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The Center Square [By Jacob Matthews] –
Tennessee has joined a coalition of 24 states, led by Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, in signing a brief against a federal electric truck mandate.
On March 29, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rolled out a new electric truck mandate to increase sales of electric semitrucks from 2027 through 2032.
EPA will require electric models to account for 60% of new urban delivery trucks and 25% of long-haul tractor sales by 2032. The cost of electric trucks are typically two to three times more expensive than diesel trucks, according to the Institute for Energy Research.
Truckers will also have to invest $620 billion for charging infrastructure and it will likely cost utilities $370 billion to upgrade their networks.
On Wednesday, Hilgers filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stop the Biden-Harris Administration from imposing this mandate on truck manufacturers. A coalition of 24 states, including Louisiana, teamed up in the Nebraska v. EPA challenge.
“The EPA’s attempt to transform the trucking industry and supply chain infrastructure goes well beyond the agency’s authority,” Hilgers said in a news release. “Once again, the Biden-Harris Administration’s radical climate agenda will harm Americans. A national electric-truck mandate will raise prices for groceries, strain the electrical grid, and disrupt the transportation, logistics, biofuel, and farming industries that drive the Nebraska economy.
“Our brief makes the common-sense and rule-of-law argument that whether to require manufacturers to sell electric trucks is a highly consequential decision. That decision should be left for Congress and the States — not for unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington.”
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 0.1% of all heavy-duty trucks sold today are powered by batteries, but EPA’s rule would increase that number to 45% in less than a decade.
According to the brief, this could create a 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 EPA has never before forced manufacturers to produce heavy-duty electric vehicles and that allowing the electric-truck mandate to stand would short circuit the ongoing policy debate that should be left to Congress and the States.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ bureaucrats in D.C. want everyone in Louisiana to drive an electric vehicle or frankly no cars at all — and now they want to transform the trucking industry to require an ‘electric-truck mandate,'” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a news release. “This would only raise prices even more for industries and consumers throughout our state and country.”
The other states in the coalition are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Download the brief HERE.
5 Responses
What our TN Governor and our TN AG do not understand is we don’t have to ask for the government’s permission to not enforce electric truck mandates because the federal government has no constitutional authority over the state on this issue. TN simply tells the federal government TN WILL NOT COMPLY. That is nullification folks….the rightful remedy. No need for court cases. No need to have 5 unelected judges at the Supreme Court tell the states what they can and cannot do. They have no constitutional right to do so. In fact they have no constitutional authority but to hear cases and create an opinion on those cases. Even Justice Sotomayor during the Dobbs case said “There is not anything in the Constitution that says that the Court, the Supreme Court, is the last word on what the Constitution means.” All you need to do is read Art. 1 Sec. 8 of the Constitution to see the only legislative powers given to the federal government by the states and the people of the states. So lets grow a spine. Stop wasting taxpayer money and steer our TN AG to deal with the legal issues our own counties and cities are causing here in TN. Perhaps he should spend more time trying to enforce the laws our Assembly has passed and the cities and counties violate everyday.
Respectfully, you have made statements that are either flat out wrong i.e. “No need to have 5 unelected judges at the Supreme Court tell the states what they can and cannot do.” There are 9 Justices or the stating the wrong section of the Constitution. Article III Section 2.
The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;–to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;–to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;–to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;–to controversies between two or more states;–between a state and citizens of another state;–between citizens of different states;–between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.
We’d have to with hold tax payments to the feds as they’d stop fed hwy. funds
Another example of the Dems illegally using the bureaucracy to try to force their CRAZY ideas.
If Harris wins, we are in BIG trouble.
Everyone > go out to vote early for Trump.
I really don’t trust the Dems.
EVs/trucks are mistakes in every way as are lucifer’s dimmercraps seeking to force them on us. They’re unable and/or unable to think anything past now.