The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has been promulgating rules that would allegedly reduce pollution but instead will raise costs and fail to achieve that objective, proposed a new rule, Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Year 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles, that would build on the EPA’s final standards for federal greenhouse gas emissions standards for passenger cars and light trucks. H.R.4468, the Choice in Automobile Retail Sales Act (CARS Act), which passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday, December 6, 2023, would prevent the EPA from implementing the rule and limit the agency’s ability to limit consumer choice and the availability of automobiles based on emissions.
H.R. 4468 was introduced on July 6, 2023, by Representatives Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.). In their press release, Rep. Walberg said, “The Biden administration cannot continue to create regulations that limit consumer choice, hamper mobility, make vehicles more expensive for families, and cede America’s auto leadership and jobs to China. … This legislation would put a stop to this executive overreach, allowing consumers to have the freedom to decide what car works best for them and their families and preventing auto manufacturers from being forced to meet unrealistic mandates driven by the President’s Green New Deal agenda.”
Rep. Clyde said, “From restrictions on gas stoves to gas-powered vehicles, the Biden Administration’s destructive energy policies are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to expand government control into Americans’ daily lives. … In response, the CARS Act provides a commonsense solution to protect both American consumers and auto manufacturers from the Biden Administration’s radical climate agenda and dangerous government overreach.”
It is unlikely that the bill will pass in the Senate. But its passage re-emphasizes the need to stop the implementation of the emission standards proposed by the EPA, which would radically change the U.S. auto industry and raise consumer prices. The lack of interest in electric vehicles is being shown by the multi-billion-dollar losses on those cars by Ford, whose losses on EV sales increased by 50 percent, from an estimated $3 billion to $4.5 billion, and the piling up of inventory on sales lots around the country, which have increased by 506 percent from 2022 to 2023, despite price cuts and tax breaks which were intended to increase sales.
Heavy-handed government mandates that distort the market and raise consumer costs are the wrong approach to EV sales. Instead, politicians and unelected bureaucrats should allow Americans to live their own lives and decide what vehicles they drive.
