Bret Baier reports on the demand for electric vehicles and why some companies are readjusting their targets and slowing production on ‘Special Report.’ The spouse of a top aide to President Biden and first lady Jill Biden is involved with a group that views climate change as a national security threat and pushes for the transition to electric vehicles as part of its efforts, Digital has found.
David Wade, former chief of staff to Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and the husband of Elizabeth Alexander, a deputy assistant to President Biden and the spokesperson for Jill Biden, is entangled with the Washington, D.C.-based American Security Project (ASP), which views “climate security” as a critical component of its endeavors. While Alexander advises President Biden, who has directed his administration to aggressively push electric vehicles as part of its broader climate change agenda, Wade aids the ASP in similar endeavors from a national security-focused standpoint as a member of its board of directors.
The ASP’s tax filings show the group also paid Wade’s clean energy consulting firm, Greenlight Strategies LLC, $11,000 last year. An ASP spokesperson told Digital his company received the payment to engage in a project aimed at “providing a forum for bipartisan discussion about climate change and its threats to national security under his LLC.”
“We see climate as an accelerant to instability in vulnerable regions. We can see the impact it is having on farming and food supplies, even here in the United States,” the ASP spokesperson said. “Our military is concerned as they are often the first sent in to address instability. U.S. military bases around the world, including right here in the United States, are affected by climate change, as can be witnessed in sea level rise.”
Overall, ASP has supported an across-the-board transition to electric vehicles as part of its efforts to tackle climate change in the national security domain. In a fact sheet ASP released last year, the group said the “widespread adoption” of such vehicles will “keep the U.S. more secure by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and gas, and reduce financial incentives of petro-state autocracies like Russia.” The document further stated that transportation accounts for 29% of national greenhouse gas emissions, making it a “critical sector in achieving national net-zero climate goals, and enhancing both energy and national security” while referencing the Biden administration’s goal of “transitioning half of America’s vehicles to electric by 2030.”
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told Digital, “President Biden has warned for decades that climate change is a national security threat — in agreement with experts across the political spectrum such as Trump Administration Secretary of Defense James Mattis. The president is proud to be delivering on his campaign promise to bring manufacturing jobs back to America and cut Americans’ energy costs by taking on the climate crisis, including by ensuring that the United States wins the global competition for EV manufacturing.”
Shortly after taking office in 2021, Biden issued the goal of ensuring 50% of total domestic vehicle purchases are electric by 2030, a first-of-its-kind goal cheered by green energy industry groups and climate advocates. Since then, the administration has pursued various regulations that, while not explicitly mandating electric vehicles, would create strong financial incentives for manufacturers to produce more zero-carbon options and for consumers to transition to those options.
In December 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized rules that targeted heavy-duty trucks it said at the time were the “strongest-ever national clean air standards to cut smog- and soot-forming emissions” from such vehicles. The new standards went into effect March 27 and will be implemented for new trucks sold after 2027.
In April, the EPA proposed the most aggressive federal tailpipe emissions rules on light- and medium-duty emissions ever crafted. If finalized and implemented, 67% of new sedan, crossover, SUV and light truck purchases, up to 50% of bus and garbage truck purchases, 35% of short-haul freight tractor purchases and 25% of long-haul freight tractor purchases could be electric by 2032, the White House projected.
Months later, in July, the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued its most aggressive fuel economy standards ever, an action critics say would increase consumer costs. And last year, the EPA also reinstated California’s authority under the Clean Air Act to implement its own emission standards and electric vehicle sales mandates, allowing other states to also adopt California’s rules. The state then approved regulations that mandated all car purchases in the state, which leads the country in annual car sales, be electric by 2035.
Still, the electric vehicle industry has faced significant headwinds related to both the increasing costs associated with manufacturing and consumer hesitance around switching from gas-powered cars. “It is not an overstatement to say that the federal government is subsidizing EVs to a greater degree than even wind and solar electricity generation and embarking on an unprecedented endeavor to remake the entire American auto industry,” a recent Texas Public Policy Foundation report concluded.
Despite these massive incentives, EVs are receiving a tepid response from the majority of Americans who cannot shoulder their higher cost. “It’s time for federal and state governments to stop driving the American auto industry off an economic cliff and allow markets to drive further improvements in cost and efficiency.”
Digital has reached out to Wade for comment. Joe Schoffstall is a politics producer/reporter for Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @joeschoffstall Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more politics content.
