Tell Our Senators—Don’t Make Electric Vehicles More Expensive

From PennEnvironment (http://www.pennenvironment.org):

The biggest source of America’s global warming pollution is emissions from the cars and trucks we drive every day.¹ That’s part of the reason why America’s carbon emissions actually rose in 2018 — by 3.4 percent, the worst increase in eight years.²

If we’re serious about solving the climate crisis, we’ll need to transition to clean, electric vehicles as fast as possible. But a new bill in the U.S. Senate would actually make it harder for people to afford clean, electric vehicles.

Go to https://pennenvironment.webaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=32522 to tell our senators: Don’t hit the brakes on electric cars.

People who buy electric vehicles are eligible for a tax credit of up to $7,500 to help offset the cost of a new car. The amount varies depending on the type of car sold, and the credit only applies to the first 200,000 cars sold by each manufacturer, but it helps put more electric cars on the road.

If anything, we should be expanding the credit and eliminating the 200,000-car cap. But a bill introduced in the Senate in February would end the tax credit, making it even more expensive to buy an electric car. Not only that — it would also charge people an additional fee for driving electric cars.³

This is a terrible idea at a time when we need to be doing more, not less, to expand electric vehicle use. Tell your senators: Don’t make clean, electric vehicles more expensive.

1. Umair Irfan, “Cars and trucks are America’s biggest climate problem for the 2nd year in a row,” Vox, January 14, 2018.
2. Brad Plumer, “U.S. Carbon Emissions Surged in 2018 Even as Coal Plants Closed,” The New York Times, January 8, 2019.
3. “S.343 – Fairness for Every Driver Act,” Congress.gov, accessed March 5, 2019.