Twenty-Five State Attorneys General Sue Biden EPA over Economy-Crushing Emissions Mandates
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said the rules would harm the American economy, threaten jobs, and raise prices while undermining the U.S. electricity grid.
Early in Biden’s disaster-laden term, his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed economy-crushing, liberty-limiting rules that would theoretically eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s electricity sector by 2040.
U.S. power plant owners warned these plans were unworkable, relying too heavily on costly technologies that are not yet proven at scale.
Additionally, America’s car customers are opting not to purchase one of the magic solutions to the non-problem: Electric Vehicles. The market has decided that EVs aren’t worth owning until there is a charging infrastructure network that can accommodate the entire American public, an electric grid that can handle capacity, enough natural resources to build models at a moderate price, and technology that doesn’t ignite when it gets wet or won’t start when it gets too cold.
How bad are these new, economy-crushing, unworkable rules from the EPA? So bad that the Attorneys General from half the states within our wonderful union are now suing the agency over the emissions mandates.
The lawsuit challenging the regulations for passenger vehicles, finalized on March 20 by President Joe Biden’s administration, was filed by attorneys general from states led by Kentucky and West Virginia in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The EPA rules aim to cut fleetwide tailpipe emissions for cars and light trucks by nearly 50% over 2026 levels in 2032, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7.2 billion tons through 2055.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said the rules would harm the American economy, threaten jobs and raise prices while undermining the U.S. electricity grid. Coleman also said there is very little consumer interest in electric vehicles in his state.
Republican attorneys general from 25 states sued the EPA to block rules intended to reduce emissions from cars and light trucks and encourage EV manufacturing. https://t.co/Us1MXawbt1
— Automotive News (@Automotive_News) April 18, 2024
The lawsuit is targeting the EPA’s new regulations, which is actually a rollback of a previous, more ambitious EPA rule that was aimed at pushing automakers to make even more electric vehicles. The requirements rely heavily on a market willing to purchase EVs.
The new rule is aimed at increasing the proportion of new vehicle sales that are EVs or hybrids. The agency is attempting to boost EVs to make up between 35 percent and 56 percent of new car sales by 2032. For hybrids they are targeting between 13 and 36 percent of all new car sales. In 2023, EVs made up only 7.6 percent of new car sales.
The way the rule seeks to accomplish this boost in sales for EVs and hybrids is by requiring auto manufacturers to adopt “stringent vehicle emissions standards” for cars made between the model years 2027 and 2032.
Criticism of the EPA’s ridiculous rules crosses party lines and spans a wide array of industries.
The EPA’s regulations have been heavily criticized by state officials, Republican and Democratic lawmakers, agriculture industry groups like the National Corn Growers Association and energy associations, such as the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute.
In 2023, 9.5% of new, light-duty vehicle sales were EVs, up from 7% in 2022 and 4.3% in 2021, according to data from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry group that represents major automakers. At the same time, EVs remain more expensive than traditional, gas-powered cars.
Additionally, the share of Americans who said they are considering an EV purchase has declined from 55% to 44% year-over-year, according to a Gallup poll conducted in March.
Calls placed to the EPA seeking comment were not immediately returned.
For too long, the EPA has used ginned-up fears of global warming and cancer based on questionable studies from entities that get government funding to find these results. As I noted recently, Big Government is responsible for the “climate crisis.”
It’s a shame the state Attorneys General have to take time away from matters specific to their constituencies to try and reign in an agency that has become a liberty-crushing behemoth. The EPA is one agency that truly deserves the Javier Milei treatment.
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Comments
“How bad are these new, economy-crushing, unworkable rules from the EPA? So bad that the Attorneys General from half the states within our wonderful union are now suing the agency over the emissions mandates.”
Too bad this is all partisan mummery.
“Republican attorneys general from 25 states…”
Here in Maricopa County AZ, it has been demonstrated that if all human vehicles, structures, and residents immediately disappeared, the natural desert itself would spontaneously generate levels of “pollutants” that exceed the EPA’s new guidelines. It is literally impossible for us to meet these guidelines.
So, where’s Arizona’s Democrat Attorney General? Too busy campaigning for Joe Biden to sign a letter like this.
“The EPA’s regulations have been heavily criticized by state officials, Republican and Democratic lawmakers…” per the article cited above.
So it’s not nearly as partisan as you seem to think because the standards couldn’t be met even if they had NO cars.
Aside from the destructive nature of these nihilistic, insane rules, the federal government does not have the power to make such edicts. This is completely un-Constitutional. It doesn’t matter if Congress delegated any sorts of powers in legislation; Congress never had those powers to delegate.
The federal government does not “OWN” America.
Neither the President, or the Congress understand that.
Oh, they understand it fine…. But they have the power to ignore that knowledge, courtesy of the rot that has set in since,,,, I guess, the War Between the States.
Exactly. No enumerated power covers the EPA. Leftists hate the amendment process because the people might reject their mastermind plans. But no regulatory bureaucracy is constitutional because they represent a prohibited delegation of Congress’s lawmaking power.
The President of a Major US utility told me of a visit to the White House by Utility presidents from across the USA. They were given a presentation by the Biden Admin on what they were expected to do to reduce emissions.
The President of ComEd in Illinois stood up and said, “If we do that our prices will have to triple.”
The Secretary of Energy herself replied, “Is that a problem?”
I had this story confirmed by several other sources.
The 2025 Toyota Camry will be a hybrid-only model.
Toyota is depriving us of a gas engine to keep Mr. 10% happy.
I do not want a car with a battery that may explode or catch on fire.
As a temporary fix, charging stations powered by diesel generators will be provided.
A trucking company trying out electric trucks recently had one run out of power at a store. They had to send one of their shop trucks out with a diesel generator to charge it enough to get back.
Always bugs to work out of new technologies…. Rome wasn’t destroyed in a day…
Glad someone is suing. This is a sick sick joke.
Climate change isn’t a hoax. It’s been changing from the beginning of time.
What has changed is the common sense of the average Joe to understand hysteria is infecting their gray matter.
The idea that humans are causing climate to change is the hoax.
Melting polar ice is slowing the Earth’s rotation, with possible consequences for timekeeping
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/melting-ice-slowing-earth-rotation-may-affect-time-rcna145009
Earth is spinning faster than it used to. Clocks might have to skip a second to keep up.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/earth-spinning-time-second-removed-world-clocks/
I wonder which way the Earth “identifies” ?
Or, there has always been a small amount of natural variability in the Earth’s rotation and we just recently got instrumentation with enough resolution to be able to measure it.
And what have we learned?
Mandates without transparency, oversight, and halting conditions always metastasize. And like the metaphor, they go everywhere, and destroy everything they infest.