PORTLAND, Ore.
(KOIN) — Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan and the current US
Secretary of Energy, got behind the wheel of an all-electric semi during her
tour of Oregon’s clean energy hub.
Granholm stopped at
the Daimler Trucks North American headquarters on Swan Island in North Portland
Tuesday along with Gov. Kate Brown and Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.
She’s the first
member of the Biden Administration to come to Oregon to promote the Inflation
Reduction Act, the just-passed bill that addresses climate change.
Among the things
included in the bill are tax breaks and rebates for buying electric vehicles,
both new and used.
Asked what the plan
is to get people motivated to overcome the cost of electric vehicles, Granholm
had a ready answer: Money.
“This is why the
president has focused on the tax credit at the dealership so you don’t have to
have tax liability to be able to take the tax credit off the top,” Granholm
dicho.
“Young people and
people who are really sympathetic (to electric vehicles) don’t have much money
to buy much of anything new,” Wyden said. “But with respect to EVs, what we’re
going to do is have this special incentive for use. So we thought hard about a
plan for mass adoption for the very reason you’re talking about. New technology
sometimes costs more than people have.”
Granholm later
headed to Oregon State University to look at their clean energy research work.
President Biden set a goal to lower carbon emissions by more than 50% by 2030 —
just 8 years from now.
On Wednesday, EPA
Director Michael Regan is expected in Portland, again to gain support for the
Inflation Reduction Act that still needs approval in the US House of
Representatives.
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