Climate Denial Crock of the Week

Yahoo News:

All this new job creation involves one specific product: Electric vehicles or EVs. The Hyundai Metaplant will build EVs exclusively, as will another facility planned for Georgia along Interstate 20, that one for Rivian. The Rivian plant estimates hiring 7,500 employees.

Right now, along Interstate 85 north of Athens, a factory that makes batteries for Ford’s all-electric F-150 Lightning is open and will employ 2,600 Georgians by the end of 2023.

It’s not hyperbole to say EVs are a new cornerstone of Georgia’s manufacturing economy. Clever journalists have already dubbed the state the “Battery Belt.”

Yet one high-profile Georgian stands against EVs: Would-be Sen. Walker.

Walker is campaigning against EVs. “I don’t want an electric car, I like my hot rod,” Walker told several hundred at an early November rally in Richmond Hill — a couple dozen miles away from the Hyundai site.

He doubled down following his second-place finish in the Nov. 8 election, telling a crowd in Peachtree City, “What we need to do is keep having those gas-guzzling cars. We got the good emissions under those cars.” He repeated the mantra in a stop in Augusta as well.

Walker is dissing EVs as part of a broader attack on what he calls “green new deal” policies championed by Democratic President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress, such as his runoff opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock.

But for all but the GOP zealots, the approach has less juice than an EV in need of a charge. Georgia leaders, who are overwhelmingly Republican, are behind the push to attract EV manufacturers and related businesses to the state.