‘Transportation Fairness Alliance’ is uncovered as an anti-EV lobby group

A research team at DeSmog has debunked the messaging of an organization that calls itself the “Transportation Fairness Alliance.” It proclaims itself to be in favor of “competitive and equitable transportation,” but it’s actually a powerful, anti-EV, pro-fossil-fuel lobbying group.

The anti-EV group describes itself as follows:

The Transportation Fairness Alliance is a diverse partnership of groups that support a competitive and equitable transportation sector. Collectively, we represent our nation’s manufacturers, small business owners, farmers, and folks who drive on our roads and pay utility bills.

The reality, which is explained on DeSmog‘s microsite Transportation Fairness Alliance Revealed, is that it includes such fossil-fuel powerhouses as the American Petroleum Institute, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and the National Tank Truck Carriers — the US’ largest association of gasoline and diesel truckers.

The coalition is being managed by FTI Consulting, a DC-based international consultancy firm that has a long history of running front groups and PR campaigns for the oil and gas industry.

DeSmog‘s microsite breaks down facts versus myths about electric vehicles. Some examples of facts that the researchers cite are:

Electric vehicle drivers contribute to road construction and maintenance costs, and in many states pay more than drivers of gas-powered vehicles.

Over the full life cycle of the vehicle, electric cars are cleaner, no matter how they are charged.

DeSmog also pointedly states the Transportation Fairness Alliance’s real goal:

Oil companies don’t care about fairness. Oil companies want to make sure American drivers have no choice but to refuel at the gas pump.

Ben Jervey, a research fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School and a senior fellow for DeSmog, told Electrek:

The [Transportation Fairness Alliance is] trying to co-opt the “fairness” argument and portray EVs as inequitable, which requires them to peddle a bunch of myths.

Electrek’s Take

All you need to do is look in this lobby group’s “news” section on its website to see that it’s an EV-bashing, pro-gasoline lobbying group. It has nothing to do with small business owners or “folks,” a clever PR word implying your average person. If it really cared about “folks,” it would be promoting a cleaner environment and emissions reduction, like the rest of the world’s private and public sectors; not their own interests.

The use of the word “fairness” is manipulative — and the only groups that would “fairly” benefit from this propaganda are Big Oil and Gas.