IER and 31 Other Orgs Join Fight to Save Our Cars

WASHINGTON DC – Today, the Institute for Energy Research and 31 other national and state-based organizations launched the Save Our Cars Coalition. The coalition will fight to preserve and expand consumer choice in the selection of cars and trucks and ensure that all Americans will continue to benefit from them, as they have for more than a hundred years.

The Biden administration and California Governor Gavin Newsom have launched two different regulatory programs directed at gradually eliminating the sales of gasoline-powered cars and mandating the sale of electric vehicles.

The Save Our Cars Coalition will alert and educate the public to the threats posed by these and other harmful regulatory programs adding more to the price tag of vehicles – which are already at record highs – and eventually eliminating gas-powered cars and trucks altogether.

Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, issued the following statement:

“I am proud to join the Save Our Cars Coalition, which will fight to preserve the ability for all Americans to choose the cars and trucks that best suit their needs. 
 
The Biden administration and the State of California want to ban cars and trucks powered by gasoline and diesel and replace them with electric vehicles. Past regulatory efforts have already had an impact on the price of new cars and trucks – which are at record highs. These regulations will make it even harder for people to buy and enjoy a car or truck by making them even more expensive and by reducing the number and types of automobiles available in the market. This is a feature, not a bug, of these rules.

In a nation as expansive as the United States, cars are not merely vehicles, they are integral to the American way of life. They play a pivotal role in our daily lives, especially in suburban and rural settings. This modern-day Prohibition would outlaw a product and a value – in this case, gasoline-powered cars and trucks that have created personal mobility on an unprecedented scale – that it cannot persuade people to forego themselves. 
 
The simple reality is that this aggressive government assault is intended specifically to make cars and trucks much, much more expensive and therefore available only in much smaller numbers to much wealthier consumers.  This is not about the environment; it is about personal freedom and mobility.”

A timeline of the whole-of-government approach to increase the cost of gas-powered vehicles relative to their EV counterparts is as follows:

• November 2021: President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which included $7.5 billion for EV charging stations and more than $7 billion for battery manufacturers.
• April 2022: The Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration finalized Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for 2024-2026 models which are a 43% increase on standards set by the Trump administration.
• August 2022: President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which eliminated the cap for the EV tax credit and included subsidies for the manufacture of EV battery components.
• August 2022: California board moves to ban gas-powered cars by 2035.
• April 2023: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed tailpipe emissions standards for cars and trucks that amount to a massive overreach intended to force a transition to EVs.
• August 2023: The Department of Energy announced $15.5 billion in funding and loans to support conversion projects and domestic battery manufacturing.

Additional Resources:

• Overview of Federal EV Policy
• IER Submits Comment on Environmental Protection Agency Propose Rule – Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles
• Biden’s Energy Grid Not Prepared for the Onslaught of Electric Vehicles
• EVs: More Mainstream Angst

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