The EPA is overreaching with electric vehicle mandates.

0:00 Speaker 1 With us today is Andrew Wheeler. He was the fifteenth administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency the EPA, under an appointment from President Donald Trump, and so many things are happening in our country. I’d be interested to know how he feels about it, mister Wheeler, What is going on in our country? And I understand that they’re trying to

0:29 get the EPA to attack certain industries. Can you fill in the American people?

0:36 Speaker 2 Yes, Thank you, John, and thank you for having me on your show today. This is a really important issue and a really important time for our country, and I appreciate the opportunity. So the Biden administration just announce this week new regulations for tailpipe emissions from cars. Well, that might seem inoculous, and that you know, it’s been going

0:58 on for decades now, been doing it, the Agency’s been doing it. This is transformative. And what they’re trying to do, they’re trying to force everybody into an electric vehicle. And that their goal is their stated goal is by twenty thirty two, you know, less than less than ten years away, is for all new car well two thirds of all

1:20 new cars to be electric vehicles, and almost half of all trucks, and there’s just a lot of problems. You know, I’m for consumer choice. I don’t own an electric vehicle, but I think there’s some interesting ones out there. There’s some interesting companies making electric vehicles, and if people want to buy them, I think that’s great, and you should

1:41 have consumers should have that choice. But it’s different having a choice versus being mandated by the federal government. And they’re trying to do a wholesale change in the automotive sector, and I just see a number of problems with that, and I.

2:00 Speaker 1 Agree one hundred percent it should be choice. And I don’t think our system, our grid system can take that many electric cars as fast as they want. And under what I understand is we’re making other countries rich because we don’t have all the minerals to make the batteries for the electric cars.

2:21 Speaker 2 Absolutely, and in fact, let’s just level step this for a minute. There are four big issues that I see with this, and you just hit on two of the four, and the first being we’re not producing the raw materials here in the United States to build that many electric vehicles.

2:38 We are completely reliant on China, and the Biden administration is doing nothing to support the mining of the necessary materials here in the United States. So we are re reliant upon China and lithium. And China is using quite frankly slave labor, children’s slave labor in Africa and then China, and it’s incredible that we would make ourselves dependent upon

3:05 them for the materials for these cars to this degree. I mean, we certainly have some for evs here. I’m not suggesting that all EV’s sold State and the United States come from China there, but in order to have that volume of materials and that volume of cars, we will be completely reliant upon China. The second big problem

3:27 is that we don’t have a planned electricity supply for such a transition. For example, it takes approximately three times as much solar energy production to make up for the reliability benefits of natural gas, and that’s because solar can only be stored at commercial scale for approximately four hours using today’s technology, and it’s only generated during the daytime.

3:52 Most people will be charging their electric vehicles at night. And the Biden administration does not have a plan to replace our base load generation. You know. The third big issue that I see is that EPA. I don’t believe as a former defay administrator, has the legal authority to do this. Last year, there’s a Supreme Court decision West

4:14 Virginia versus EPA, and this is where the Abomba administration tried to move forward with a complete wholesale change in the electricity supply sector, the electric utility sector, and the Supreme Court told the EPA that large of a shift in an industrial sector, Congress would have to give them explicit authority for that, and EPA does not have do

4:41 not have authority for the for the utility sector, They don’t have the authority for the automotive sector. Now EPA is claiming that this isn’t this isn’t going to completely mandate electric vehicles. You can still use the internal combustion engine as long as it gets I believe, eighty five percent CO two reductions. And there is no technology, current

5:02 technology available, and there’s no plan technology over the next ten years that will get us to that level of CO two reductions from the internal combustion engine. So it is going to have to be made up of electric vehicles in order to meet this new mandate. And then the fourth issue that I see is what matters most

5:20 to consumers electric vehicles, even with the tax subsidies, are priced outside of what most middle and lower income Americans can afford. Millions of Americans will not be able to afford a new car. And when I was at EPA and we put forward are our automobile automotive standards, we looked at the impact on the consumer. Newer cars are

5:47 inherently safer than older cars. Is there’s every generation of cars. Every year a car is safer with the different technologies, the airbags, et cetera. This will force lower income Americans to stick with older cars and not have the safety advantages of the newer cars being made. And not to mention the fact even if even if a car, an

6:13 older car was state of the art when it came out, they degrade over time. So you’re going to have lower income Americans driving around in less safe cars. Well, upper middle classes this is people can buy these electric vehicles.

6:30 Speaker 1 Andrew, this is horrible. I mean, how can how can the A president do that? When North America has one hundred years worth of oil we can be completely independent. We’re putting ourselves in the hands of China all over again for those batteries.

6:51 Speaker 2 Absolutely, and you know it goes to the radical environmental community does not like to see Americans driving around in cars. They would prefer everybody to be using public transportation, and they don’t want cars on the roads. They don’t want private ownership of cars. So this is furthering that agenda.

7:11 Speaker 1 They’re trying to change our lifestyle.

7:14 Speaker 2 They are, absolutely and that’s not what the Clean Air Act direct directs EPA to do. You’re supposed to set standards based upon the technologies that are available, and EPA is ignoring that in this instance to Biden. And this is this is not I don’t believe this is a decision being made at the EPA. This is a Biden administration,

7:34 Biden White House decision to try to transform the economy and transform America’s way of life. Well, and this might work in urban areas, but it’s not going to work in rural America.

7:47 Speaker 1 Well, former EPA director Andrew Wheeler, thank you for standing up for America’s choice. And let’s stay in touch because this is a very serious situation. They’re trying to change the lifestyle of our country and make America less independent from the rest of the world. I mean, I don’t want to be dependent on China for my antibiotics and

8:13 my cart and thank you so much for coming aboard and we’ll talk again real soon.

8:19 Speaker 2 Thank you for having me on. Thank you