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WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke at the Senate Republican leadership press conference in opposition to President Biden’s newly announced electric vehicle mandates. Thune noted that Sens. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) each have legislative efforts underway to put an end to these costly and unrealistic mandates.

On the Biden administration’s electric vehicle mandates:

“Here at home, for the past three years, President Biden and his administration have been pursuing their costly and radical Green New Deal, which not only has lessened our energy security, but it has increased the costs for consumers across this country. In fact, since President Biden took office, energy costs have risen, on average, 35 percent. Thirty-five percent.

“And, of course, this week, they're back at it. The president has announced his mandate for the American people to drive electric vehicles.

“Now, the average cost of an electric vehicle is $52,000. And Americans have seen their real income since Biden took office go down by 4.2 percent, so their incomes haven't kept up with the rate of inflation. We all know, since he took office, inflation, the cumulative rate of inflation, is 18.6 percent. And so he's asking the American consumer to buy electric vehicles, $52,000 per electric vehicle, at a time when their real income has gone down since he's been in office, all in pursuit of a Green New Deal fantasy.

“And so we have a number of our members who have filed legislation – Senators Ricketts, Sullivan, Crapo all have legislation out there that would roll back these onerous, costly, and unrealistic mandates that this president has put forward on the American people to force them into electric vehicles, something that is not realistic in many parts of the country, including where I'm from, where you drive long distances and have extreme temperatures. It's not realistic, it is unaffordable, and it is an ill-advised policy, and we will do everything we can to try and see that it gets stopped.”