Sen. Joe Manchin Questions Need for Expanding U.S. EV Tax Credit
Manchin has been openly critical of a full transition to EVs in the past and has openly criticized the “advantages” of an all-EV future.
I must admit, I am glad to see at least one Democratic Senator be a thorn in the side of his/her party….at least once in a while.
As the Biden administration pushes “green energy” everything, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin is questioning the need to extend electric vehicle tax credits in the face of strong consumer demand and Chinese production of battery components.
Senator Joe Manchin, who is a crucial vote in the evenly divided Senate, raised concerns about the tax credit at a Senate hearing with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
“There’s a waiting list for EVs right now with the fuel price at $4. But they still want us to throw $5,000 or $7,000 or $12,000 credit to buy electric vehicles. It makes no sense to me whatsoever,” Manchin said. “When we can’t produce enough product for the people that want it and we’re still going to pay them to take it — it’s absolutely ludicrous in my mind.
Automakers are investing tens of billions of dollars to ramp up EV production and some fear the window is closing for Congress to extend EV tax credits given Republicans may retake control of one or both houses of Congress next year.
The West Virginia senator suggests the money would be better spent elsewhere.
Manchin added that the money put toward expanding the EV tax credit program should be funneled to other sources, like research into hydrogen powertrains. Manchin is a member of the West Virginia Hydrogen Hub Coalition, which welcomed Speaker of the House Roger Hanshaw, President of the Senate Craig Blair, Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin, and House Minority Leader Doug Skaff to the group yesterday.
Manchin has been openly critical of a full transition to EVs in the past and has openly criticized the “advantages” of an all-EV future.
Part of the incentive package was directed at having the units made in union shops.
Last year, many Democrats in Congress and President Joe Biden proposed boosting EV tax credits to up to $12,500 — including a $4,500 incentive for union-made, U.S. assembled vehicles.
Manchin — whose state is home to a major non-union Toyota Motor Corp. engine and transmission plant — earlier opposed the union-only incentive.
Despite the common sense on issue, Manchin is poised to support policies based on the inane “climate crisis” hysteria that has been pushed for years. He is joined in this plan….by Republicans.
Senator Joe Manchin and other lawmakers are weighing a border adjustment tax that would slap a levy on imports of carbon-intensive goods from countries with weaker climate policies as they work on a potential bipartisan energy and climate package.
The concept, which also has drawn interest from the Biden administration, would place tariffs on fossil fuels and products such as cement and steel to prod countries that are moving too slowly to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. Manchin said he is promoting a North American zone that includes Canada and Mexico.
“This is not a carbon tax,” Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, said after emerging from a closed-door meeting with Manchin and other senators from both parties who are working on the plan. “I’ve spoken to Republicans who are very interested in this.”
Still, it is heartening to see at least one member of Congress reading a bill before signing it.
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Comments
Need for it? There is a dire need for it, if you’re a prog pol. You need to hand out freebies to your base so that they can grease some of it back to the D party in the form of campaign contributions. It’s just another form of graft.
IMO the idea of holding imported goods to a carbon standard is common sense. If we have an EPA that routinely throttles the permitting process to make widgets because reasons and the manufacturer offshores to China to gain advantage from comparatively lax environmental laws +cheaper labor then why not impose an import tariff that offsets the manipulated advantage over US based production?
The EV subsidies are completely unnecessary as the strong demand in backlog shows. Reroute the funds to point of use solar or better yet energy efficiency; added insulation, more efficient windows; that’s where a lot of waste can be controlled. Striving for better energy efficiency in homes isn’t sexy so it doesn’t get a ton of play.
Better still, no funding at all. Let all these whizbang new devices stand on their own in the market. I am willing to bet that over 50% of them would fall on their face the minute the subsidies are polled.
I think you meant pulled, but ‘polled’ actually fits and is much funnier 😛
Fair enough. I can certainly agree to zero subsidies across the board. Let a truly free market reign!
I would love one of those cool tesla solar roof things. Sadly, they cost about $85k for my fairly small house.
Cool tech…only for the very rich.
It’s not ‘common sense’, when everybody knows that countries like China would just lie about the ‘carbon standard’ because there’s no way to verify it for things that aren’t fuels or consume fuels.
It’s like the GMO/non-GMO bullshit. It is literally impossible to test the finished product and determine if they used GMO or non-GMO foods in them. It relies totally on the companies provided accurate information on the ingredients they used, but there is no way to actually prove it.
Bro, we ain’t gonna take the CCP word for it that they have instituted just as restrictive a regime of environmental laws as we have imposed upon domestic manufacturing. The importers don’t prove it they pay the tariff.
Given that these highly restrictive environmental regs are not going to be rolled back in the US. That these laws make domestic production cost prohibitive to the point of Corporations relocating production overseas to areas with extremely lax environmental laws which has had a devastating impact on US jobs, the former workers in the plants, the families and communities that relied upon the payroll from those plants, why wouldn’t we seek to impose tariff to restore the balance?
If you think it’s a better idea to regulate our manufacturing base out of existence based on gauge environmental concerns and then around and import the same goods we used to manufacture with American workers but now made without any effective environmental laws by a foreign workforce then that’s sad but you ate entitled to your opinion.
Just remember – the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well meaning concerned people have condemned one and a half Billion people to 5 years of Chronic Starvation.
The Greens were just trying to save the planet when they instituted restrictions on fossil fuels that have now brought us to the Largest Starvation Event in Human History.
The lack of fossil fuel fertilizer meant that 3rd world countries would see crop yields plummet. Africa will be down 100 million tons this year. Next year will be worse. We were already on track for a billion person starvation event before the worlds largest grain exporter invaded the worlds 5th largest grain exporter.
Agreed, many folks are vastly underestimating the secondary and tertiary impacts of sanctions on food supply and the chaos resulting from a hungry and desperate Africa and Central Asia.
My point above are based on the reality of our present situation; the EPA regs exist and place US domestic production at a big disadvantage relative to Nations without similar laws and the enforcement mechanisms. Tariffs on goods imported from those nations act to restore a balance.
Right again. Go green, not Green, but still people’s choice. Mitigate the progress of market distortions and shared responsibility that are a first-order forcing of [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] ecological, environmental, economic, and sociopolitical climate change.
I wonder how Manchin would react to Musk reviving the old coal-powered Stanley Steamer plant?
How about replacing the federal and state gasoline taxes with a mileage tax. Each year, car owners would report the mileage on their odometers, and a tax payment would be added as a part of their annual IRS filing. In this way, cars would share the burden of road construction and maintenance equally regardless of whether it is an EV or a gas fueled vehicle.
If you don’t want to do that, then create an EV sales tax to collect money when the EV is first sold or resold. The current implicit subsidy provided by gas fueled vehicles to EV owners is unsustainable.
Maybe a specific annual EV excise tax based on average miles driven and average mpg from AAA or the insurance companies who already collect voluntary driver data.
Maybe apply the equivalent fuel tax to the electricity used to charge the EV. Would require a separate meter for charging stations home and commercial but that’s not a huge obstacle.
Maybe a flat annual fee for all passenger vehicles would be a better way to fund roadways. It would certainly be way more straightforward. Get rid of fuel tax and have one annual flat tax for all passenger vehicles/light truck/SUV. Different rate for commercial vehicles.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not keen on reporting ANYTHING to the federal government and they can go f*ck themselves before I’ll give them anything like an odomoter reading. It’s none of their f*cking business.
We need to dump tax credits for everything. If they think taxes are too high just cut the tax rate,