The Functional Government Initiative is pumping the breaks on a Biden administration plan that would deal with the country’s rising gas price crisis by invoking the Defense Production Act and promoting electric vehicles as opposed to American energy production.
With gas prices hitting their highest levels in history for the second straight month, FGI views the plan as another attempt to move the American public away from gasoline and in the direction of electric vehicles, according to an April 7 news release. The White House’s order will also move funds to private projects for feasibility studies surrounding the extraction of minerals, such as lithium and cobalt that are essential to building electric vehicle batteries.
“Exploring the expansion of domestic extraction of minerals is a good step because it may create jobs for the next generation of American workers, but it does not tackle the current fuel crisis,” FGI spokesperson Peter McGinnis said in the release. “We are on month two of ‘we will do everything we can to lower gas prices,’ yet nothing of substance has been done to accomplish that – as you can see every time you fill up your tank. Either the administration is hoping the problem will fix itself or that Americans will surrender to astronomically high gas prices. Along with inflation in general, energy prices are crushing the American dream.”
While conceding the plan could reduce the country’s reliance on China, FGI officials quickly add it remains to be seen how such a move will ease runaway inflation concerns or alleviate energy prices anytime soon.
"Opening up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and calls to hostile dictators have formed the crux of their approach while requests to reconsider opposition to pipeline infrastructure and oil and gas leases and financing have repeatedly been rejected," FGI officials added in the release, where the group also points out the question of which special interests are steering the government’s anti-fossil fuel policy in the middle of an ongoing energy crisis that has sparked several FGI investigations and requests for government records.
Back in December 2021, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg created a Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, with a goal of charting a course for the $7.5 billion steered to the office as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build out a national electric vehicle charging network.
FGI touts itself as a nonpartisan organization that works to demand transparency and integrity from government agencies and elected officials.
