close
close
You are Here
Eight states file court brief challenging California’s electric vehicle mandate • Florida Phoenix
vefms

Eight states file court brief challenging California’s electric vehicle mandate • Florida Phoenix

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird led a coalition of eight state attorneys general who filed a court brief in support of Ohio’s lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over California’s electric vehicle mandates.

California’s mandate requires all new cars and vehicles sold there to be electric by 2035. The mandate approved in August 2022 by the California Air Resources Board was intended to improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird led an eight-state coalition in an amicus brief opposing California’s new electric vehicle order. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

Bird and others allege that the EPA violated states’ equal sovereignty rights when the agency allowed California to apply its own regulatory standards while preventing other states from doing so.

Bird said in a news release that California’s electric vehicle mandate will increase costs for consumers in other states and limit options for new cars.

“I will not stand idly by while American families are forced to pay the price for California’s green car mandates,” Bird said in a news release.

“California and the Biden-Harris EPA are taking away purchasing options for families across the country and requiring them to buy more expensive electric cars at a time when they are already struggling to make ends meet. The law is clear: California does not have the power to mandate the cars Iowans drive.”

Bird is joined by Republican attorneys general from Idaho, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming.

According to the amicus brief, California’s extreme market influence means that its decisions force the auto industry across the country to change to accommodate California’s regulations.

“That mandate exceeds current market demand for those vehicles, forcing manufacturers to expend far more resources than they would without the regulations. Those additional expenses are inevitably passed on to consumers, including the Petitioner States,” the brief reads. “The Petitioner States are forced to subsidize California’s strict regulatory framework while simultaneously being prohibited from adopting their own.”

This isn’t the first time Bird has fought California’s electric vehicle regulations.

In May, Bird joined a lawsuit challenging a California regulation that would have banned internal combustion engines in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles by 2045 and the sale of larger diesel vehicles by 2036.

Read the full report here.

This story first appeared in the Iowa Capital Journal, a member of the Phoenix nonprofit States Newsroom.

Share
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Linkedin

Related Posts