Chris White on October 25, 2019
Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer is preparing to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on a plan that would fast-track the elimination of nearly every gas-powered vehicle in the country.
The senate’s top Democrat wants to spend a massive amount of money enticing Americans to exchange their gas-guzzling vehicles for an electric car. Schumer’s proposal, which he announced in a New York Times editorial Thursday, shows Democrats are lurching leftward on the issue.
“That’s why I am announcing a new proposal designed to rapidly phase out gas-powered vehicles and replace them with zero-emission, or ‘clean,’ vehicles like electric cars,” Schumer wrote after suggesting scientists agree that climate change represents an imminent threat to the U.S.
He added: “The goal of the plan, which also aims to spur a transformation in American manufacturing, is that by 2040 all vehicles on the road should be clean.” The plan would remove more than 63 million gas-powered cars from the road by 2030, Schumer estimates.
Schumer’s office expects the proposal to cost roughly $392 billion over a decade. The Washington Post referred to the idea on Friday as “essentially ‘Cash for Clunkers’ on steroids,” referring to a policy from the Obama-era encouraging Americans to trade their old vehicles for fuel-efficient cars.
Cash for Clunkers was the mechanism allowing the federal government to offer incentives of between $2,500 and $4,500 to citizens who traded in their older vehicles for newer ones. The policy received a lot of media play, but critics called the idea a failure even if it was designed with the best of intentions.
Under Schumer’s plan, car owners will get a rebate starting at $3,000 if they trade in their car for an electric vehicle, with the amount of rebate going up the longer the vehicle goes without recharging. The rebate could dramatically exceed the existing $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles.
Citizens are not the only ones who’d get a windfall. States and cities would also receive $45 billion in funding to install charging stations. The plan, which does not have legislative text, would also provide $17 billion to grant programs to build new factories for electric vehicles.
The senator’s idea comes as Democrats continue shifting leftward on environmental issues.
House Democrats introduced a Green New Deal in February calling for a “10-year national mobilization” toward a series of goals aimed at fighting global warming. The deal’s proponents called for the eradication of fossil fuels before lawmakers stripped the idea out of the final product.
Conservative analysts are already criticizing Schumer’s plan.
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“The money would be wasted. Even if Americans stopped driving entirely today and forever, there would be no discernible impact on, much less improvement of the weather or climate,” Steve Milloy, a lobbyist on behalf of the energy industry, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
BREAKING: I just announced bold new plan to:
1. Make #CleanCars affordable
2. Make charging infrastructure accessible to all
3. Make America a leader in clean car manufacturing
And here’s how it works: pic.twitter.com/YhR02werTu
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) October 25, 2019
Schumer’s office has not responded to the DCNF’s request for comment, but the senator also announced the plan on Twitter Friday.
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LOL LOL……LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
How about electric airplanes?
Then everyone went back to what they were doing after they found out that it was a Schumer idea.
You have vehicles that are manufactured for other purposes where electricity would not work. Climate change is a mock and sham. Our country of people can do things to clean the enviornment, but we will never ever change the climate. Nada. To spend the billions of dollars to continue to push this sham is remarkable. Completely beyond common sense. Typical of Schummer
The only thing Schumer stands for is the destroy America movement.Israel dosen’t eant him either,can you see why now??
Well, not all gas powered vehicles. There will still be limos for “public Servants”.
Hey Schmucky, who is going to pay for these electric cars? We senior citizens can’t. I’m driving a 20 year old car, and if I didn’t work on my car myself I wouldn’t have one. Now you want to force these expensive kiddie cars on everyone. I don’t know how to fix them and I can’t afford the mechanics bill. Go eat s**t and bark at the moon.
What? Eliminate gas vehicles? Schumer is a fkng idgit That figures, he’s a
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In a word – No. Stop the subsidies – to fossil fuels, to wind, to solar and for that matter to everything including Planned Parenthood. When politicians start flying in wind powered airplanes then start making plans for the public.
how dose this help us again.
us -no
them – yes
guess who owns stock in these companies that cannot make a profit in real competition
So let me get this straight. They want us to give up a car that can last 10 20 years. While a Trickle car you have to pay thousands every few years to replace the battery. how dose this help us again.
It’s all part of their plan to eliminate the middle class so this country will be comprised of elites who will be running the country with the New World Order and the rest of us peons will be poor so they can control us.
