A few weeks ago, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order banning the sale of new gasoline powered automobile engines by 2036, with a phase out schedule over the next fourteen years. “This is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change,” Governor Newsom said. The problem with Governor Newsom’s claim is that the biggest impact will be felt by China, who will reap billions if not trillions of dollars over the next decade as the world’s largest lithium ore refining and lithium-ion production operation in the world. Without lithium, there are no electric vehicle batteries, and China knows this, as does Governor Newsom. So why the quick rush for the state government to mandate a certain type of vehicle over another, without market forces driving the shift? Put plainly, it’s a reflection of Democrats’ attempts to put government front and center in our daily lives and make us dependent on it even if the majority doesn’t want it. Here’s a close up look at California, U.S.A, and what it can teach us about going electric nationwide.
As previously mentioned, lithium is an essential mineral used in today’s advanced electronic products, mostly the microchips that go into smart phones and laptops like what you are using to read this article, and increasingly automobiles and other transportation vehicles. For electric cars, lithium-ion is necessary to create the energy needed to sustain a long battery life. The problem is that the U.S. is years away from having the manufacturing capacity to mine lithium and refine it into lithium-ion and manufacture cars at a rate to meet the state of California’s demands. Who has the capacity to mine, refine, ship and produce lithium-ion? China, which controls two-thirds of the world’s lithium production. California’s mandate will help usher in an advanced industrialization of China faster than America’s industrialization at the turn of the 20th century.
In addition, the rapid acceleration is an unfair burden on the automotive industry. John Bozzella, President and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents major automakers, told CNBC that “California’s mandate would be ‘extremely challenging’ for automakers to meet.”
“Whether or not these requirements are realistic or achievable is directly linked to external factors like inflation, charging and fuel infrastructure, supply chains, labor, critical mineral availability and pricing, and the ongoing semiconductor shortage,” Bozzella said in a statement. “These are complex, intertwined and global issues.”
While California is “leading the nation,” as Governor Newsom likes to say, here’s a look at how California ranks compared to other states based on some key metrics:
- California has a 4.1% unemployment rate (approx. 791,000 people), the 38th highest in the country and above the national average of 3.6%, according to the August, 2022 numbers reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
- California Ranks 29th on the Heritage Foundation’s new Education Freedom Report Card, which is an annual assessment of education freedom in each state.
- California ranks near the bottom, 48th in overall freedom, based on a combination of personal and economic freedoms, by the CATO Institute’s ‘Freedom in the 50 States’ annual report.
- The nonpartisan ‘Fiscal Stability Ranking’ by U.S. News and World Report puts California at 36th in the nation for long-term and short-term fiscal health.
- California is leading the nation as the state with the highest debt, a mere $506.7 billion dollars owed.
- California’s personal income tax, with a rate of 13.3%, is the highest in the country.
California sure does lead the way. It’s leading so much that its people are fleeing the state, having the 4th largest decline of all 50 states in 2021, according to a recent study by Pew Charitable Trust. “California lost more than 352,000 residents between April 2020 and January 2022,” the Los Angeles Times wrote, which is like a city the size of Anaheim, CA disappearing.
In an ironic scene, one that is really symbolic of California’s long list of problems under Democratic rule, days after Governor Newsom announced the state’s full ban of gasoline cars, the California’s electric grid operator put out a notice telling Californian’s that they “may need to take measures to conserve energy, including by avoiding charging electric vehicles, to prevent strain to the state’s power grid over the Labor Day weekend, officials said,” according to Newsweek. That’s right. In light of a massive heat wave sweeping the country, and Americans about to go on vacation, his administration put out an energy conservation mandate. Governor Newsom can’t have his cake and eat it too. The Newsom administration is essentially telling people that he wants more electric cars in his state and fast, while at the same time telling folks that his state’s electricity grid may not currently be able to handle the number of electric cars being charged today.
As other states look to California’s electric vehicle mandate as a model to duplicate, some states are pushing back to prevent this socialist takeover. The Minnesota Auto Dealers Association argues that the weather naturally prohibits the universal use of electric vehicles. “The technology is such that the vehicles just don’t perform that well in cold weather,” Scott Lambert, the trade group’s president, told the Associated Press. “We don’t all live in southern California.”
Governor Newsom’s energy and economic policies are simply misguided, reactionary, and obtuse. His duplicity in leadership is exactly how California got to where it is today. Other states would do well to learn the lessons of California’s mistakes and not subject their citizens to the radical laws of another state like California.
Bob Carlstrom is the President of AMAC Action