Dem
51
GOP
49
As long as we are on the subject of right-wing lawmakers and bans, how about this story out of Wyoming? A group of lawmakers in the Cowboy State has taken note of plans in California and elsewhere to ban the sales of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. And so, they plan to counter by banning the sales of electric vehicles in Wyoming by 2035. The argument, laid out in the text of the bill, is that "phasing out the sale of new electric vehicles in Wyoming by 2035 will ensure the stability of Wyoming's oil and gas industry."
Last we checked, the Republican Party claimed to be the party of free markets, deregulation, and limiting government overreach. Perhaps we misunderstood. Meanwhile, it's hardly a secret that many (most? all?) Republican politicians are beholden to the petroleum industry. But now some of them, it would seem, are saying the quiet part out loud, and announcing that it's their job/mission/sacred duty to protect the fossil fuel interests.
We probably shouldn't take this all that seriously, since the primary purpose of the bill is clearly to "own the libs" (as indicated by the adoption of a timeline that is the mirror image California's EV policy). And if Wyoming does decide to move forward with this, well, the auto makers' staff mathematicians are actually sober (most of the time), and so are capable of discerning that 27,005,302 drivers (California) is rather more than 427,233 (Wyoming). (Z)