State Forced to Cancel Electric Vehicle Mandate Vote After Widespread Power Outages
The weather in Maine is never a predictable thing at the best of times, but it appears to have developed a dark sense of humor as of late.
On Thursday, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection was set to meet to discuss and potentially finalize a California-style electric vehicle mandate that would start in 2027 and force 82 percent of new vehicles to have zero emissions by the 2032 model year, according to the Portland Press Herald.
However, that meeting has been indefinitely postponed. Why? Because the state has been hit with rain and wind that left over 400,000 residents without power, according to Fox News.
To put that into perspective, the state population is 1.3 million, meaning roughly one in three people was without power. Assuming that every household in Maine has one car for one person — an unlikely scenario, but it’s a good hypothetical — that means roughly one in three wouldn’t be able to charge his or her car during an emergency.
Imagine a weather-related emergency where one in three people was left without viable access to gasoline. That’s roughly what you’re talking about here.
“Governor Janet Mills declared a State of Civil Emergency for 14 Maine counties following a significant wind and rain storm that has left hundreds of thousands of people without power and that has caused significant flooding and infrastructure damage, including to town and state roadways,” the Maine Board of Environmental Protection said in a statement.
“In consideration of the challenges facing Maine citizens who may wish to participate in the upcoming Board meeting in Augusta, the Board is postponing its meeting scheduled for December 21, 2023.”
Today’s Maine vote on banning gas cars has been POSTPONED. Hmm. pic.twitter.com/HYBuVfe8J5
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) December 21, 2023
Maine Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, in one of the nation’s closest swing congressional districts, opposed the emissions plan.
“In two days, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection will vote on proposed rules that would establish a California-style set of mandates forcing Maine auto dealers — and ultimately their customers — to purchase zero-emission vehicles,” he said in a news release on Tuesday.
“Earlier this year, I submitted testimony in opposition to such a mandate and have taken every opportunity in Congress to vote against policy that amounts to de facto electric vehicle mandates,” Golden continued.
“Forcing Mainers to purchase cars and trucks powered by electricity when our grid is insufficient, charging stations are few and far between, and a storm like yesterday’s would render 80 percent of cars useless is, to say the least, ill-advised.”
Gosh, you think?
Nevertheless, despite opposition from swing-seat Democrats and state Republicans, the state’s Democratic governor seems hellbent on making this happen — and the Maine BEP is more than happy to go along.
Never mind that it would have exacerbated problems with Maine’s electrical grid as it was already under strain from a massive storm.
Never mind that the same people who say we desperately need to switch to electric vehicles insist that internal combustion engines are causing extreme weather events that would make storms like the one this week more common.
Never mind that they generally also refuse to consider nuclear power as a sustainable option because they’re still having nightmares over Three Mile Island and don’t keep abreast of the considerable safety leaps in atomic energy that have been realized over the past 40 years.
No, they want to make you, dear reader, dependent upon electric vehicles even though they also know the state electrical grid is fragile and assume weather is going to get progressively worse. They’re encouraging home energy scarcity at the same time they want you more dependent on it for your daily transportation.
Except they can’t even get in to take a vote on the matter because of the bad weather and the electrical outages.
Hilarious, that ol’ Maine weather is.
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