Republicans are looking to phase out electric vehicles. Why on earth would they do that? Because
they want to defend and support to the death the oil and gas industry. Let's look at a couple of
reports. Newsweek reporting Republicans want to phase out electric cars to protect fossil fuels.
In late December, Oregon officials approved regulations that would ban the sale of new
gas powered vehicles in the state by 2035. That's pretty interesting. Two states away in Wyoming,
Republican lawmakers are looking to go in a different direction, writes Newsweek,
pushing legislation that would ban the sale of all new electric vehicles in what
lawmakers are calling an effort to preserve the state's fossil fuel industry. What?
Sponsored by Casper, Republican Senator Jim Anderson. With the support of other Republicans,
the resolution proposes to phase out the sale of all new electric vehicles in the state by 2035 to
help maintain the fossil fuel jobs that underpin the state's economy. Imagine I have contraband. I
went to another state to get it. What is it? Is it is it meth? What is it? Is it the abortion pill?
No, it's an electric vehicle. Huh. That's pretty bonkers. The proliferation of electric vehicles
reads the resolution at the expense of gas powered vehicles will have a deleterious and will have
deleterious impacts on Wyoming's communities and will be detrimental to Wyoming's economy and the
ability for the country to efficiently engage in commerce. They're just going to say you can't buy
electric vehicles anymore. Not new. Engadget reporting Wyoming wants to phase out sales of
new EVs by 2035. It's a symbolic gesture aimed at states like California, California, New York,
of course, are going in the direction of saying after a certain date, we're not going to allow
ICE vehicles, internal combustion engine vehicles to be sold. So a couple of thoughts. First of all,
this is not exactly the free market. Now, you could say electric vehicles shouldn't be
subsidized. You could say that you could take that. You could make that argument and say,
listen, I really want a free market. So the government shouldn't offer rebates or tax
credits on electric vehicles. Now, if that's your position, you should also say that the government
shouldn't subsidize oil and gas fossil fuels at all. Right. If your position is no subsidies,
let the free market decide. You've got to get rid of all subsidies and tax credits. That is
certainly one position, but it is not a free market to, say phase out electric vehicles, but
continue subsidizing oil and gas, which is exactly what they want to do. Now, you can make arguments
about electric vehicles that I think are perfectly fair arguments to make, like, for example, the
sourcing of some of the materials required to make batteries is a problem. I'm with you. It's got to
be figured out. There is no doubt. I believe it's cobalt. The sourcing of cobalt for batteries is a
problem. We have to figure out what do we do with spent electric vehicle batteries. That question is
being answered. It's being worked on. It's going to be figured out. But you have to remember that
there are some systemic, fundamental advantages to electric vehicles over gas powered vehicles
that make this. I would never say this is the end point. Once electric vehicles are predominant,
there will be some next thing, right? 100 years, two, three, 500 years. This isn't the end. But
when you compare electric to gas powered, gas powered vehicles typically have what's called
energy conversion efficiency of 20%. That means 20% of the energy stored in the gasoline before
you burn it is actually used to power the vehicle 20%. That's very low. Electric vehicles have an
energy conversion efficiency of 90%, meaning that 90% of the energy stored in the batteries
is actually used to power the vehicle, to power its systems to move the vehicle at the base level.
Electric vehicles are way more efficient at using energy and they produce fewer emissions. Now then
you get to the next layer benefit. Electric vehicles don't have a tailpipe. They don't emit
pollutants and greenhouse gases at the tailpipe. Gas powered vehicles, as they drive around,
spew dangerous pollutants like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter,
all sorts of stuff. Terrible for human health, terrible for the environment. Electric vehicles
don't do that. There's no tailpipe emissions. They don't directly pollute the air. Now, of course,
where is the electricity coming from? The electricity may be polluting the air,
but you can get off of that. You can power your electric vehicle with solar energy, with wind
energy. And so every time you go up, up, up the chain, you reduce the emissions. And the benefit
of electric vehicles over gas powered vehicles grows. Now, we still have problems to solve,
but these are fundamental realities. And these Republicans, I mean, listen, even the legacy
automobile manufacturers are realizing the direction things are going. They're trying
to roll out the EVs slowly. Right. They still want to get as much money out of ICE vehicles as they
can. But even GM and Ford and all these companies realize the way things are going. But Republicans,
some retrograde Republicans are saying, no, no, no, no, we're not going to do it. It is absolutely
horrifying. And they don't actually care. You know, this is like saying we don't believe
that smoking is bad. Let's have this movement to maintain smoking in restaurants that we've seen
the companies that for 40 years have known that the harvesting of fossil fuels is bad for the
environment and they cover up or they pretend they don't know about it, whatever the case may be,
it is not only immoral in the long term. I actually think it's bad business. But the
state of Wyoming says, let's face it out, it will be laughed at eventually. I don't
know if it will be five years from now, 1020. It will be seen as absolutely absurd that states,
once we have the technology we're building out, the charging network,
that states we're still saying, hey, let's protect the cars that drive around, burning fossil fuels,
putting it into the atmosphere, furthering the negative impact of the entire fossil
fuel industry. It will be seen as insane when I don't know. But Wyoming wants to wants to
lead the world in that. It's disgusting. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back after this.