Electric Vehicle Mandate: A Costly and Unjust Transition?

This article focuses on the federal mandate for all new light-duty vehicles to be electric by 2035, which faces significant challenges, including the need for more electrical generation capacity and charging stations. It stated a Fraser Institute study emphasizing the massive infrastructure costs with substantial financial burdens likely to fall on taxpayers. The shift to EVs poses environmental and ethical concerns, given the need for extensive new mining operations in developing countries, which are often linked to human rights abuses.

Editor’s Note: The federal mandate requiring all new light-duty vehicles to be electric by 2035 is fraught with financial and ethical challenges that make it impractical and unjust. There is the enormous cost of building the necessary infrastructure, including new gas plants or mega-dams, which would likely be passed onto taxpayers, many of whom can’t even afford or don’t want electric vehicles.

This preferential treatment for those who can afford EVs worsens economic inequality, forcing less affluent citizens to fund a transition they may not benefit from. Another factor is the environmental and ethical implications of sourcing the required rare-earth minerals for EV batteries are deeply troubling and often involve harmful mining practices and human rights abuses in developing countries.

The combined economic burden and ethical issues underscore the flaws in the mandate, is this really the solution? [See: What Happens If We Just Stopped Oil? Six Billion Might Die, Says Experts, Electric Vehicles and Their Dirty Secret]

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