Living up to its radical reputation, California is attempting to impose an electric truck mandate — one that would negatively impact the entire country.
Fortunately, a large group of state attorneys general have intervened in an attempt to halt California’s planned regulation.
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers spearheaded a 24-state coalition in filing a comment recently that asks the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to maintain a federal legal block on California’s Advanced Clean Fleets regulation.
The regulation attempts to impose an electric truck mandate on fleet owners, operators and manufacturers, including trucking companies that drive one truck for as little as one day per year in California. The coalition argues that the EPA should not allow California to exceed its statutory and regulatory authority by implementing an electric vehicle mandate that in all likelihood will disrupt the nation’s logistics and transportation industries.
Under the Clean Air Act, only the federal government can set emissions standards for vehicles. After California asked the EPA for a waiver to enforce Advanced Clean Fleets, the EPA solicited comments on whether to allow California to implement its regulation.
The states’ comment argues that granting a waiver would be unconstitutional because it would permit California to regulate motor vehicles in a way that no other state can. The comment also contends that nothing in federal law permits California or the EPA to ban internal-combustion vehicles altogether.
Given California’s large population and access to ports for international trade, if the EPA allowed Advanced Clean Fleets to be enforced, Mr. Hilgers said, the regulation will have significant nationwide effects on the supply chain.
We agree. According to the Institute for Energy Research, while large trucking companies can afford the large investment required in transitioning to electric trucks, those companies make up just 30% of all trucking in California.
Further, California produces much of the nation’s vegetables, fruits and nuts and is the port of entry for most of Asia’s commerce, so the state’s trucking mandate is likely to affect national supply chains when it is fully implemented, according to the IER.
Trucking companies would surely face major hurdles to be in compliance with California’s regulation.
As Mr. Hilgers put it, California lacks the legal authority to export its electric truck mandate to the rest of the country, and the Biden-Harris administration should favor the rule of law over its radical climate agenda by blocking California’s ban on internal-combustion trucks.
Besides being costly, electric trucks will harm Nebraskans by increasing the costs of interstate transportation, raising prices for goods, reducing demand for biofuels and burdening the electric power grid.
It’s time for the federal government to step in.
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Publish date : 2024-09-26 05:22:00
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