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As a native South Carolinian, I read the April 20 news article “The unlikely center of America’s EV battery revolution” with great interest and some exasperation. Is it really “quite surprising,” as professor Thomas Oatley said, that many of the clean-energy incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act “are being channeled into red states?” Or is it by design?
Politicians, including President Biden and Gov. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.), know that household economics drive large-scale change, not the degree to which people embrace terms such as climate change. By bringing jobs to the rural South, electric vehicle and battery factories stabilize and expand the middle class. A stronger middle-class tax base means more funding for underperforming school systems, inadequate (or nonexistent) rural internet infrastructure and new electric charging stations.
As factories in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and South Carolina increase the supply of affordable electric vehicles, more Americans will do the math and make the switch. Over the next few years, states with little apparent interest in climate change could be the driving forces behind a dramatic reduction in transportation emissions. And that shouldn’t be surprising.
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