{"id":573,"date":"2025-01-24T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T11:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/?p=573"},"modified":"2025-02-20T14:56:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T14:56:00","slug":"trumps-attack-on-evs-is-just-theater-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/24\/trumps-attack-on-evs-is-just-theater-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s attack on EVs is just theater \u2014 so far"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"Trump

As many presidents have done, Donald Trump spent the better part of a week signing executive orders.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As President Donald Trump\u2019s first week in office comes to a close, his biggest accomplishments are things many of us anticipated: chaos and confusion. <\/p>\n

Some of the many executive orders the president has signed do threaten democracy<\/a> and others endanger the planet<\/a>. But others simply endorse hypothetical policies with more spectacle than is necessary, like printing out tweets on paper<\/a>, signing them with a black Sharpie, and holding them up for the world to see. <\/p>\n

The challenge there, of course, is that only legal scholars know at first glance which of Trump\u2019s executive orders will affect policy \u2014 and which will get stuck in court<\/a> for years to come. Nevertheless, the pieces of paper scare and confuse people. And that confusion will hang around, holding up actual progress for a meaningful amount of time. Trump\u2019s first assault on the fictional electric vehicle \u201cmandate\u201d<\/a> serves as a perfect example of this strategy.<\/p>\n

Hours after taking the oath of office, Trump signed an executive order with the cinematic title \u201cUnleashing American Energy<\/a>.\u201d In it, he outlines several new policies to, as the title implies, \u201cunleash America\u2019s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources.\u201d This is code for: Promote fossil fuel and hobble the renewable energy transition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Trump targeted EVs in several questionable ways<\/a> during his first week, let\u2019s focus on one specific thing in this executive order: Section 7, which is titled \u201cTerminate the Green New Deal.\u201d This section goes after programs that support building out the country\u2019s EV charging infrastructure. It specifically targets the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program<\/a> and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Grant Program<\/a>, which came out of one of former President Joe Biden\u2019s signature achievements, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act<\/a>. Together, the two programs allocate $7.5 billion to build out the US charging infrastructure. Trump wants to halt the disbursement of unspent funds from those programs.<\/p>\n

Trump said he was going to do this on the campaign trail. He falsely claimed that trillions of dollars were unspent<\/a>, and that his administration would \u201credirect that money for important projects like roads, bridges, dams and we will not allow it to be spent on meaningless Green New Scam ideas.\u201d So it was ironic when, after Trump issued the executive order taking aim at US infrastructure, the Federal Highway Administration, which builds roads and bridges, halted payments and stopped approving new projects<\/a> out of an abundance of caution.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration, to its credit, issued a memorandum<\/a> a day later, clarifying that the executive order only applied to \u201cfunds supporting the \u2018Green New Deal.\u2019\u201d The Green New Deal is not the same thing as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In fact, while it\u2019s a popular concept<\/a>, the Green New Deal is not real \u2014 it\u2019s not a law at all. Terminating this concept is part of the latest party platform of the GOP<\/a>, which refers to it as the \u201cSocialist Green New Deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Trump promised to freeze this EV charging infrastructure funding on the trail, legal experts have explained that he can\u2019t actually shut down these programs<\/a>. Doing so would likely violate the Impoundment Control Act of 1974<\/a>, which prevents US presidents from blocking spending that has been appropriated by Congress. President Trump has also promised to repeal that law<\/a> and give power to his executive branch. But he would need Congress to do that.<\/p>\n

Trump will also need Congress to shut down the programs providing funding for EV charging infrastructure. Meanwhile, 22 out of the 25 congressional districts receiving federal funding for EV manufacturing are represented by Republicans. So any real assault on the industry might face resistance on Capitol Hill, where Republicans have narrow majorities<\/a> in both the House and the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese programs are legally entrenched, widely supported, and designed to withstand political turbulence,\u201d said Kathy Harris<\/a>, director of clean vehicles, climate, and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. \u201cThe rhetoric is designed to grab headlines, but the reality is more complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s theater, and it\u2019s nothing new for Trump. <\/p>\n

That said, the fact that Trump decided to attack EVs as one of his first acts in office deserves some concern. He\u2019s effectively setting the tone for his presidency, and that tone is decidedly hostile toward the environment.<\/p>\n

In addition to freezing funding for EV charging infrastructure, Trump rescinded an executive order from President Biden that called for half of all new vehicles sold to be electric<\/a> by 2030. Trump also plans to roll back EPA rules issued last year<\/a> that implement stricter tailpipe emissions standards in an effort to fight climate change. Trump also wants to end EV subsidies and incentives<\/a>, including the $7,500 tax credit for people who buy new EVs. His executive orders, so far, do none of these things.<\/p>\n

The auto industry, to its credit, does not seem too fazed<\/a> by any of this. <\/p>\n

While some companies have rolled back certain plans ahead of Trump\u2019s victory \u2014 Ford notably canceled a three-row electric SUV<\/a> last August \u2014 there\u2019s little doubt that when it comes to transportation, the future will be electrified. It would be foolish to bet on fossil fuels at this point. In Harris\u2019s words, \u201cthe American auto industry is not in a bubble, and the global auto industry is moving towards these cleaner vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump is leaving himself a pretty big opening here. By leading with a ban on EV chargers, he\u2019s not taking direct aim at the American auto industry. It almost seems like this executive order is the applause line, and he\u2019s waiting to gauge the audience\u2019s reaction before axing programs, like tax credits, that directly impact carmakers and buyers. And while he\u2019s holding up that order, the signed tweet so to speak, Trump leaves the real stakeholders twisting their caps in their hands, wondering once again if he can really do that. <\/p>\n

It will take months, if not years, to find clarity here. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As many presidents have done, Donald Trump spent the better part of a week signing executive orders. As President Donald Trump\u2019s first week in office comes to a close, his biggest accomplishments are things many of us anticipated: chaos and confusion.  Some of the many executive orders the president has signed do threaten democracy and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/asian-idol.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}