The battle over the regs: The emissions regulations, as we wrote last week, are a sizeable regulatory stick meant to work alongside the enlarged carrots of tax credits for consumer electric vehicle purchases, all of which serve the administration’s goals of rapidly expanding EV sales.
Sen. Ed Markey, who chairs the Environment and Public Works air and climate subcommittee, praised the new proposed rules during a hearing Tuesday and said the suite of EV actions would help facilitate an “electricity revolution” in transportation.
“We heard from the auto industry for so many years, ‘We can't do this. You don't know how hard it is,” Markey said. “Now, of course, finally, the auto industry is accepting the future.”
Republicans have pledged to fight the rules, including by advancing another Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval.
EPW ranking member Shelley Moore Capito, one of 19 Senate Republicans to vote for the bipartisan infrastructure law, said its billion-dollar charging program was a considerable “nudge” to increase the penetration of EVs but was too heavy-handed and not realistic.
“People have a great affinity for their vehicles in our state and want to have choices,” Capito told Jeremy earlier this week. “You’re eliminating choices, and I don't think you should be doing that.”