On December 30th, Republican congressman Mike Kelly from Pennsylvania introduced H.R. 3768, a piece of legislation that would repeal the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicle buyers. Representative Kelly thinks that electric vehicles are just fine — even though he once stated there was no market for the Chevy Volt — but he doesn’t think taxpayers should have to help pay for them. Funny thing is, Kelly owns a Chevrolet and Cadillac dealership where they aren’t selling the Volt. Kelly is also one of the 25 richest members of congress according to theThe Washington Post. He’s worth about $34 million, and he made most of his money investing in oil and gas stocks.
Kelly wrote an op-ed in USAToday in early December that said, “this is not to say I don’t support the development of electric cars. I do, but not at taxpayer expense.” Kelly went on to detail his feelings about the incentive, “the misuse of taxpayer dollars to promote the electric vehicle is emblematic of the Obama administration’s overall misunderstanding, and ultimate manipulation, of the free market principles that undergird our economy. President Obama has become the ‘Venture Capitalist in Chief,’ gambling hard-earned taxpayer dollars in green projects and industries that are more politically than performance driven.”
This attempt to repeal the largest federal tax credit for low-emissions vehicles comes after three major green vehicle tax incentives were repealed. At the end of 2011, the up to $1,000 for installing a home EV charging station, the up to $2,500 for buying a vehicle with two or three wheels that has a 2.5-kWh batteries or larger and the up to $4,000 for converting a hybrid or plug in hybrid electric to total EV power were all scraped off the books. Only the up to $7,500 tax credit for buying a plug in electric vehicle remains and will only stick around until each automaker sells 200,000 of their EV models at which point it too will disappear.
It seems Kelly isn’t content to wait for that moment – he wants that tax incentive out now. We’re thinking that Kelly’s financial incentives for keeping the oil industry slick have more than a little to do with his crusade against oil-free personal transportation.
Via Autoblog Green
I wonder if Rep. Kelly is aware that the U.S. military spends $80 billion each year protecting our access to oil? http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG838.html. That works out to about 55 cents a gallon based on how many gallons of fuel we bought last year.
Further, the Iraq war happened because they have oil. We’ve spent $1.5 trillion on that mess and lost thousands of dead soldiers.
It’s about time someone stop this nonsense. Why are the poor and lower classes being asked to help foot the bill for the a rich man’s car? Let the rich use their own money to buy the darn things. My tax money has better places to go.
And, yes, if you can afford to buy a $40,000 car, you are rich. The vast majority of Americans have trouble affording $1000 used cars.
Of course Mr. Kelly is biased toward the oil industry. He knows electric vehicles will never get much traction unless early adopters are encouraged to get onboard with subsidies. As more people buy them the price of oil (and electric cars) goes down and his stock in big oil becomes less valuable. The Obama administration is trying to encourage new green industries to start up in the US instead of overseas where jobs will follow.
I live in Kelly’s district and he swears that the US gov’t bailout of GM and Chrysler had nothing to do with saving his dealership. Right.