"E.P.A. Is Said to Propose Rules Meant to Drive Up Electric Car Sales Tenfold"

This is President Obama's "I've got a pen [executive orders], and I've got a phone [administrative state]".

That was in January 2014 but the antecedents of this particular push go back to the University of Denver Law School in 2008* as justification for what they wanted Barack Obama to do if (when) he won the 2008 election.

This approach was favored by John Podesta, at the time, 2014 -2015, counselor to President Obama and currently in charge of the smaller but better known of the two green financial honeypots, which combined are doling out 3/4 trillion dollars.

From the New York Times, April 8:

In what would be the nation’s most ambitious climate regulation, the proposal is designed to ensure that electric cars make up the majority of new U.S. auto sales by 2032.

The Biden administration is planning some of the most stringent auto pollution limits in the world, designed to ensure that all-electric cars make up as much as 67 percent of new passenger vehicles sold in the country by 2032, according to two people familiar with the matter.

That would represent a quantum leap for the United States — where just 5.8 percent of vehicles sold last year were all-electric — and would exceed President Biden’s earlier ambitions to have all-electric cars account for half of those sold in the country by 2030.

It would be the federal government’s most aggressive climate regulation and would propel the United States to the front of the global effort to slash the greenhouse gases generated by cars, a major driver of climate change. The European Union has already enacted vehicle emissions standards that are expected to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. Canada and Britain have proposed standards similar to the European model. At the same time, the proposed regulation would pose a significant challenge for automakers. Nearly every major car company has already invested heavily in electric vehicles, but few have committed to the levels envisioned by the Biden administration. And many have faced supply chain problems that have held up production. Even manufacturers who are enthusiastic about electric models are unsure whether consumers will buy enough of them to make up the majority of new car sales within a decade.

The action from the E.P.A. is likely to hearten climate activists, who are angry over the Biden administration’s recent decision to approve an enormous oil drilling project on federal land in Alaska. Some inside the administration argue that speeding up a transition to renewable energy, with most Americans driving electric vehicles, would lessen demand for oil drilled in Alaska or elsewhere.

Michael S. Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is expected to announce the proposed limits on tailpipe emissions on Wednesday in Washington. It was originally set for Detroit, but the agency cited scheduling conflicts in moving the location. The requirements would be intended to ensure that electric cars represent between 54 and 60 percent of all new cars sold in the United States by 2030, with that figure rising to 64 to 67 percent of new car sales by 2032, according to the people familiar with the details, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been made public.

Rapidly speeding up the adoption of electric vehicles in the United States would require other significant changes, including the construction of millions of new electric vehicle charging stations, an overhaul of electric grids to accommodate the power needs of those chargers and securing supplies of minerals and other materials needed for batteries.

The proposed regulation, which would go through a public comment period and could be altered by the government before becoming final, is sure to be met with legal challenges. It could also become an issue in the 2024 presidential campaign, as a future administration could undo or weaken it. “This is a massive undertaking,” said John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents large U.S. and foreign automakers. “It is nothing short of a complete transformation of the automotive industrial base and the automotive market.”

In a statement released Friday night, Maria Michalos, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., did not confirm the new targets but said the agency was working on new standards as directed by the president to “accelerate the transition to a zero-emissions transportation future, protecting people and the planet.” The new regulations would come on the heels of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which has helped stoke demand for electric vehicles by providing up to $7,500 in tax incentives for car buyers as well as billions in incentives for battery manufacturing and critical mineral processing and mining....

....MUCH MORE
*Here's a repost from October 2011:
Here Come the Presidential Executive Orders
From an email response I sent a friend during the budget ceiling negotiations last August regarding the options available to the Government and the Fed:

I have some arcane knowledge of the workings of the Fed and see no impediments there. As to the trust funds, the enabling legislation either exists or could probably be more easily written than the ceiling legislation.

I keep coming back to the President though. Executive orders give so much latitude, especially when couched in state of emergency terms, that my reading is the Exec can do pretty much as he pleases,

Back in 2008 some barrister types were making that argument re: climate change policy, potential constitutional crisis be damned.

The link goes to a 213 page PDF under the imprimatur of the University of Colorado Law School titled:

THE BOUNDARIES OF EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY
Using Executive Orders to Implement
Federal Climate Change Policy

Since that Aug. 2 email Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has called on the President to declare a State of Emergency, bypass Congress and unilaterally hire 15 million unemployed at an average $40,000 and the President has stated “We’re not going to wait for Congress.”

***

The "Boundaries" link is no  more but in 2009 we saved it to the Internet Archive.