During a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) gave opening remarks about the Biden administration’s electric vehicle push.
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NewsTranscript
00:00And I turn now to Senator Grassley followed by Senator Graham for opening statements
00:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to our expert witnesses
00:09Our last hearing was with CBO director Swagle
00:14he was
00:16Welcomed a very welcoming event at this committee and unfortunately a rare opportunity for this committee to focus on
00:25critical
00:26broken budget process
00:30It gives us a chance to
00:32talk to somebody that
00:34Knows that that process needs to be fixed and a primary
00:40responsibility of this committee
00:42It had changed for holding a CBO hearing at my request
00:47I agreed to Senator Graham working with Chairman Whitehouse to put together today's hearing. We'll be discussing electric vehicles
00:56and
00:57barriers to the
00:59fabrication of
01:00America's light-duty fleet
01:03the Biden-Harris
01:06administration's unattainable goal of
01:1050% new EV sales by 2030 has been on full display over the last four years
01:18from the imposing expensive EPA regulations to doing
01:24doling out billions in EV subsidies for the rich
01:29The economic detriment to the
01:32EV policy to America's EV policy is quite evident
01:37Now I don't want to give the wrong impression
01:39EV technology is impressive and works well for some
01:45But Iowans know that there are far more challenges to EV adoption that many care to admit
01:53EVs best
01:54Serve wealthier people who also live in or near suburban and urban areas
02:03Perhaps the most prominent barrier to EV adoption is that the EVs are uneconomical
02:12CBO's February baseline set the record straight
02:16Telling us that the so-called inflation reduction acts EV handout
02:22Would increase the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars
02:26I also couldn't help but notice that the price of EVs rose immediately after the IRA's
02:35passage to absorb the bills
02:37$7,500 new EV tax credit these EV costs were then of course passed on to the consumer
02:46of course now many had to be
02:50Discounted because they haven't been able to sell them and I've yet to hear a
02:55Comprehensive plan to make EV owners pay into Federal Highway Trust Fund
03:03EV drivers are currently
03:06free riding on the backs of the middle class and
03:11Although some states have instituted an extra fee for so-called fuel efficient vehicles
03:19Making them even more expensive. There are many holes in the rapid EV
03:25transition fantasy
03:27They include a lack of critical minerals needed to produce EVs
03:32lack of transmission
03:34infrastructure needed to support their
03:37increased electricity demands and our current reliance upon nefarious countries in the
03:45supply chain
03:47According to the University of Michigan
03:50the world would need to mine a hundred and fifteen percent more copper from
03:572018 to
03:592050 than has been mined in all of human history up until
04:052018
04:06Just to do business as usual
04:10This copper mining doesn't even include the green transition and the EV
04:18They take three to five times as much copper as a standard vehicle
04:23I hope we discuss where these critical minerals from the so-called EV
04:30transition will come from
04:31China dominates the global critical mineral
04:36Supply chain accounting for approximately 60 percent of the worldwide
04:42production and
04:4385 percent of
04:45Processing capacity and we struggle to permit
04:49federal projects here in America
04:52from wind turbines to transmission lines to pipelines to hard rock mines
05:00Left-wing environmentalists are holding up the permitting reform
05:05needed for the very EV
05:08expansion that they claim
05:11the left claims
05:13Climate crisis but backs away from comprehensive reform
05:18when the environmental law becomes
05:21calling
05:22they also claim to care about air quality and
05:26environmental justice
05:27but ignore
05:29the
05:30unreported and
05:32underreported
05:34particulate emissions from tires under the heavy weight of EVs
05:39Legislators must do better and I hope this hearing serves as a stepping stone
05:46for honest permitting of
05:49dialogue moving forward as
05:51We grapple with the environmental red tape. The Chinese are rapidly expanding coal power plants to fuel
06:00EV
06:01manufacturing boom
06:03I'd like to welcome all today's witnesses invited here by Senator Whitehouse and Graham and
06:09Finally, mr. Chairman, I request unanimous consent to put this article called copper
06:15can't be mined fast enough to electrify vehicles. I
06:20Thank you. I
06:22before you you go on I
06:24Was thinking I mentioned a few
06:27inconsistencies in my opening remarks
06:30but I think of others and maybe it's being
06:34the adjective
06:36unrealistic or
06:38Inconsistency may fit a couple things
06:41But I was the number one producer of ethanol
06:45We have 43,000 jobs in Iowa. And if we had every vehicle
06:50in the United States be
06:53EVs
06:55You could see what that could do to the particular
06:59Job that we created 40 years ago to produce a more environmentally friendly
07:05product then
07:08then petroleum is
07:10we have the inconsistency of
07:14the rainforest being
07:16hacked away to mine nickel in
07:21Indonesia we have the inconsistency of people in the Congress that talk about
07:27We got to stop the use of child labor
07:30Around the globe and yet we have children
07:34mining cobalt in Congo
07:37I mentioned transmission in my opening comment the chairman mentioned transmission, but this permitting
07:45process is
07:46hauled by
07:48environmentalists not wanting to cut red tape here in Washington DC and then you have the silly
07:55Posture of the
07:59In inflation Reduction Act
08:04Appropriating billions of dollars for
08:07for
08:08Charging stations and I guess to date we have about eight
08:12So I I just think there's a lot about this whole process that hasn't been thought out very well. I'm done now
08:19Well, I hope that the hundred twenty five billion in private capital that has been dedicated to this says otherwise