Governor Gavin Newsom Ordered An End Gas-Powered Cars Sales In California & President Biden Is Under Pressure To Do Same For Entire Nation

16 states and multiple environmental organizations filed three lawsuits against the United States Postal Service on April 28, seeking to prevent the USPS from upgrading its fleet with modern, more fuel efficient delivery vehicles. The lawsuits seek to block these purchases because the new fleet will be gas powered, like more than 99% of all vehicles on the road today.

“Once this purchase goes through, we’ll be stuck with more than 100,000 new gas-guzzling vehicles on neighborhood streets, serving homes across our state and across the country, for the next 30 years,” said California Attorney General Ron Bonta (D), one of the plaintiffs. The USPS points out the newer fleet it plans to purchase is more fuel efficient, with the newer trucks getting nearly twice as many miles per gallon as the current fleet.

The lawsuits against the USPS, which allege a flawed review process, are indicative of the organized and well-funded push to ramp up the share of electric vehicles (EVs) on the road in the coming years. Like their federal counterparts, state officials have already implemented tax credits and other subsidies intended to promote the adoption of EVs. California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has gone so far as to issue an executive order outlawing the sale of gas-powered vehicles in California by 2035.

On April 13, the California Air Resources Board released a plan to meet Newsom’s goal of phasing out gas-powered car sales. The board’s plan — which calls for EVs and hydrogen-powered vehicles to comprise 35% of new vehicle sales in California by 2026, 68% by 2030, and 100% by 2035 — is expected to be voted on in August.

While other governors have not gone as far as Newsom, many have signed onto proposals or goals moving in the same direction, just not as rapidly. Prior to Newsom’s September 2020 executive order banning the sale of gas-powered cars 13 years from now, more than a dozen other states (Connecticut, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington) and the District of Columbia signed onto a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with California that set a goal of having 30% of new medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sales be EVs by 2030, and 100% by 2050.

“California is proud to be joined by 14 other states and the District of Columbia in a push for clean, zero emission trucks,” Governor Newsom said when that MOU was released in July 2020. “Our efforts in California will be magnified through the efforts of this multi-state coalition to reduce emissions and improve air quality, especially crucial in communities where our most vulnerable citizens live.”

California’s two senators — Dianne Feinstein (D) & Alex Padilla (D) — have already called on President Joe Biden to adopt a federal version of Newsom’s gas-powered vehicle sales ban. Senators Feinstein & Padilla sent President Biden a letter on March 22, 2021, urging him “to follow California’s lead and set a date by which all new cars and passenger trucks sold be zero-emission vehicles,” adding that “California and other states need a strong federal partner.”

Newsom, President Joe Biden, other politicians, and organizations pushing for a more rapid transition to EVs claim it’s part of a strategy aimed at altering global temperature. Critics of EV mandates and subsidies, meanwhile, can point to recent Energy Information Administration reports noting that fossil fuels will still be the predominant energy source for transportation and electricity generation decades from now.

President Joe Biden’s Energy Secretary, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, noted that Americans who drive an electric car like she does are not contending with rising gas prices. Yet telling people to go buy an EV is not a viable option to alleviate the pain of high gas prices for most households. The average price for an electric vehicle, according to Kelley Blue Book’s January 2022 data, is $62,876. That is more than 35% higher that the average price for all vehicles and nearly in line with the average price for a luxury-brand vehicle ($64,635).

Critics of policies that mandate or subsidize EVs can also point out that EVs still rely on fossil fuels, which account for 61% of electricity generation today. Setting aside the fact that they still rely on fossil fuels, EVs are not without deleterious environmental consequences.

Professor Richard Herrington, head of earth sciences at the Natural History Museum in London, says “there are huge implications for our natural resources not only to produce green technologies like electric cars but keep them charged…society needs to understand that there is a raw material cost of going green.”

Ramping up the use of EVs will necessitate a substantial increase in mining activity, to which many key government officials, including leading members of the Biden administration, have already demonstrated resistance.

“Everyone having an electric vehicle means an enormous amount of mining, refining and all the polluting activities that come with it,” notes Dr. Thea Riofrancos, a professor at Providence College.

Each electric car necessitates the extraction and processing of 500,000 pounds of materials, according to the Manhattan Institute, which calculated that each mile travelled by an EV “consumes” five pounds of earth. This explains the contention that EVs are not the panacea that politicians and green groups make them out to be.

