House Republicans vote to kill thousands, increase fuel costs $100B/yr

House Republicans have passed a bill attempting to block new emissions standards that will save thousands of lives and reduce fuel costs for Americans by $100 billion per year. Thankfully, however, the bill will likely die in the Senate, and will be vetoed even if it doesn’t.

The bill was passed today with a vote of 215-191, notably receiving less support than a full 220-vote Congressional majority would entail due to 25 members who did not vote (for various reasons – often, at this time of year, this includes campaigning).

The bill was voted for by 207 republicans and 8 Democrats (Caraveo, Cuellar, Davis (NC), Golden (ME), Vicente Gonzalez, Kaptur, Peltola, and Perez), and was voted against by 190 Democrats and 1 Republican (Fitzpatrick).

The one-sentence bill simply states that the new EPA emissions standards “shall have no effect.”

This is not the first time House republicans have tried to repeal this same rule. Last December, they passed another bill attempting to block the rule before it was finalized. At the time, and now, they made a big stink of blocking an EV “mandate,” but the rule in question does not include a mandate (perhaps if they could read more than one sentence they would know this).

But that bill died after leaving the House, and the emissions standards were finalized earlier this year, though in a slightly weakened form from the original proposal. Automakers and labor had asked for a delay in some of the requirements of the rules, though with similar final stringency as the original proposal had desired.

In the end, the finalized rule will save Americans $100 billion in fuel, health and climate costs per year. That amounts to a total of $6,000 in savings per vehicle, and it will cut climate pollution by 7 billion tons in total as well. It will also avoid 2,000 early deaths per year.

Even better, one of our favorite parts of the regulation is that it includes a signal that the government is finally going to try to do something about giant pedestrian-killing SUVs, meaning that in the future we might finally have access to some smaller, safer vehicles after more than a decade of ballooning vehicle size and danger, with pedestrian deaths doubling in the last decade.

The EPA rule was supported by doctors, nurses, scientists, environmental groups, many businesses, people who recognize that they have lungs which they would like to continue using (aka, a large majority of the voting public), and others. It also gained support of the UAW and of the automaker lobby (whose leader spoke on stage at the event to commemorate the rule) in its final form.

It makes sense from a patriotic standpoint as well – it offers a path for the US auto industry to move towards manufacturing the lower-emission vehicles of the present and future, which is important in a world where the US is falling behind on clean vehicle manufacturing.

Efforts to slow down US EV development will simply hand more of the EV lead to China, and smart industrial policy to drive domestic manufacturing investment – as the Biden-Harris administration has provided – is what’s needed to get us up to speed (the new tariffs, however, are not helpful).

And automakers clearly need the nudging from government, as they’ve been dragging their feet on climate commitments and production plans, even moreso in recent months as they’ve all fallen for their own propaganda.

So, basically everyone with any stake in this rule supports it, except for the 215 Congresspeople who today voted against it.

In addition, yesterday, republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee pushed through 3 Congressional Review Act actions which would reverse three other pollution-reducing and money-saving rules, related to power plant, particulate matter and heavy-duty tailpipe emissions.

All of these efforts are unlikely to take effect, as President Biden would veto them, and in addition there is a time limit on when CRA actions can be taken, which should run out before the end of this Congressional term.

Despite the “bipartisan” nature of today’s vote, with 8 of the more conservative Democrats voting for it, many have pointed out that republicans could be offering a strategic opportunity to those Democrats, allowing them to signal to their conservative constituents that they have an independent streak, while still knowing that this harmful bill will never go into law.

According to a recent analysis, the Biden-Harris EPA’s air pollution rules will collectively save Americans $250 billion per year (in excess of compliance costs) and will prevent 200,000 deaths and 100 million asthma attacks through 2050.

Electrek’s Take

Whenever we write articles like this, we end up getting a few comments saying “stop getting political! it’s not fair that you target one party!”

We do understand the point that compliance to new regulations can cost money. And sometimes, those compliance costs are high for little benefit. But here, those compliance costs and net benefits have been calculated, and they’re positive. As is the case with so much environmental regulation these days, especially with the advent of electrification and renewable generation, we can improve both the economy and health at the same time. That is the case here as well.

All we do here at Electrek is advocate for electric vehicles. We do this openly – you know that this is the position we’re coming from, and you know why we’re doing it. We’re doing it because we like clean air, we like energy efficiency, we like technology, we like better cars. We don’t make a secret about this. We want to live in a better world, and we’re pretty sure you do, too.

In our coverage of these efforts to live in a better world, there is one party which seems to be unequivocally against doing so. When we cover efforts to make things better, these efforts are not being led by republicans. And when we cover efforts to make things worse, those efforts are being led by republicans.

So when we point out, time and time again, that republicans are voting to poison you, this is not an example of us being partisan. This is an example of republicans picking the side of poison, and us reporting on it factually. 

And in this case they aren’t even going to get it into law. They know this, and yet they still voted for it, as if to say: “hey, if given the chance, we want everyone to know that our goal is to kill you and make things worse.” It wasn’t even necessary for them to do so, they could try to keep it a secret or something, but it’s all out in the open. As the saying goes: “when people show you who they are, believe them.”

All of this is even more important when a US election is less than two months away. In this election, there is a stark contrast between the candidates’ platforms and histories on EVs and environmental stewardship. We suspect that most of our readers support both of these things, and since the environment is the base upon which all other issues are built – because without clean air, water, shelter, a livable environment, etc., nothing else matters – then we suspect that the path of action going forward is clear.

And so, we have to call these efforts what they are: efforts to poison you and cost you money. We would be happy to see republicans stop these efforts, and they can choose to do so anytime, and we will gladly and fairly report on it if they do.

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