South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stop the federal government from imposing an electric-vehicle mandate on truck manufacturers.
A coalition of 24 states teamed up in Nebraska v. EPA to challenge the new rule.
“This is yet another overreach by the Biden-Harris administration trying to do something they don’t have the authority to do,” Wilson said in an announcement. “But more importantly, it will raise the price on all of us for almost everything that gets shipped by truck.”
In April, the federal Environmental and Protection Agency published a rule imposing stringent tailpipe emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles that effectively force manufacturers to produce more electric trucks and fewer internal combustion trucks. The attorneys general argued that EPA’s electric-truck mandate raises a “major question” that Congress has not clearly authorized EPA to decide.
The brief points out that just 0.10 percent of all heavy-duty trucks sold today are powered by a battery, but that EPA’s rule would increase that number to 45 percent in less than a decade. That massive shift in the nation’s trucking and logistics industries will slow down the transportation of essential goods, stress the electric grid, and raise prices for Americans.
The brief also argues that the EPA has not previously required manufacturers to produce heavy-duty electric vehicles. They argue that allowing the electric-truck mandate to stand would short-circuit the ongoing policy debate that should be left to Congress and the States.
In addition to Wilson, attorneys general from the following states joined the brief against the Biden Administration: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
