WASHINGTON: Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Monday proposed killing the electric vehicle tax credit and repealing fuel efficiency rules designed to prod automakers into building more zero-emission vehicles as part of a broad-based tax reform bill.
The proposal, which is set for a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Tuesday, would repeal a $7,500 new-vehicle tax credit and a $4,000 used-vehicle credit on Dec. 31, although it would maintain the new-vehicle credit for an additional year for automakers that have not yet sold 200,000 EVs.
The president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, Genevieve Cullen, criticized the proposal, saying that plans “to abandon US leadership in energy innovation by gutting federal investment in electrification are catastrophically short-sighted.”
The proposal, she said, would deliver “an enormous market advantage” to competitors like China and threaten US manufacturing and jobs.
The US Treasury in 2024 awarded more than $2 billion in point-of-sale rebates for EVs.
The proposal leaves in place a key battery production tax credit for automakers and battery makers, but a new provision would bar the credit for vehicles produced with components made by some Chinese companies or under a license agreement with Chinese firms.
The provision, which would take effect in 2027, could bar credits for cars powered by Chinese battery technology licensed by American companies such as Ford Motor or Tesla .
House Republicans also propose to kill a loan program that supports the manufacture of certain advanced technology vehicles. It would rescind any unobligated funding and rescind corporate average fuel economy standards and greenhouse gas emission rules for 2027 and beyond. That portion will be taken up by the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Among outstanding loans finalized in President Joe Biden’s last weeks in office are $9.63 billion to a joint venture of Ford Motor and South Korean battery maker SK On for construction of three battery manufacturing plants in Tennessee and Kentucky; $7.54 billion to a joint venture of Chrysler-parent Stellantis and Samsung SDI for two EV lithium-ion battery plants in Indiana; and $6.57 billion to Rivian for a plant in Georgia to begin building smaller, less expensive EVs in 2028.
US House Republicans seek to kill EV tax credit, loan program
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US House Republicans seek to kill EV tax credit, loan program
- The US Treasury in 2024 awarded more than $2 billion in point-of-sale rebates for EVs
Minneapolis mayor demands transparent investigation into ICE shooting as protests spread
- Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, said on Thursday that Minnesota authorities had no “jurisdiction” over the investigation
- Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said he could not be sure the government’s account was grounded in fact until an independent investigation took place
MINNEAPOLIS: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Friday demanded the federal government permit state authorities to take part in the investigation into a US immigration officer’s fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman in her car, an incident that has sparked nationwide protests.
Frey, a Democrat, accused the Republican Trump administration of trying to predetermine the investigation’s outcome after the state’s lead investigative agency, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said the FBI had reversed its initial cooperation and blocked the BCA’s access to scene evidence, witness interviews and other material.
“This is a time to follow the law,” Frey said. “This is not a time to hide from the facts.” He added that despite the lack of aid from federal authorities, state or local prosecutions of the officer were still “potential.”
Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, said on Thursday that Minnesota authorities had no “jurisdiction” over the investigation. Frey’s comments underscored the extent to which President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in mostly Democratic-run cities — despite the opposition of their mayors — has severely frayed the trust between local and federal officials. Trump administration officials have defended Wednesday’s shooting as self-defense and accused the woman, Renee Good, a US citizen and mother of three, of deliberately aiming her car at the officer in an act of “domestic terrorism” — a narrative belied by video evidence and described by Frey as “garbage.” In Portland, Oregon, on Thursday afternoon, a US Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a man and woman in their car after an attempted vehicle stop. As in Minnesota, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the driver “weaponized” the car in an effort to run over the agent, who fired in self-defense.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, echoing Frey, said he could not be sure the government’s account was grounded in fact until an independent investigation took place.
“There was a time when we could take them at their word,” Wilson, a Democrat, said of federal officials. “That time is long past.”
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield told CNN on Friday morning that there is cooperation between federal and state investigators so far but that it was too early to draw any conclusions.
STATES ACCUSE FEDS OF SOWING CHAOS
In both cases, Democratic mayors and governors have called on the Trump administration to pull federal officers out, arguing that their presence is sowing chaos and needlessly creating tensions on the streets.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot Good was one of more than 2,000 federal personnel whom the Trump administration has ordered deployed to Minneapolis in what DHS described as the “largest operation” in its history.
He was identified as Jonathan Ross, based on comments by federal officials that the officer had previously been dragged by a migrant’s car during an attempted arrest last summer, suffering serious lacerations. The details matched those reflected in the court records of a case in Bloomington, Minnesota, in June 2025, in which a man was eventually convicted of assaulting Ross.
DHS has declined to confirm the officer’s name.
Bystander videos of the shooting appear to show Good turning her wheels away from the officer as she drives forward, while he fires three shots while jumping backward from the front of the car. The final two shots appear to be aimed through the driver’s side window, after the car’s front bumper has already passed by the officer’s legs.
Since the killing, Trump administration officials have doubled down on the government’s version of events. Trump said on social media that the car “ran over” the officer, while Vice President JD Vance on Thursday accused Good of “attacking” agents and praised the officer for his actions.
The two shootings have drawn thousands of protesters in Minneapolis, Portland and other US cities. In Minnesota, Democratic Governor Tim Walz has put the state’s National Guard on alert. While the Minnesota operation is part of Trump’s broader immigration crackdown, the president has for months aimed political attacks at the state, particularly its large Somali-American community. Trump has called Somali immigrants “garbage,” railed against a sprawling welfare-fraud scandal and ridiculed Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2024. Walz announced earlier this week that he would not run for a third term, citing the time necessary to address the fraud scandal.
