On Wednesday’s Your World on Fox News, Joe Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made one of his most far-out claims yet. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana-turned Transportation chief claimed “of course” America can ban gas-powered cars by the year 2035. Such policies would mimic those of New York and California, which have instituted such policies. Despite most cars on the road (99%) being gas-powered, it is unsure how the government could make this a reality. Despite that, Buttigieg is doubling down on his mandates.
Breitbart reports:
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated that states like New York and California will be ready to transition to electric vehicles by 2035, and that “if the United States of America can’t execute a transition like this over the course of more than a decade, I don’t know what to tell you, this is America, of course, we can do something like that.” Buttigieg also stated that different states will have different approaches, and the power issues in California and post-hurricane outages in Florida, are “a great example of one of the many benefits” of electric vehicles because some have power that can flow in both directions.
Host Neil Cavuto asked, “Secretary, as you know, much of the power was out across half the state of Florida for a while. Much of it has resumed, sir. But it did make some folks think, boy, these electric vehicles that are being pushed, between what happened in Florida and the grid that was compromised to the point where California Gov. Newsom (D) wanted people to cool it for a while on when and how often they charged their EVs, do you think this reminds folks that we’re not ready or the EVs are not ready for prime time?”
Buttigieg responded, “Well, actually, I think this is a great example of one of the many benefits of those tools. You know, I was just at the Detroit Auto Show a couple of weeks ago. One of the things that was very impressive about some of the vehicles that we saw, including, for example, the pickup trucks that are on the market — entering onto the market right now, is that their power can actually flow both ways. So, in an extreme event, from a neighborhood resiliency perspective, they can actually work, basically like a generator, except that you don’t have to have diesel ready for them. What they’re doing is they’re using the battery capacity to power a home, and in that sense, could be very useful in a scenario like this. Look, I don’t think anybody thinks that we’re ready here, sitting here in 2022 for a scenario where, overnight, there is some instant transition to electric vehicles.”
Cavuto then cut in to ask, “You want to do so by 2035, right? In some states like California…in New York, we want to do so by 2035. You think we’d be ready to do that?”
Buttigieg responded, “Well, yeah, I mean, GM said they’re not even going to be making anything but electric vehicles after 2035. So, if the United States of America can’t execute a transition like this over the course of more than a decade, I don’t know what to tell you, this is America, of course, we can do something like that. Different states have different approaches.”
When California passed the law, far-left Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom said, “The climate crisis is solvable if we focus on the big, bold steps necessary to stem the tide of carbon pollution.” He announced the 2035 goal two years ago, and regulators have spent the time since then working out the details of what Newsom termed “the action we must take if we’re serious about leaving this planet better off for future generations.”
