs to “drill, baby, drill.”
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FOX Business has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.
Fox News’ Kristen Altus and Eric Revell contributed to this report.