Not a suprise: Senator son of former car company president disfavors bicycle lanes, tax credits for electric bikes

 Over the past few years I have been thinking a lot about the concept of the petro state ("The Petro States of America," Bloomberg) at the sub-national scale, and how the points scholars make about how resource extraction based economies make a lot of bad decisions when it comes to the environment, priorities, tax policy etc. are relevant to states too, not just nations/the national scale.

-- "Gasoline Dependent Sprawl" 
-- "Oil dependence | The US as a Petro-state and gasoholic | and war"

Tesoro oil refinery, Long Beach, California.

In short, US states like Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Wyoming and Utah are petro states for the most part making short term decisions about energy policy that favor extraction and the primacy of an automobile centric mobility paradigm.

(Note that California is an exception.  It is a major oil producer, but because of air quality and other environmental concerns, it is committed to moving away from dependence on oil.  OTOH, it is still very much a poster child for the sprawl development paradigm.)

Utah is sprawl centric, has some oil and coal production, and is home to many refineries dedicated to refining oil produced in Wyoming and nearby states.  

Because of the mountains, gasoline use in cars, and oil refining (and other extractive industries like copper and magnesium and their environmental effects) the air quality in the Salt Lake Valley can be very bad (in fact, I've developed a persistent cough as a result).

But for the most part, machinations in how air quality is measured and reported to the EPA means the state can get away without dealing with it in substantive ways.

Although these days the state is getting lots of media attention because of the decline of the Great Salt Lake, which is seriously affected by the loss of water supply because of drought and agriculture ("As the Great Salt Lake Dries Up, Utah Faces an ‘Environmental Nuclear Bomb'." New York Times, "‘Last nail in the coffin’: Utah’s Great Salt Lake on verge of collapse," Guardian, "The countdown to save Utah's Great Salt Lake," El Pais).

Mitt Romney is a US Senator from Utah. 

He grew up in Michigan where his father was George Romney, once the top official at the automobile manufacturer that became American Motors.  

Although George went on to become Governor of Michigan and later considered running for president.  He served in the Nixon Administration.  

But at the same time, George came out of the then honorable moderate Republican school of politics which was very strong in Michigan.  He favored civil rights, etc.

I always say Mitt is no George.

And ironically, George Romney was the first American automobile executive to promote small cars over big in a systematic way ("When George Romney and Rambler took aim at the “dinosaurs”," Hagerty Media). 

George Romney with AMC cars.

So who knows, maybe George Romney would have been okay with electric bikes as an alternative to automobile dependency?  (Probably not, but we can "counterfactual.")

Mitt gets props on impeachment, but on virtually every other issue--including voter suppression--he is a solid vote for conservatives.

Recently, Mitt got some attention for coming out against tax credits for electric bikes ("Mitt Romney Trashes E-Bikes, Says Adding Bike Lanes Is the 'Height of Stupidity'," Bicycling).  From the article:

Business Insider reports Romney saying, “I’m not going to spend money on buying e-bikes for people like me who have bought them—they’re expensive. Removing automobile lanes to put in bike lanes is, in my opinion, the height of stupidity, it means more cars backing up, creating more emissions.”

Mitt Romney is committed to the car.  Photo: Bryan Mitchell, Getty Images.

For one, the E-BIKE Act specifically makes e-bikes far less expensive, and, for many trips, removes the need to drive cars at all. Also, the Act isn’t targeting folks like Romney—it’s intended largely for low-income Americans. The proposed E-BIKE Act would give Americans who earn up to $150,000, or up to $300,000 for joint tax filers, a refundable tax credit of 30% off the purchase of an e-bike, up to $1,500.

Mitt doesn't get that every trip not made by car cuts emissions even more!

Switching from a car to a bicycle has significant environmental benefits ("EVs are expensive. These city commuters ditched cars altogether — for e-bikes," NPR), while switching from a gasoline powered car to an electric car has some environmental benefits but doesn't challenge the sprawl land use paradigm nor does it promote sustainable mobility.

It's what I call "Next Generation Asphalt Nation."

At the same time, the Republican agenda is very much committed to fossil fuel production and use.  So this isn't a surprise.

But also it comes out of the idea that bicycles are toys, for recreation, and aren't viable methods for "real transportation."