Biden pushes electric vehicle chargers as energy costs spike

Biden pushes electric vehicle chargers as energy costs spike

SeattlePI.com

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is highlighting billions of dollars in his giant bipartisan infrastructure deal to pay for the installation of electric vehicle chargers across the country, an investment that he says will go a long way to curbing planet-warming carbon emissions while creating good-paying jobs.

Biden on Wednesday will visit a General Motors plant in Detroit that manufactures electric vehicles. He'll use the occasion to make the case that the $7.5 billion in the new infrastructure law for electric vehicle chargers will help America get “off the sidelines” on green-energy manufacturing. Currently, the U.S. market share of plug-in electric vehicle sales is one-third the size of the Chinese EV market.

“It’s a big deal," Biden declared as he signed the bill into law at a White House ceremony earlier this week.

Republicans — even some of those who voted in favor of the infrastructure package — are criticizing Biden for being preoccupied with electric vehicle technology at a time when Americans are contending with a spike in gasoline and natural gas prices.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell took the Senate floor Tuesday to make the case that “the Biden administration doesn’t have any strategic plan to snap its fingers and turn our massive country into some green utopia overnight."

“They just want to throw boatloads of government money at things like solar panels and electric vehicles and hope it all works out," said McConnell, one of 19 GOP senators who voted in favor of the infrastructure bill. He added, “American families are staring down the barrel of skyrocketing heating bills, and the Democrats’ response is to go to war against affordable American energy.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has stressed that the administration is looking...

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