 |
| Photo Credit: AP. |
A Senior U.S. State Department official has that he prefers “high gas prices” because they lead to less CO2 emissions.
In a tweet
Friday, Alan Eyre, a senior Foreign Service officer tweeted, "I prefer
high gas prices = less driving, less CO2."
The tweet
was in response to a post from President Joe Biden who said American families
were paying less per month on average than they were during “peak prices.”
Eyre
subsequently deleted his twitter account after coming under increased scrutiny,
Newsweek reports.
The national
average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $4.41 on Friday, down 16
cents from last week, according to Newsweek
US
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told Congress early this week to
subsidize electric vehicle purchases due to surge in gas prices, Newsweek
reported.
“The more
pain we are all experiencing from the high price of gas, the more benefit there
is for those who can access electric vehicles,” Buttigieg told the House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Tuesday.
“I think
it's fair to say that even you have implied that [consumers] should buy an
electric vehicle and absolve themselves” of that cost, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA)
argued in response to Buttigieg, according to Newsweek: “Just looking at Kelley
Blue Book, the price of an EV is about $55,000."
“First of
all, I want to be clear, nobody I know, certainly not me, thinks that all, or
even most Americans, can easily afford electric vehicles," Buttigieg
replied. "That said, I'm struck by this $55,000 number that keeps going
around. I knew this might come up, so I just pulled a few of the latest prices:
A Chevy Bolt, so an American-made, 2022 EV, is $26,595. If you want a pickup
truck, like a Chevy Silverado EV or Ford F-150 Lightning, the starting prices
of those are $39,930 [and] $39,974, respectively."