⚡ Rep. Jimmy Patronis filed an amendment to stop the Pentagon from prioritizing EVs and hybrids in its non-tactical fleet.
🚙 Biden’s 2021 executive order directed agencies to favor zero-emission vehicles when cost-comparable, but uptake has lagged due to supply chain issues.
🪖 Patronis criticized the policy as a “woke agenda” that distracts from military readiness and could put lives at risk.
CRESTVIEW — Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Fla., filed an amendment on Friday to the National Defense Authorization Act that would roll back a Biden Administration directive requiring the Department of Defense to prioritize electric and hybrid non-tactical vehicles over gasoline-powered models.
Filed as Amendment 161, the measure would eliminate the procurement preference that the Pentagon has been operating under since President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order on federal fleet electrification.
That directive required agencies to favor zero-emission and hybrid models for non-tactical vehicles when they were available at a reasonably comparable cost. Tactical combat vehicles were exempt.
Under the policy, the Army has acquired approximately 4,000 zero-emission vehicles to date. However, this represents only a fraction of its roughly 56,000 non-tactical light-duty fleet, according to National Defense Magazine.
Early efforts were hindered by supply chain issues and production delays, resulting in the service receiving approximately 1,100 EVs out of the 2,000 requested in fiscal year 2022.
A 2024 Government Accountability Office report found that federal agencies collectively purchased 5,500 EVs in fiscal 2023, achieving just 60% of their combined target of 9,500.
In a news release, Patronis argued the mandate is a distraction from military readiness.
“Our military’s primary focus should be defending the nation and neutralizing threats to our country, not on which vehicles to drive and checking boxes for a woke political agenda,” Patronis said in a statement. “The failed Biden Administration’s push for electric and hybrid vehicles in the military over gas-powered vehicles was not only less efficient and costly but could’ve put lives in danger by not allowing for more reliable assets to be used in the field.”
Patronis added that the policy showed the administration was “so radical in its leftwing thinking, and so beholden to its donors, that they rationalized that the Pentagon needed to be environmentally sensitive to Mother Earth.”
Pro Communi Bono
St. Francis De Sales, Ora Pro Nobis!
Register or login with Mid Bay News and never get another pop up on our site!
