U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is expressing concerns regarding the Biden administration’s approach to the military adopting an all-electric, non-tactical vehicle (EV) fleet by 2030.
Rubio has forwarded correspondence to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, seeking insight amid citing a pattern of the administration prioritizing green ideology over military readiness.
“I write out of concern over recent comments made by U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about the importance of electrifying the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)’s non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2030,” Rubio wrote. “Unfortunately, Secretary Granholm’s comments are not novel in the Biden Administration and are just the latest in a stream of misguided efforts to prioritize progressive and unrealistic green energy policies over bolstering the readiness of the U.S. military at a time of heightened global instability and an increasingly aggressive Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
Rubio said investments in EVs for the U.S. military make the nation less safe, and taxpayer dollars are better spent elsewhere.
“Given our reliance on China for electric batteries, President Biden’s demands for ‘every vehicle’ in the U.S. military to be climate-friendly only serves to ramp up our dependence on the CCP, a regime that seeks to usurp the U.S. as a global economic, technological, and political leader,” Rubio wrote. “Spending the next seven years trying to electrify the DoD’s non-tactical vehicle fleet to meet an arbitrary, unnecessary timeline of 2030 leaves our military distracted while China continues to upend the rule of law and prepare for war.”
In his letter, Rubio inquires about, among other topics, the cost to convert the military’s non-tactical vehicle fleet to electric vehicles, reliance on Chinese materials for parts used in vehicles, and the availability of global infrastructure to support the worldwide deployment of non-tactical vehicles at installations.