Two more North Dakota elected officials are showing no love for the electric vehicle.
Republican U.S. Sens. Kevin Cramer and John Hoeven on Thursday issued news releases announcing they are co-sponsoring a bill to eliminate tax incentives for electric vehicles.
Cramer, Hoeven and co-sponsor Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., are calling it ELITE, which news releases said stands for the Eliminate Lavish Incentives to Electric Vehicles Act.
The bill would eliminate a tax credit of up to $7,500 for electric vehicles. The news release said it also would close a “leasing loophole” that allows wealthy buyers to bypass income caps and domestic manufacturing restrictions on EV incentives.
The news release says China makes most of the EVs and the batteries they use.
“We’re funneling taxpayer money to a supply chain controlled by China,” Cramer said in the release.
Data from the U.S. Department of Energy shows that as of 2022, North Dakota (640) and Wyoming (840) were the only states with fewer than 1,000 EVs as registered vehicles. The Dakotas, Iowa and Nebraska are among the states with the lowest per capita ownership and market share of EVs, Stateline.org reported in 2023.
Earlier this week, another North Dakota Republican, Gov. Doug Burgum, questioned why the state should fund a regional plan for EVs, saying they don’t make sense in cold-weather states. Burgum also said the incentives artificially inflate demand for EVs at the same time federal policies are making it harder for baseload power facilities like coal-fired power plants to provide affordable energy.
State Sen. Merrill Piepkorn, the Democratic nominee for governor, called that “horse and buggy thinking,” referring to the resistance of adopting the gas-powered automobile.
“Even as we currently enjoy the financial benefits of our current coal and oil industries, we’ve got to look to the future,” Piepkorn said in a news release.
He advocated for EV charging stations as necessary for North Dakota tourism.
Earlier this year, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe began using electric vehicles for a transit program on the reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota state line.
