Lummis, 16 Senate Western Caucus Members Call to Defund Biden Admin’s EV Mandate 

December 7, 2023

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senate Western Caucus Chair Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) joined 16 Senate Western Caucus members in sending a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urging Senate leadership to defund the Biden administration’s misguided electric vehicle (EV) rule, which would mandate more than two-thirds of all vehicles sold in the U.S. be fully electric by 2032. Defunding the EV mandate will protect the freedoms of the people out west so they can continue to choose what car or truck they want to drive. 

“President Biden’s EV mandate is everything wrong with big government and shows the danger of putting the cart before the horse,” said Lummis. “In addition to being too expensive for many hardworking people, EVs have been plagued by reliability issues that make them ill-suited for the vast and harsh terrain most people in Wyoming, and across the west, have to navigate every day. Americans have had the power to choose what car they drive since Henry Ford invented the automobile, and that should not change.”

Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Steve Daines (R-MT), Mike Lee (R-UT), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), John Boozman (A-AR), John Cornyn (R-TX), Roger Marshall (R-KS), James Risch (R-ID), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Crapo (R-ID), James Lankford (R-OK) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) joined Lummis in sending the letter. 

Click here to read the full letter. 

Background:

  • The EPA’s mandate would require 67.5% of vehicles sold to be an EV in less than nine years, which is a steep increase from 2022 where less than 6% of all vehicles sold were EVs.
  • The mandate comes at a very high cost for hardworking people across the west:
    • The average cost of an EV is $53,469, just $663 less than the median American income which is $54,132 according to estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    • A study found the cost of charging an EV is equivalent to $17 a gallon for traditional internal combustion vehicles.
  • American demand for critical minerals to build EV batteries is set to increase more than 30x by 2040, increasing our dependency on China which currently controls 76% of global battery cell production.
  • Earlier this month, Senate Western Caucus Chair Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Vice Chair Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and 20 of their colleagues sent a letter to the Executive Director of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council demanding the council rescind its proposal to limit the type of mining projects eligible for the improved permitting process established under Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act(FAST-41).
    • The senators raised concerns that the proposed rule will limit domestic mining and undermine America’s national security by allowing China to further dominate a wide array of critical minerals that are intricate to our nation’s manufacturing, energy, infrastructure and defense sectors.

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