Ernst slams Biden administration plan to electrify military fleet: ‘You don’t fight a war that way’

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) slammed the Biden administration on Sunday over its push to electrify the U.S. military fleet.

“You don’t fight a war that way,” Ernst told radio talk show host John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 AM’s “Cats Roundtable.” 

“This administration has taken it to the extremes with this climate agenda,” she continued. “We are not focusing on the lethality of our American military. Instead, they are focusing on green energy and climate change. This is not how we project power around the world.”

Ernst questioned Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about whether she supported moving the military to all electric vehicles by 2030 at an Armed Services Committee earlier this week.

Granholm voiced support for the goal, noting that it would reduce “our reliance on the volatility of globally traded fossil fuels.”

The energy official specifically pointed to the impacts of the war in Ukraine on gas prices.

“I think energy security is achieved when we have homegrown clean energy that is abundant, like you see in Iowa,” Granholm added. “We think that we can be a leader globally in how we have become energy independent.”

In an interview earlier this week, Ernst called Granholm’s plan a “ludicrous idea.”

“This is a ludicrous idea to transition all of these vehicles,” Ernst said. “And Secretary Granholm was very adamant that yes, by 2030, we could transition — but the problem with this is that we continue to enrich China because we know that most of the parts… it’s all owned, controlled by China.”

“We don’t have those capabilities here in the United States,” she added.