Pressured by legal action from seventeen states that would have been impacted, California has agreed to not just drop enforcement of its electric truck mandate, but to repeal it entirely. [emphasis, links added]
Following the governor’s 2020 executive order that banned the sales of new internal-combustion engine cars in 2035, the state Air Resources Board devised two years ago a “world-leading regulation to phase out the sales of medium and heavy-duty combustion trucks in California by 2036.”
But the rule would have reached far beyond California’s borders, says Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, who leads the 17-state coalition that challenged the Advanced Clean Fleets rule.
Another, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, said, “California’s attempt to dictate trucking standards for the entire country was a blatant overreach that would have devastated industries far beyond its borders.”
Completion of the settlement will take time. But the judge’s order is clear: The state agrees that it “will not take any enforcement action,” and there are deadlines that it must meet.
Apparently, California got the same “cold feet” that its “blue-state allies in the electric truck transition” came down with. This happens when policymakers realize their aspirations are driven by fantasies.
No one should have been surprised that truckers aren’t interested in buying electric rigs. They are unreliable, can’t get the job done in cold conditions, and are no match for diesels when pulling heavy loads.
E-trucks cost more than workhorse diesels, have shorter ranges, and can take up to 10 hours to guzzle a full charge.
Given the policy’s impracticality and legal challenges, there was no reason to defend it against the states that told California, “We’ll see you in court.”
Maybe the settlement will help California learn how to mind its own business.
The electric-truck mandate was not the first time Golden State legislators and regulators — and in at least one instance, voters — have interfered with interstate commerce.
California energy laws impact gasoline prices in other states, the Low Carbon Fuel Standard regulates both interstate and foreign trade that occurs wholly outside of California and a pair of recently passed bills “impermissibly compel thousands of businesses to make costly, burdensome, and politically fraught statements about ‘their operations, not just in California, but around the world,’ ” according to a court challenge.
None, though, are as sweeping nor as entrenched as the state’s federally granted waivers that allow it to regulate beyond the standards of the Clean Air Act.
In the decades since the law was passed in 1967, California has received more than 100 waivers and authorizations that have permitted it to act alone and has now become a de facto national emissions policy.
Seventeen states and Washington, D.C., “have opted in to standards for light-duty vehicles,” says law firm Holland & Knight, “and 10 have done so for heavy-duty vehicles.”
Only once, in 2008, has the federal government denied the waiver request. The future, however, is a bit murky.
Late last month, the U.S. House passed a joint resolution, by a 246-164 margin that included support from 35 Democrats, which disapproves of the waiver California needed — and was granted during the Biden administration’s last days — for the state to continue its electric vehicle mandate.
One of those 35 Democrats is Rep. Lou Correa of Orange County, who said he didn’t like handing a win to President Donald Trump, but felt he needed to “listen to my neighbors and respect their choices to do what is best for their families and their circumstances.”
For him, that included “protecting consumers’ rights to drive whatever vehicle makes sense for them and their pocketbooks.”
h/t Steve B
Top photo by JUICE on Unsplash
Read more at Spectator
Governor Nuisance is acting like total idiot over this whole thing just wants to rub elbows with the rest of the UN/Globalists
California cannot be able to dictate policy for the entire country which is what this electric truck mandate was going to do. They have done that with their MPG standards for internal combustion vehicles and then with their mandates that all cars sold in the state must be electric and a couple of years ago with the requirement that sows and their piglets must be put into larger pens in order to sell pork in the state. Due to the size of its market they force companies to adapt their hairbrained rules, increasing costs for the rest of us.