US to End Gas-powered Vehicle Purchases by 2035

Emmanuel Addeh with agency report

The United States government plans to end purchases of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 in a move to lower emissions and promote electric cars under an executive order signed by President Joe Biden.

The government owns more than 650,000 vehicles and purchases about 50,000 annually, according to a Reuters report. Biden’s executive order said that light-duty vehicles acquired by the government will be emission-free by 2027.

Total federal government operations will reduce emissions by 65 per cent by 2030 under the plan, while the government will seek to consume electricity only from carbon-free and non-polluting sources on a net annual basis by 2030 and have net-zero emissions by 2050.

Nigeria has recently maintained that it is moving towards deploying gas as its “transition fuel” as the world continues to move away from high emission commodities.

The order noted that the US government is: “The single largest land owner, energy consumer and employer in the nation” and can transform “how we build, buy and manage electricity, vehicles, buildings and other operations to be clean and sustainable.”

In January, Biden vowed to replace the US government’s fleet with electric models. Only 0.5 per cent of the government’s 657,000 vehicles were electric as of 2020. In 2020, the government spent $4.2 billion on vehicle costs, including $730 million for fuel.

However, the report stated that the new policy allows some exceptions for military and space vehicles.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing General Motors Co., Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG and others, praised the effort.

Director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Centre for Biological Diversity, Dan Becker, said Biden should move faster.

 “Waiting 14 years to do it is an awfully long time when we have some electric vehicles already and companies are trying to decide now whether to make just promises or actually make electric vehicles,” Becker said.

United Auto Workers President Ray Curry said Biden was right to address carbon emissions but creating high-quality jobs should be a priority. Google Chief, Sundar Pichai, said Biden’s executive order “is an important step toward making a carbon-free grid a reality.”