Gas-powered cars aren’t being banned, despite big oil’s propaganda

The last time we checked, oil industry executives breathed the same air as everyone else. So you’d think they’d want to do everything they can to clean up our air and protect public health.

Yet, for generations, oil companies and their powerful, deep-pocketed trade associations in Washington, D.C. have lobbied against clean air policies, promoting toxic, polluting businesses with slick ads full of misleading claims and flat-out lies. 

Meanwhile, television stations across the country are doing their bidding by running deceptive public relations campaigns like this one, which highlights Big Oil’s preferred fear-mongering claim: the falsehood about a federal “ban” on gas-powered vehicles. 

This desperate assertion is easily disproved, and yet, shills for oil and gas continue to pour millions more dollars into their losing battle to keep as many polluting vehicles on the road for as long as possible. 

If you listen to these companies and their mouthpieces, you’d think our gas cars are going to vanish into thin air or that “Big Government” is coming to tow our cars out of our driveways and force us to buy electric instead. 

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Because it is. 

Why are they so desperate? No doubt they, too, see the writing on the wall. The status quo is changing and the EV transition is underway, which terrifies them. Global sales of combustion engine vehicles have fallen each year since 2017 thanks to electric cars taking up a growing share. 

The fossil fuel industry knows we are in the midst of an electrification revolution and they will stop at nothing — including spreading blatant lies about clean car policy and electric vehicles — to benefit from their massive polluter profits and shareholder payouts for as long as they can. 

The oil industry has a long, sordid history of lying about the climate crisis, covering up important data about the public health impacts of pollution and pushing a deregulation agenda so they can more easily pollute our air, water and climate. They want us to keep driving less efficient, gas-guzzling vehicles so they can make more money. The more gas we have to put into our cars to fuel them, the more dollars they have to line their dirty pockets. 

This spring, the Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing long-term clean car standards that will help cut climate pollution, improve public health and save drivers money through reduced fuel and maintenance costs. Nothing in the EPA’s proposal bans gas-powered cars or forces Americans to buy an EV or any specific type of car. 

Instead, Big Oil’s lobbying aims to ensure automakers keep manufacturing fossil-fueled cars, in fact trying to stymie advancements on cleaner vehicles. The oil industry shouldn’t be telling us which cars we can drive.

Why should we make cars less polluting and more efficient? Tailpipe pollution has been linked to nearly 2 million new cases of childhood asthma every year. And the American Lung Association’s Zeroing in on Healthy Air Report shows that transportation and electricity generation pollution are a threat to local community health, health equity and a driver of major climate change-related health risks.

There’s also the growing cost of the climate crisis. Extreme weather events that put Americans at risk and carry billions of dollars in costs are intensifying. 

On April 12, 2023, the day EPA announced the proposed vehicle emissions standards, administrator Michael Regan said “Americans are seeing and feeling the devastating impacts of the climate crisis first-hand.” That same day residents in Fort Lauderdale experienced an unprecedented flash flood with over two feet of rain in about 7 hours. 

Meteorologists — considered our most trusted local science communicators — warn that extreme events such as heat waves, intense wildfires and heavy rainfall are becoming more frequent, connected to climate change and causing billion-dollar disasters.

We’re overdue for progress on climate. Yet here we are in 2024 and the oil industry is still running ads insisting that we cling to fossil fuels. Their lies may not be surprising or unexpected, but nevertheless, must be exposed for what they are: a desperate attempt to lie to the public to protect their bottom line. 

This is a critical moment for the future of our planet. President Biden and the EPA must stand strong against fossil fuel interests peddling lies and disinformation and finalize strong pollution standards for cars and trucks so Americans can realize all the benefits they will provide — for climate, public health and our economy. 

Jamie Henn is the founder and director of Fossil Free Media, a nonprofit media lab that supports the movement to end fossil fuels. Katherine García is the director of Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All Campaign.