Bernice J. Hicks 
President Biden burned rubber in Detroit on Wednesday – getting behind the wheel of an all-electric Hummer during a visit to a new General Motors plant.
“Anyone want to jump in the back or on the roof?” Biden asked reporters after slamming the vehicle’s accelerator.
“These suckers are something else! Biden said before taking the car for another ride.
While traditional Hummers are one of the worst greenhouse gas emitters – with city mileage of 14 miles per gallon – the reworked vehicle is a plug-in.
Biden said if he “had fallen asleep for the past 50 years” and woke up in the vehicle, he would trade “title for title” with his favorite Corvette, according to a pool report.
Biden visited the plant to promote the infrastructure deal he signed on Monday and to advocate for investments in electric vehicles as part of his $ 1.75 trillion Build Back Better spending bill. of dollars that was blocked by his own party in Congress.
Biden once tested an electric Ford F-150 in May in Dearborn, Michigan, and walked down the aisle of the White House in August in one of Chrysler’s electric Jeep Wranglers.
The $ 1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package that Biden just signed contains $ 7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations and $ 5 billion to buy electric and low-emission buses. And his draft social spending plan contains $ 555 billion for environmental initiatives, including $ 12,500 in rebates for the purchase of electric vehicles.
But Republicans, even some of those who voted for the infrastructure package, blame Biden for being concerned about electric vehicle technology at a time when Americans are grappling with soaring gasoline and fuel prices. natural gas.
Senatorial Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Said on Tuesday that “the Biden administration has no strategic plan to snap its fingers and turn our huge country into a green utopia overnight.”
“They just want to throw shipments of government money into things like solar panels and electric vehicles and hope everything works,” said McConnell, one of 19 GOP senators who voted for the bill. on infrastructure. “American families are staring at the barrel of skyrocketing heating bills, and the Democrats’ response is to wage war on affordable American energy.”
Meanwhile, the brother of White House adviser Steve Ricchetti, Jeff Ricchetti, has been paid $ 160,000 this year to lobby for GM, according to public information.
Biden has snubbed America’s largest electric car maker Tesla because it lacks a union workforce – including failing to invite the Elon Musk company to a White House exhibit this summer.
According to government data, U.S. companies sold nearly 327,000 electric vehicles in 2019. Almost two thirds of those sales were Tesla.
The cost of electric vehicles tends to be higher, but Biden argues that the United States can use the power of federal tax credits and purchasing power to make eco-friendly options more competitive.
– with post wires
