Chuck Schumer proposes ‘large discounts’ to trade in gas-powered cars for electric ones

US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) proposed a plan that would provide car owners with “large discounts” if they trade in their polluting, gas-powered vehicles for “clean” electric ones. In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Schumer said the goal of his “cash-for-clunkers”-style plan is to ensure that every vehicle on the road is zero-emission by 2040.

Schumer didn’t reveal the exact amount of each per-person discount — the legislation has yet to be written — though he did note that lower-income Americans should get “an even bigger discount on a new vehicle or a discount on a used electric vehicle.” Schumer estimates that his proposal would result in 63 million fewer gas-powered cars on the road by 2030.

There are two other prongs to Schumer’s Green New Deal-style plan: grants to states and cities to build out a robust EV charging network, and grants to businesses to retool manufacturing facilities to support the production of EVs and batteries. Schumer would deploy $45 billion in grants to upgrade the nation’s charging infrastructure and $17 billion to encourage manufacturers to retrofit their facilities for EV production. Schumer estimates the entire proposal would cost $454 billion over 10 years.

A raft of influential groups — including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the League of Conservation Voters, the United Automobile Workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Ford, and General Motors — have signed on in support of the plan.

“Critics have long said that bold action on climate change would cost America money and jobs. This is not true,” Schumer writes. “My plan is estimated to create tens of thousands of new, good-paying jobs in this country and should re-establish the United States as the world leader in auto manufacturing.”

But Schumer’s plan faces a steep road ahead. Republicans control the Senate and have resisted efforts to prop up the electric car industry through tax credits and incentives in the past. According to Politico, Schumer has said his plan would be part of a larger climate bill he wants to do if Democrats are able to take control of the chamber in 2020.

Today, anyone who buys an electric car is eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit in addition any local tax credits that exist at the state level, depending on where they live. The incentive was created by the Obama administration in 2009 to encourage automakers to embrace electrification. It was also meant to help consumers offset the price of a new EV, many of which were (and still are) too expensive for most Americans.

But the credit was never meant to be permanent, and a cap of 200,000 vehicles sold was included. Once a car company passes that mark, the tax credit slowly phases out over a period of 18 months. In the past year, both Tesla and GM have hit the 200,000-vehicle threshold and have begun to phase out the credit.

In May, President Trump proposed eliminating the EV tax credit, arguing it would save US taxpayers $2.5 billion over a decade. But lawmakers in Congress balked at the idea, and a bipartisan group in Congress has proposed expanding the credits.

Schumer’s proposal — relying on discounts, grants, and incentives — is uniquely American insofar as it seeks to persuade car buyers to switch to electric but not require it. Numerous European countries already have laws in place that regulate the sale of gas-powered vehicles and lay out incentivizes to increase the number of electric and zero-emission ones. Earlier this year, the Canadian province of British Columbia passed legislation aimed at ending the production and sale of fuel-burning cars.

In Norway, Europe’s leading electric market ahead of Germany, one out of every three cars purchased is an electric vehicle. The country is even installing the world’s first electric taxi charging system to help it achieve a zero-emission nationwide cab fleet by 2023.

Meanwhile, numerous other countries have set out targets for banning traditional cars and vans, with Norway aiming for 2025 and France and the UK for 2040 and 2050, respectively. (Granted, the legislation for actually mandating the bans lags far behind.) The mayor of Denmark capital Copenhagen went so far as to propose a ban on diesel cars in the city last year that would go into effect by the end of 2019; Copenhagen has since tempered its proposal to aim for net-zero carbon emissions and carbon neutrality by 2025.

Americans buy a lot of cars — more than 17 million last year — but only a small fraction (1.2 percent, according to the International Energy Agency) is electric. A number of states, most prominently in California, have mulled over gas car bans to try to move the needle on electric car sales and lower emissions.

Earlier this year, the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act was proposed in the US House of Representatives, seeking to ban the sale of gas-powered passenger cars in the US by 2040. It follows a similar bill from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti that was introduced in April, which seeks a ban on the sale and use of gas-powered cars in the city by 2050.

Transportation is the sector contributing most to climate change in the United States, making up nearly a third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the nation. And so far, efforts to rein in its pollution have pretty much failed. Planet-warming gasses from transportation grew more in absolute terms than any other sector between 1990 and 2017, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Schumer’s plan aims to help the US achieve net-zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. That’s a benchmark outlined by the United Nations international panel of climate scientists and endorsed by major Democratic presidential candidates. In his op-ed, Schumer insists American workers won’t be left behind in a transition to a greener economy, although he’s light on details about how.

“This bold measure would accelerate the transition to clean electric vehicles and help ensure that American workers play a central part in building them,” Luke Tonachel, director of clean vehicles and fuels at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an emailed statement.