Attorneys general for Kentucky and West Virginia are leading a letter signed by more than 20 Republican state attorneys general that blast President Joe Biden’s administration over its proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that would force auto manufacturers to make more electric vehicles.
The proposed rule would force auto manufacturers to grow today’s 8.4 percent share of light-duty new electric vehicle sales to 67 percent by 2032, among other things, an effort the Republican AGs call “unlawful and misguided.”
The letter also notes the proposed rule would leave “just eight years from when the proposal will likely be finalized to achieve an eight-fold increase.”
The Republican AGs argue the rule would risk “consumer safety, economic stability, and national security.”
The AGs wrote:
While billed as tightening existing standards for “criteria pollutant and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from” certain motor vehicles, id. at 29,186, the Proposed Rule is, more accurately, the next phase in a top-to-bottom attempt to restructure the automobile industry … And the Proposed Rule’s approach will create more problems than it purports to solve. We urge EPA to adopt instead feasible standards that maintain our nation’s air quality without risking consumer safety, economic stability, and national security.
Consumers’ Research executive director Will Hill called the proposed rule an “assault on consumers.”
“By forcing car manufactures to focus on producing expensive, unwanted electric vehicles, the EPA is raising the costs for traditional automobiles, lowering the available stock of the most desirable vehicles, and forcing customers to subsidize expensive EV’s for wealthier consumers,” Hild said in a statement.
The GOP AGs also call on the EPA to reconsider the proposed rule.
The letter continued:
The Proposed Rule is unlawful, unwise, and unsustainable. As one auto industry advisor put it, we need more time to develop solutions together: “one more learning cycle, with the consumer, with the infrastructure, with the technology and [with] the supply base.” Put differently, encouraging quicker market change within the bounds of an agency’s operative statute is one thing. But mandating fast and extreme transformations before supply chains, national security, or consumer confidence have any hope of keeping up is another thing entirely. We respectfully urge EPA to reconsider its Proposed Rule.
Along with Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron and West Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey, the attorneys general for the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming signed onto the letter.
In a statement, Cameron criticized Biden for attempting to “use the power of government to force a massive shift in demand for automobiles, with the government putting its thumb on the scale in favor of EVs.”
“But Americans don’t want what he is selling. This is the latest head-in-the-sand approach to achieving the left’s impossible green-energy fantasies,” Cameron said. “Government shouldn’t pick winners and losers, and an EPA rule that would kill gas-powered vehicles does just that.”
Alliance for Consumers executive director O.H. Skinner said the EPA’s proposed rule is “yet another attempt to weaponize the agency rulemaking process, and the power of the federal government, to wipe away things that everyday consumers overwhelmingly like, use, and rely upon for life’s essential needs.”
The letter was sent to Biden’s EPA administrator Michael S. Regan.