“They’re too heavy, they use too many materials, they’re not efficient,” Michael Shellenberger, who Time Magazine named a Hero of the Environment in 2008, says about EVs. Shellenberger, who is challenging Gavin Newsom in California’s gubernatorial election this year, sees mass adoption of EVs as “a disaster waiting to happen in many ways.”

Something proponents of EV subsidies and mandates often ignore are the environmental ramifications of increased EV usage. A report in the journal Nature found that the EVs sold in 2017 alone will result in 250,000 tons of battery waste. That battery waste, the report notes, could cause fires and explosions if improperly discarded in land fills.

Critics of government-subsidized or mandated EV adoption also point to logistical and feasibility challenges. Professor Herrington calculates that switching entirely to EVs in the United Kingdom alone would eat up all the neodymium produced on the planet, 75% of global lithium production, and no less than half of the world’s copper. The UK has few than 40 million cars, compared to 280 million in the U.S.

Moving to all EVs globally is projected to require a tripling of cobalt production, a 70% spike in neodymium and dysprosium mining, and a doubling of copper production. Yet the Biden, Trump, and Obama administrations have all taken action to thwart the development of one of one of the world’s largest copper deposits, which is located in Alaska.

That Alaskan deposit, commonly refers to as Pebble, is one of many additional mining projects that will be needed to facilitate increased EV production and usage. Yet such mining projects that have been met with resistance from environmental organizations and progressive politicians. Another example is Piedmont Lithium, which submitted an application to operate a lithium mine on private land near the town of Cherryville, N.C. It is estimated that $839-million dollar project would create approximately 500 jobs with an average salary of $90,000. Environmental organizations are now seeking to stop that mine’s development.

“The area targeted by Piedmont Lithium is home to hundreds of families, businesses, and a thriving agriculture industry,” wrote the group Stop Piedmont Lithium on Facebook. “Why destroy the livelihoods and homes of thousands for less than 3% usable lithium product?”

There appears to be growing demand for EVs, demonstrated by the 50% increase in EVs sales from 2020 to 2021, along with the 67% jump in sales projected for 2022. However, limited mining capacity will not allow EV production to meet future sales projections.

“World nickel and lithium production will be enough for 3.8 million EVs this year—fewer than half the 7.7m that automakers say they want to make,” Steve LeVine, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Georgetown adjunct professor, tweeted on April 24.

“By 2030, metals will be enough for 15.6M EVs,” Levine, added, “But stated EV production is over 40M.”

Letting consumers decide what vehicles best meet their needs and household budgetary constraints is going be seen by many lawmakers as a sound approach from both a policy and political standpoint. A Pew Research Center survey published in June 2021 indicates such an approach would be popular with most U.S. adults. “By 51% to 47%,” reported Pew, ”a slightly larger share of Americans oppose than favor phasing out the production of new gasoline cars and trucks by 2035 – a proposal that has been put forward by governors in 12 states, including California and New York.”

A 2017 survey of 157,000 people found 70% of Millennials and 69% of pre-teens, teens and 20-somethings don’t want an electric car. Government-aided or mandated adoption of EVs is also another instance in which Democrats’ environmental agenda could harm union workers. Rory Gamble, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, has noted to lawmakers it takes fewer workers to produce EVs than gas-powered vehicles. Gamble says that when it comes to policy related to EVs, “workers will disproportionately suffer if we do not get it right.”

UAW’s Gamble says his union wants increased adoption of EVs to be part of a process that is “stable, reliable and creates quality union wage jobs and flexible to market demand not relying on a one-size fits all solution.”

Gill Pratt, CEO of Toyota Research Institute, echoes the UAW’s call to maintain consumer flexibility. Pratt points out that whether an EV is the best option for a consumer depends on individual household circumstances, noting that EVs might not be the best option in places with limited charging capacity or where electricity generation is heavily reliant on fossil fuels. “Depending on your needs and your circumstances, there are different vehicles for different circumstances that best lower carbon emissions.”

These facts will deter other governors and state legislators from following Gavin Newsom’s lead in enacting a state-imposed phase out of gas-powered vehicle sales. However, as President Biden’s push for a national version of California’s Assembly Bill 5 has demonstrated, just because a California law is seen as so harmful that no other state will touch it, that doesn’t mean this White House won’t end up trying to force it on the whole nation.