President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is reportedly pushing to scrap a $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles.
Wealthy oilman Harold Hamm and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum are spearheading energy policy on Trump’s transition team. The pair are favoring scrapping the Biden administration EV tax credit to offset other tax breaks and reductions that Trump wants to make permanent, according to Reuters.
The EV tax credit benefits the sector of one of Trump’s biggest supporters, tech mogul Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the United States and the second largest globally. Musk has previously supported killing the tax credit, however, because as much as its recension would hurt Tesla, it would hurt Tesla’s competitors even more, according to the Tesla CEO.
“I think it would be devastating for our competitors and for Tesla slightly,” Musk said in a July earnings call, according to Business Insider. “But long term probably actually helps Tesla, would be my guess.”
Musk has called to scrap “all government subsidies, including those for EVs, oil and gas” and create a more competitive market with less government intervention.
The electric vehicle subsidy is a key part of President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act legislation. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to roll back Biden’s policies on electric vehicles and Trump’s energy team is eyeing repealing the tax credit to build a case in support of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire next year.
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Trump’s electric vehicle agenda will also likely involve repealing tailpipe emissions limits Biden’s administration has placed on vehicle manufacturers. The Biden rule has already been targeted by Republicans in the House.
“The EPA’s latest tailpipe emissions rule is not really about reducing air pollution. It’s about forcing Americans to drive electric vehicles,’’ Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the GOP chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said earlier this year.
The “unreasonable” rule is “just another example of how the Biden-Harris administration’s rush-to-green agenda is handing China the key to America’s energy future, jeopardizing our auto industry and forcing people to buy unaffordable EVs they don’t want,” she said.