SOMEONE WANTS TO KILL ELECTRIC VEHICLES!

…There are those, such as the Koch’s, that want us to use gas vehicles, even if it kills us!

EV’s are being attacked by the fossil fuel industry and the Koch Brothers.

Let’s talk about the future of electric vehicles.

The electric vehicle market is growing extremely fast.  They are popular, fast, clean and they are becoming cheaper than conventional gas vehicles when you factor in the lower costs of maintenance and fuel savings.

So, who would be against the electric vehicle?

As was expected, the Koch Brothers are.

The Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has introduced a bill to end the federal tax credit for plug-in electric vehicles.  He also wants a user fee for all alternative fuel vehicles.  Now, granted there needs to be some way to charge the electric vehicles that use the highways that are paid for mostly with a gas tax.  But since only 2-4% of the cars produced are electric cars, it’s hardly the time to start charging them for the highway costs.  Lets wait until there are more electric vehicles that are using these roads before we lower the boom on a vehicle that over all, will be better for all of us, and that deals with our current issue of pollution and carbon emissions.

So, let’s take a look at those Koch brothers, that support the anti-EV senator, to see why they are going after the electric automobile.

Here's a look at Senator Barrasso.

Barraso is the 3^rd highest recipient of campaign donations from the Koch Industries.  The senator regularly uses the reports funded by the Koch brothers and their donor network in his op-eds, and on the Senate floor as well as in articles on Fox News.  (And many of these reports sight questionable information.)

In effect, Barraso has justified his latest bill almost entirely with arguments, many misleading and some that are entirely false, and that have been previously offered by Koch affiliated think-tanks, advocacy groups and other questionable organizations.

It was only a few years ago that the petroleum industry saw the electric vehicles (EV’s) as a real threat to their business.  Beginning in 2016, a whole new generation of plug-in vehicles was produced that were promising 100 mile ranges, and lower price tags.

At the same time, the Koch Brothers started working on a program for keeping gas-guzzlers on the highways.

In 2015, a couple of key Koch agents started meeting with oil-refining and marketing companies to pitch a new “multi-million dollar assault on electric vehicles” .  This was found out by a Huffington Post investigation.

The Koch Industries and the former president of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Charles Drevna, were raising funds to support and defend the oil and gas industry from stronger, fuel-efficiency standards and transportation electrification.

In December of 2015, a group called Frontiers of Freedom, (sounds good doesn’t it!), which was a front group for Exxon/Mobil, and the Koch Family Foundation.  They created the Energy Equality Coalition.  This group had the only purpose of taking on the EV tax credit.  Their slogan was that EV’s were “Built by Billionaires, bought by Millionaires.”  They called the EV Tax credit: a “massive wealth transfer from the poor to the rich”.

One area that they didn’t address is that 50% of electric vehicles are leased at a similar cost as gas vehicles, they are not purchased.

The Koch Brothers businesses offered their usual talking points and false statistics with the aim of slowing down the adoption of electric vehicles by average Americans. The Koch team also took on a group that has been developing those propositions for states to adopt questionable laws. As an example, the law that allowed the bogus security individual to get away with killing the young black, Trayvon Martin in Florida a few years ago.

That organization is the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC.  This group is funded mainly by private interests.  And the Koch Industries funds most of the trade associations within ALEC.  In fact, its 2017, membership documents revealed that Koch funded organizations had the largest representation at ALEC’s annual meeting.

ALEC’s efforts are also amplified by Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the so called “grassroots” advocacy operation heavenly funded by, guess who?  The Koch Brothers!  The AFP in Colorado campaigned heavily for a bill that would have repealed the state’s EV tax incentive.  In Illinois, the AFP lobbied heavily against the new state subsidies for EV charging station infrastructure.

It has been proven that EV’s provide real benefits to the states as they weigh less which reduces road wear, and their lack of a tail pipe improves emissions.  They have also shown that when they become more popular, the loss of gas tax revenue could easily be covered by a 1 cent increase in every state’s gas tax.

In Tennessee, the AFP rallied hard against a mass transit plan in 2018.  It had been approved by two thirds of the voters.  But an AFP door to door canvassing, funded by the Koch Brothers, ultimately killed the plan. 

The fight over the EV’s is just beginning.  The cars are selling faster each year because they are quiet, peppy, clean and are getting cheaper every year.  In fact, they are already cheaper when you factor in their lower cost of maintenance and the fuel savings.

The pro-EV supporters say, “What’s not to like?  They are not powered by oil!”

But that’s a non-starter for the Koch’s, who want to keep lining their pockets with fossil fuel profits.

Copyright G. Ater 2019