Virginia Democrats Block Effort to Lift Future Ban on Gas-Powered Vehicles

Virginia Senate Democrats blocked a measure from Republicans to untie the Commonwealth from California’s environmentalist vehicle emission standards and the ban on combustion vehicles that the standards will forcibly enact by 2035.

Under Democrat control in 2021, Virginia’s General Assembly voted to tie the state to California’s far-left emission standards, which requires a chunk of cars sold in Virginia from 2024 and beyond to be hybrid or electric and bans the use sale of combustion vehicles altogether by 2035.

Recently, in the still-Democrat-controlled Virignia State Senate, the Committee on Agriculture, Conservation, and Natural Resources voted 8-7 to keep Virginia tied to the California standards.

Virginia Republicans have been vehemently opposed to tying the state to California’s standards, which are some of the strictest on earth and are part of the broader, Greta Thunberg-style plan of the environmentalist left to destroy the private vehicle industry, and leave Americans reliant on public transportation. For decades, civil liberties and freedom advocates have lamented anti-vehicle environmentalism as a naked plot to force the American People into densley populated cities, where they can be more easily controlled.

In addition to the massive expansion of government power and influence that the California standards would bring to Virginia, Republicans in the state say that it’s unrealistic to expect the initiative to go as planned. Within just three years, under the California plan, Virginia would need to make a whopping 35% of its new vehicle sales “zero emission” by 2026.

Republicans also expressed concern that forcibly converting Virginia to electric vehicles could bring down the power grid. That concern has been voiced far and wide by those opposed to the left’s environmentalist governance and energy policies. In California, where so-called green energy programs have long been the law of the land, Soviet-style rolling blackouts have become a regular occurance, as the stressed energy grid struggles to keep up with demand.

In addition to blocking the repeal of the California vehicle standards, Virginia’s Senate Democrats, led by far-left historical vandal Louise Lucas, claim that they’ve erected a “wall” to block all GOP legislation from making it to Governor Glenn Youngkin’s desk.