HB177, which would have allowed public charging stations for electric cars on state properties, failed to pass the Senate on the final night of the session. The vote was officially 12-7-2, but that 2 number is not for absent but for not voting. For the bill to pass, it need 13 yes votes because this bill had fiscal impact on state agencies, meaning that it requires a 3/5 majority vote.
The bill got that majority in the House, passing 38-1-2. But in the Senate, we were one vote short while two Senators chose not to vote. They were there, able to vote, with no conflicts precluding their vote, and they both chose not to vote. The identity of these Senators? Anthony Delcollo and Cathy Cloutier, the two Northern New Castle County Republicans who represent very Democratic districts. Voting no explicitly likely damages their electoral prospects, so they took the coward’s way out, and decided not to vote.
This is precisely the reason we at Blue Delaware consider any not voting vote to be a no vote. We do not allow Delcollo and Cloutier to escape the reality and consequence of their not voting. They both killed this bill and they deserve and will get the blame for it
WHERE IS THE BILL NOW? Passed House 38-1-2. Defeated in Senate 12-7-2.
DEMOCRATIC SPONSORS – Griffith, Hansen, Q.Johnson, Baumbach
REPUBLICAN SPONSORS –
YES VOTES – HOUSE — Baumbach Bennett Bentz Bolden Brady Bush Carson Chukwuocha Cooke Dorsey Walker D.Short Dukes Gray Griffith Hensley Jaques K.Johnson K.Williams Kowalko Longhurst Lynn Matthews Michael Smith Minor-Brown Mitchell Morris Osienski Postles Q.Johnson Ramone Schwartzkopf Seigfried Shupe Smyk Spiegelman Vanderwende Viola Yearick ||| SENATE –Brown Ennis Hansen Lockman McBride McDowell Paradee Poore Sokola Sturgeon Townsend Walsh
NO VOTES – HOUSE — Collins ||| SENATE – Bonini Cloutier Delcollo Hocker Lawson Lopez Pettyjohn Richardson Wilson
ABSENT – Briggs King Heffernan
As the lessee of a Nissan Leaf, I must express my disappointment with this turn of events. My Leaf can go from Milford to Lewes, Rehoboth, or Dover and back on a charge, but not Wilmington, Smyrna, or Newark. Without infrastructure to make it easier to recharge, we will not accrue the benefits a fleet of non-polluting electric cars could provide to our beloved state.
Why should my tax dollars be used to fuel your vehicle?
You don’t think that all of us taxpayers are subsidizing the fossil fuels your car runs on? Read the news. Electric cars aren’t the perfect answer but they are a step in the right direction. They should have full, bi partisan support.
That’s rich. Considering the ridiculous tax credits that the government gives buyers of electric vehicles and the fact that drivers of these vehicles do not pay for road maintenance via gas taxes it is pretty clear who is getting the subsidy.
U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending
Subsidies for electric cars certainly don’t approach the DOD budget amount.
Key takeaway from that piece:
The study defines “subsidy” very broadly, as many economists do. It accounts for the “differences between actual consumer fuel prices and how much consumers would pay if prices fully reflected supply costs plus the taxes needed to reflect environmental costs” and other damage, including premature deaths from air pollution
In other words, pretty much a made-up number.
Translation — xyz has no freakin’ idea what he is reading. As usual.
Translation – you got called on your bullshit article from that scholarly journal, Rolling Stone magazine.
Seriously? At least make an effort, that was weak.
Another quote from the piece:
“These subsidies are largely invisible to the public, and don’t appear in national budgets”
My sides. You can’t make this stuff up.
Translation — you wouldn’t know an economic study it it ran around the corner and slapped you. Unless, of course, FOX news told you it supported the talking points of the day.
Cassandra is wrong, which isn’t surprising as she has been for most environmental issues lately. For those of you dealing in facts and if you don’t feel like combing through the report, just know subsidy is not defined as tax dollars or tax breaks in this study. It is defined in things as vague and questionable as traffic congestion and motor vehicle accidents. That’s what is done when the author is looking to craft a desired conclusion.
