To cut American consumption of gasoline and greenhouse gas emissions, the Waxman-Markey climate change bill would give a powerful push to electric cars.
The bill would require utilities to develop plans to support the use of plug-in vehicles. Among other things, the bills says, that might mean installing electric charging stations in homes, parking garages, parking lots, highway rest stops or along streets. The plans might also include battery exchange facilities.
The secretary of Energy would be authorized to provide financial aid to speed the deployment of electric vehicles and the infrastructure they require (although, conspicuously, this legislation does not provide any money). That could mean, according to the bill, development funds to state and local governments, to utilities, or to auto manufacturers.
Following the bankruptcy of General Motors, several commentators have pointed out the potential conflict between the market, much of which is accustomed to large traditional cars, and the company’s new majority owner, the federal government, which is likely to press it toward smaller cars that use less fuel. But the market may change substantially in coming years. The Obama administration has proposed regulations that would require all manufacturers selling cars in this country to move toward higher fuel efficiency standards. And General Motors is already at work on an all-electric car, the Chevy Volt, which it hopes to begin producing in two years.
The Waxman-Markey bill suggests that there is support in Congress for a rapid shift from gasoline to an altogether different technology. And the bill implicitly makes a choice as to what that technology that should be. One prominent competitor as a power source for cars and trucks is the hydrogen fuel cell. But a recent study by the National Research Council concluded that it would take perhaps 40 years and massive subsidies to develop and deploy the fuel cell technology. The authors of Waxman-Markey have opted instead for electricity from the grid to run the next generation of highway vehicles.
