Recently, I’ve been asked by a lot of people what exactly I mean when I talk about “federal overreach.” While I can point to an untold number of examples that illustrate my point, perhaps none more perfectly does so than President Biden’s recent attempts to force Americans into buying electric vehicles (EVs) through regulations that seem to stop just short of banning gasoline-powered vehicles. By doing so, President Biden is once again showing he is out-of-touch with the average American consumer. Through this outrageous use of the federal government — and taxpayer dollars — in order to pick winners and losers in the auto industry, the president has shown the American consumer that we have no choice but to fall in line — regardless of whether or not we can afford it.

With the cost of the average electric vehicle coming in at around $66,000, most Americans cannot, or will never be able, to afford one. In an attempt to combat these high prices, the Biden Administration thought the solution was to issue a $7,500 tax credit to the buyers of an EV. There are, however, a few problems with this credit. The first is that there is little evidence that this credit will make these vehicles affordable to the average American. In fact, there is a large amount of historical data that shows it may just cause many EV manufacturers to increase their prices by the same amount. Another significant issue is that at the same time Washington is claiming these credits will make EVs affordable to us all, the U.S. Treasury Department is writing up rules that will make it even more difficult for the average consumer to claim this tax credit. None of this, however, is stopping this administration from dumping billions of taxpayer dollars into these types of flawed initiatives.

With EV sales currently only making up 4.3% of the new vehicle sales market, it is clear customers are not interested in these types of vehicles. Regardless of what the free market is saying, Biden is moving forward to force the American public to embrace EVs, or else.

By taking advantage of hundreds of billions of dollars under the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” the Environmental Protection Agency is now writing the new performance-based standards for gasoline-powered vehicles. These rules look to govern tailpipe emissions from vehicles manufactured for model years 2027 through 2032. Most major U.S. automakers have pleaded for these requirements to be delayed as they try to ramp up efforts to meet this progressive mandate by assessing things like the availability of the elements needed to produce EV batteries (most of which are found in China) and the capacity of our electrical grid.

At the same time, we are seeing the U.S. Department of Transportation dump billions of dollars into ensuring there are chargers every 50 miles on federal highways. Instead of focusing on crumbling infrastructure, which should be a top priority, Washington is now redirecting billions of taxpayer dollars to serve less than 5% of the market (all at a time when West Virginia leads the nation in structurally deficient bridges found on the federal highways here). Regardless of just how obvious it is to see where our priorities should be, we continue to see federal agencies weaponized in order to push the president’s progressive agenda.

If someone can afford to buy an electric vehicle and wants to, then they should be able to. This is America — we’re all about giving consumers the freedom of choice. But we shouldn’t have that freedom taken away from us by having these cars forced upon us by Washington.

Sen. Ryan Weld represents the 1st Senatorial District and serves as the Majority Whip,the Chair of the Military Committee and Vice Chair of the Judiciary Committee in the West Virginia Senate. He is an attorney with the firm of Spilman, Thomas & Battle, and Republican candidate for Attorney General.