Climate Corner: Don’t fall for it

Jun 14, 2025

Eric Engle

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., had an op-ed published in the June 5 edition of the Parkersburg News and Sentinel titled “Pulling the plug on the EV mandate” that was absolutely farcical.

The first comically absurd aspect of the piece was when Sen. Capito referred to “Congress’s constitutional and statutory oversight authority over federal agencies and unelected bureaucratic overreach.” When since Jan. 20 of this year have Republicans shown the slightest care or interest in “Congress’s constitutional and statutory oversight authority?”

Capito herself has applauded the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump 2.0 regime’s Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget as they have systematically worked to dismantle the federal civil service. Through executive orders and proclamations written by the Heritage Foundation and the infiltration of virtually all the data the federal government compiles on all Americans by tech bro toddlers, as well as nefarious efforts to put that ill-gotten data into the hands of Peter Thiel’s Palantir, we have seen nothing but careless acquiescence and/or active support for these democracy-destroying blatant violations of the rule of law by Capito and her party colleagues throughout Congress.

For a Trump sycophant like Capito to feign concern for Congress’s ability to act as a coequal branch of government with strong oversight capabilities, irony must indeed be dead. As chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Capito holds great congressional sway. Instead of using it to defend federal employees in her state and their civil service protections and collective bargaining rights — just one example of a positive way her power could be wielded — Capito wants to expend political capital on eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of a waiver for California so all states adopting California clean air standards can also adopt the state’s “Advance Clean Cars II” standard.

As Capito points out, the adoption and implementation of this ACCII standard would mandate that 30% of the nation’s new car market (including all areas of the country who have adopted California’s clean air standards) consist of zero tailpipe emission cars in the next decade. This is fundamentally no different than mandating that new car models had to have seatbelts or states enforcing laws that your brake lights work or states enforcing inspection laws. Tailpipe exhaust is a major air pollution problem and therefore public health issue, as well as the largest contributing factor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

This isn’t about “consumer choice,” as Capito claims. California and the EPA have not been attempting to force consumers to purchase one make or model of a car over another when purchasing a new vehicle. They weren’t the ones who turned the White House lawn into a Tesla lot (Teslas are zero tailpipe emission EVs, by the way). This is about protecting the environment and public health. You know, EPA’s stated mission since it was created.

It’s also about saving consumers money. Research by the Union of Concerned Scientists has shown that the costs of owning an EV are now lower across the country than the costs of owning an internal combustion engine vehicle. EVs are cheaper to charge than gasoline-powered vehicles are to fuel, with the median cost savings on fuel costs being between $700-$800 a year, according to UCS. Maintenance costs for EVs are far lower than for gas-powered vehicles and EV charging ranges are now comparable to or exceed the driving ranges of gas-powered vehicles.

EVs have more torque off the line and just as much, if not more, towing capacity as any gas-or-diesel-powered vehicle. They are built with the same safety specs and cargo and passenger capacities as any gas-powered vehicle. Inflation Reduction Act and other federal and state investments have made the initial purchase of both new and used EVs far more affordable and helped American auto manufacturers meet so much of the demand for new EVs with unionized workforces.

Don’t fall for Capito’s fossil fuels industry-backed propaganda. All that she and her colleagues accomplished by using the Congressional Review Act to strike down this waiver by alleging (falsely) that it was an actual EPA rule is higher new car prices (alongside Trump’s tariff costs), more air pollution over the next decade (and the negative health impacts of that pollution), a worsened global climate crisis and lost American manufacturing jobs (many union jobs) created under the previous administration.

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Eric Engle is board president of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.