Friday Funny: The Onion Satirizes the Federal Government’s Electric Car Fetish

“In keeping with its mission to address the nation’s environmental challenges, the Department of Energy introduced a new program Monday that provides pedestrians and cyclists with economic incentives to switch to electric vehicles,” according to a totally made up article by The Onion satirizing the wishful thinking about electric cars and the insistence on automobile dependency from every level of government in the United States.

The latest satire of planning-related news by The Onion was published just a few days before the Biden administration announced a proposed federal gas tax holiday, similar to gas tax holidays proposed by ostensibly liberal governors of state like California and New York in recent months—very real signs of the inability of Democratic political leadership to meaningfully address climate change.

Electric car programs have gained traction, despite all the gas tax holiday talk, as the variety of climate change action preferred by Democratic leadership, despite copious evidence of the limitations of electric vehicles for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Walking and cycling, as The Onion’s satire picks up on, would be a much more obvious, and effective, direction for climate change action. Still, biking and walking are not favored in the politics of transportation and land use planning.