Climate change and the wider transition to eco-friendly industries have served as a reliable line of attack against Democratic policies for candidates in the GOP race for the White House.
Former President Donald Trump has historically taken a skeptical view of green energy technologies such as wind farms and has made efforts recently to court the attention and hearts of older industries.
In a recent post on Truth Social, Trump went after President Joe Biden on these lines, claiming that the commander in chief wanted to introduce all-electric tanks into the U.S. Army.
The Claim
A Truth Social post by Donald Trump, posted on September 8, 2023, stated: "The Biden Administration wants to now make our Army Tanks all Electric so that, despite the fact that they will not be able to go very far, fewer pollutants will be released into the air."
The Facts
Trump's claims about electric vehicles fit within a campaigning message intended, it seems, to hoover up votes from certain contingents of the auto and energy industry. In another Truth Social post earlier this week, the former president urged voters to support him to prevent a wider transition to electric vehicle usage.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law in the summer of 2022, proposed new policies to increase the uptake of American-made electric vehicles, such as a $7,500 tax credit.
While it appears that plans to extend green energy plans for U.S. military vehicles have been formed, Trump has got the facts of this twisted.
President Biden had previously stated that he wanted every vehicle in the U.S. military to be "climate-friendly" but has not stated that tanks should be all-electric.
"I'm going to start the process where every vehicle in the United States military — every vehicle is going to be climate-friendly," Biden said in April 2022.
"Every vehicle. We're going to have—no, I mean it. We're spending billions of dollars to do it.
"And—and it's going to matter. You know, it matters. You know, in my view, this crisis, as I said, is a genuine opportunity—an opportunity to do things we wanted to do, and only now it's become so apparent."
While documents published by the U.S. Army state its intentions to develop a fully electric tactical vehicle by 2050, it does not say whether this would be a tank. A 2023 RAND article states these plans do not refer to the development of a tank.
Newsweek has contacted the White House and the U.S. Army to confirm the plans.
Speaking in April 2023 at a meeting of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said she would support plans to have a fully electric non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2030.
Asked by Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst whether Granholm supported plans to hit that deadline, Granholm replied: "I do, and I think we can get there as well.
"And I do think that reducing our reliance on the volatility of globally traded fossil fuels, where we know that global events such as the war in Ukraine can jack up prices for people back home, it does not contribute to energy security.
"I think energy security is achieved when we have homegrown clean energy that is abundant like you see in Iowa. We think that we can be a leader globally in how we
have become energy independent."
The Ruling
Unverified.
Joe Biden, members of his administration, and the U.S. Army have shared ambitions to introduce electric and "climate-friendly" vehicles into the military, including tactical vehicles.
However, none of the plans that Newsweek examined mentioned the redevelopment of tanks or their replacement.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