Electric vehicle adoption will costs billions in downstream electrical infrastructure upgrades alone- that is a subsidy. Take a look at the Wawas with charging stations. They required an additional transformer paid for by ratepayers. Know those blue electric boxes in the yards of some subdivisions? You’ll need one for every house. That’s not including the other upgrades needed upstream and midstream. Disregard those subsidies, you are still needing to burn fossil fuels to charge electric vehicles. The plastics and roads are made from oil and refining.
anon is wrong, which isn’t surprising since he, too gets his science and economic info from Fox News. Electrical infrastructure (as if you know what that is) go on all of the time. Cars or no. Charging cars actually allows the infrastructure to evolve in a way that will take advantage of decentralized distribution. Electrical infrastructure is captured in your electric rates and is a direct payment — not a subsidy.
This report deals in direct + indirect subsides. Which neither anon or xyz have any fluency in. Gasoline always has subsidies in the US — whether it is the direct tax subsidy for extraction or where it is the indirect one of not pricing in the cost of the environmental damage of that extraction or its burning. If you look at it the right way, it is the indirect subsidies for coal that are literally killing its markets.
No, what is killing coal is cheap natural gas via advanced shale gas extraction techniques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. Has nothing to do with indirect subsidies.
And Anon is exactly right about the “subsidy” discussed in your Rolling Stone article. It’s a bullshit number intended to make electric vehicles look better so rich liberals can justify government subsidies for their virtue signaling.
Your opinion goes against what almost all industry experts on both sides of the issue agree on.
That aside, where do you get the electricity from? You’re ignoring the fact that electrical vehicles are still powered by fossil fuels and you need to refine hydrocarbons for the plastics and roads. To power ONE mid-large sized industrial facility (there are over 150 in the greater Philadelphia area) using solar, you would need roughly 80,000 acres of panels (which are largely made of hydrocarbons). That’s almost the size of the city itself. For wind, you’d need more space and significantly more in number because they are only 35% reliable. Once again, those are made of, maintained, and deiced using a huge amount of hydrocarbons. You’re talking about a project that would make the entire Green New Deal look like phase 1 of 4.
It’s an easy topic to go with your feelings but facts are facts. I want a clean environment, but I am in touch with reality and what it takes to get there. I encourage anyone reading this to not believe either of us and to investigate it yourself.
“the fossil fuels your car runs on”
Electric cars run on fossil fuels also. It takes 1lb of coal to produce a kWh of electricity . With a 40 kWh capacity battery, that’s a pretty big bag of fossil fuel each time that car is charged.
RSE, this situation is temporary as municipalities and states work to bring renewable energy sources online. The process will be somewhat chaotic, but change in technologies always is. Lighten up.
Electric cars run on the power that is provided to it by the local power companies. Fossil fuel, nuclear, renewables. The real advantage in electric cars is the life cycle emissions reduction and in reduced reliance on gasoline.
Because it moves the future forward, paying dividends to both electric car owners and non owners, and making the day you get an electric car happen a lot sooner. We pool our money in government to get what we want/need. Now you have a reputation here of being disingenuous. To that I say fuck you.
What want or need of mine is satisfied by helping to pay for your electric car?
Cleaner air.
Electric vehicle infrastructure on the rise in Delaware May 2nd, 2019 shows how you find charging stations up northern DE https://delawarestatenews.net/news/electric-vehicle-infrastructure-on-the-rise-in-delaware/
The bill specifically enables your tax dollars to NOT fuel someone else’s vehicle–it permits the state to charge a reasonable fee to users of charging stations placed on state land. This makes the no votes (Lopez/Pettyjohn) and not voting votes even more disturbing.
At this time many charging stations are free because the cost of power is less than the cost of billing.
Whether the cost of power is more or less than the cost of billing is not germane to this legislation. The bill provides the government with the choice to bill. Voting against it, or skipping the vote, is stunning, in my opinion.
It is stunning to me that you think it is a good idea for the State to be in the business of fueling private vehicles.
I understood that. Just adding context.