Click here to watch Ranking Member Capito’s questions.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, participated in a subcommittee hearing to examine the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new vehicle emissions rules, which will force American automakers and consumers to transition to electric cars and trucks.
Last week, Ranking Member Capito released a statement highlighting the multiple problems with the misguided new standards, which “were made without considering the supply chain challenges American automakers are still facing, the lack of sufficiently operational electric vehicle charging infrastructure, or the fact that it takes nearly a decade to permit a mine to extract the minerals needed to make electric vehicles, forcing businesses to look to China for these raw materials.”
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE HEARING:
ON NEED FOR PERMITTING REFORM BEFORE TRANSITION TO ELECTRIC VEHICLES: “The investments for that have to be made in battery manufacturing. We know we're beholden to China right now. So we're trying to draw that back into our own country and have domestically produced critical minerals and chips and everything…There are requirements for, and there is a great desire for, us to have domestic materials, whether they're recycled or not. You've got to originate if you're going to have this whole huge glut of new vehicles or trucks or whatever, or both, you have to have the critical mineral and you have to have the mine to do it. So, we have to have support for permitting reform and permitting of these mines.”
ON POTENTIAL WEIGHT AND SAFETY ISSUES OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES: “And the weight is an issue as well…EV cars are going to be heavier because of the weight of the battery and other things. You know, what kind of safety issues are [there] and what kind of, you know, state DOTs, what kind of reinforcements along the highways? Is that all going to change? Accidents, impacts, all of these things I know are critical when you're looking at, you know, transforming an entire fleet.”
Click HERE to watch Ranking Member Capito’s questions.
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