by Katy Grimes, E&E Legal Senior Media Fellow and California Globe Editor
As Appearing in the California Globe
‘Californians cannot simply get rid of their current vehicle and run out and buy an $80,000 EV’
While Governor Gavin Newsom calls those who oppose his electric vehicle mandate to outlaw gas-powered cars by 2035 “big polluters” and “right-wing propaganda machine,” California’s 10 Senators Wednesday appealed to the state’s U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), “to vote in favor of House Joint Resolution 88 (Joyce-PA) and Senate Joint Resolution 45 (Capito-WV) that would repeal California’s discriminatory, arbitrary and poorly thought out electric vehicle mandate.”
As Newsom, Schiff and Padilla and other Democrat lawmakers made a last ditch effort to try to sway the U.S. Senate vote on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) waiver for California’s 2035 new gas powered car sales ban mandate on Wednesday, all ten California State Senate Republicans today requested in a letter to the state’s two U.S. Senators that they work to repeal the electric vehicle mandate in California that would outlaw non-plug-in hybrids and gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035.
The letter states the mandate is discriminatory, arbitrary and poorly thought out and cites lack of a statewide charging station infrastructure, the high price of EVs, and the state’s already overtaxed and unreliable electrical grid as reasons to repeal the EV only mandate:
“It is simply unrealistic to believe that a reliable electric vehicle charging network of stations will be constructed and operational throughout the state by 2035,” the senators said in the letter. “Even if it were possible, the average Californian cannot afford to buy and charge an electric vehicle.”