So they want us to give up our gas cars that can last 10 to 20 year after you buy them if taken care of. While Electric cars you have to replace the battery every 5 years and it cost Thousands of dollars to replace.
I read an article about the police losing a suspect because their car ran out of power. The official excuse…er reason given by the Police Department’s spokesperson was: “someone forgot to plug it in so it could recharge.” Duh, you think?
I actually saw a Tesla on side of the highway that ran out of power waiting for towing. And what happens when towing runs out of battery.
This politicians – and the people who believe them – are just too ignorant. Very early in school we learn the Law of Conservation of Energy which states that energy can change from one form into another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. That means that our Power Generation plants will have to produce much more electricity by burning a lot more oil, coal or nuclear fuel in order to satisfy the gigantic demand created by millions of vehicles. Even at present time in some places, during hot weather, the power grid becomes overwhelmed and government agencies ask people to turn up their AC temperature. Now, just imagine what may happen when every single car in the country will need to be connect to a power outlet. This is an insane perspective. Furthermore, in case of catastrophes, if power lines go down people can get stranded. With gas powered vehicles one can store a couple of gas cans and drive for many hundreds of miles. How many extra batteries – big and heavy – can we take in an electric car? Electric vehicles do have their place in the general transportation systems, like trains, subways, and delivery vehicles inside cities. Making the whole national fleet depending on just one source of energy is stupid and dangerous.
Let Mitch McConnell bring it up for a vote in the Senate, Chuckie Cheese, and then we’ll see how far your harebrained idea getsl
Build windmills where the wind blows.
i suggest around the dc beltway
greatest source of hot air in the world
I honestly do not know if CO2 is causing global warming. I am not a climate scientist.
I do know our electrical grid is not capable of powering that many vehicles and is unlikely to be able to do so within the next 50 years.
Want wind power? Build windmills where the wind blows. Mainly in places like Texas and Oklahoma. Except during storms there is just not that much wind in New York City and Boston.
Want solar power? Build solar plants where the sun shines and it does not snow, like the desert SW. If you build them in upstate NY or Minnesota, they will be covered by snow for part of the year.
On the upside, this will greatly increase the wealth of the those friends of Obama who will get the tax benefits, government grants and government contracts.
Shout Out to Solyndra!
I guess schummer and the liberal progressive terrorist party dont give a damn about people like me who are disabled and living on an income that barely allowes me to keep my old beat up vehicle on the road so I can get groceries and to doctors appointments. climate change is about nothing more then the wealthy liberal elites trying to make energy so expensive that no average american citizen can afford to use the natural resources that liberals feel belong to them by birth right. look at the biggest screamers about climate change every single one of them burn more fosil fuel and leave a carbon foot print that is 50 week that is 50 times the carbon foot print that an average united states citizen uses in 6 months, the liberal wealthy elites are the ones producing the biggest amounts of pollution and burning more electricity and fuel then anyone else. it is time to out law the wealthy elites make schummer ride a bicycle to meetings make entitiled holly celebs take public transportation,. I refuse to be pushed into cutting down my carbon foot print when corrupt pieces of garbage like al gore burn more electricity in one week then I use all year, I refuse to be bullied by people like al gore who burn more fosil fuel in 10 minutes of his private jet sitting on the run way then I burn all year. it is time to force the wealthy liberal elites to live by their own rules before they try to force them on us!
Why release this today? Because Chuckie and the rest of the Hate America First democrats are soiling their diapers after the announcement that DOJ is conducting a criminal investigation of the Russia hoax.
Takes a long to charge and the best they can do is about 100-150 miles at 60. That doesnt get me half to where I work a week on and a week off. It would take 2 day there and 2 days back. What a joke! As soon as Schumer starts flying in a electric powered airplane I will test drive a electric car.
“Make charging infrastructure accessible to all”
Charging stations nation-wide? Aren’t there still [remote] places in America that don’t even have internet yet?
“…Nix virtually EVERY gas powered vehicle in the country”
Sure, except for the large SUV’s that Chucky and his ilk travel in…..at taxpayers expense, right?
Can help but wonder if any liberal in this country read where scientist are saying the Hole In The Ozone is getting smaller instead of larger???
The danger from more CO2 in the atmosphere is imaginary. This is just a new religion, not science. Climate change is real and always in progress, but it is almost entirely caused by the sun and its cycles.