Texas Sues Biden Administration Over EV Trucking Mandates

Another day, another Texas lawsuit against the Biden Administration over regulatory overreach.

A coalition of Republican-led states is suing the Biden administration and the State of California in an attempt to prevent new electric vehicle mandates on truck owners and operators throughout the country from going into effect.

Two legal challenges were filed over the new emissions rules, Nebraska Attorney General Hilgers said in a statement on May 13.

They include a petition for review filed by a coalition of 24 states in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit which challenges the Biden administration’s new regulation setting stronger greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles.

Texas isn’t mentioned in the article, but it is in the filing:

Under 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1), Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 15, and D.C. Circuit Rule 15(a), the States of Nebraska, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming petition this Court for review of the final agency action taken by Respondents United States Environmental Protection Agency and Michael S. Regan, in his official capacity as Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, titled “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles—Phase 3,” published at 89 Fed. Reg. 29,440 (April 22, 2024). A copy of the agency action is attached to this petition.

Petitioners will show that the final rule exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and otherwise is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law. Petitioners thus ask that this Court declare unlawful and vacate the agency’s final action.

Back to the article:

That petition lists the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its administrator Michael Regan as defendants.

In the legal filing, plaintiffs argue the EPA’s rule imposing stringent tailpipe emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles effectively forces manufacturers to produce more electric trucks and fewer internal combustion trucks.

The EPA has said the new rules, which are set to take effect for model years 2027 through 2032, are needed to help combat climate change and will help avoid up to 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades.

However, the infrastructure needed to support such vehicles is “virtually nonexistent” and they also have shorter ranges and require longer stops, according to Mr. Hilgers.

The new regulation will also negatively impact the economy and put extra pressure on power grids, according to the lawsuit.

A separate coalition of 17 states and the Nebraska Trucking Association also filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California seeking to block a package of regulations that they say are “targeting trucking fleet owners and operators.”

That lawsuit lists the EPA and the California Air Resources Board as defendants.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are challenging a string of California regulations called “Advanced Clean Fleets” which aims to “accelerate a large-scale reduction in tailpipe emissions focusing on zero-emissions medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,” according to the California Air Resources Boards’s (CARB) official website.

The rules would ban big rigs and buses that run on diesel from being sold in California starting in 2036.

Nebraska AG Mike Hilgers seems to be walking point on this one but, as usual, Texas is joining in another lawsuit against Biden Administration regulatory overreach.

Better to get this law thrown out now than to wait until food become unaffordable because there aren’t enough reliable trucks to deliver it…

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7 Responses to “Texas Sues Biden Administration Over EV Trucking Mandates”

  1. 10x25mm says:

    Current electric Class 8 truck battery designs weigh at least 15,000 pounds more than the diesel fuel and tank needed to achieve the same range in a comparable ICE truck. There is some offset in lesser electric motor/transmission weight, but ETs are hauling approximately 10,000 pounds of extra dead weight. This extra tare weight has major adverse consequences for road safety and deterioration.

    The current OTR driver payment model is based on mileage. Will drivers be forced to eat the downtime required to charge these huge batteries?

  2. John Godolphin says:

    And the batteries will be charged by electricity produced mainly by fossil fuels .

  3. Kirk says:

    In the final analysis, the sad fact is that liquid hydrocarbon fuels are far more efficient in all aspects than electric battery-powered anything.

    What they need to be doing is working on efficient means of producing rectified “clean” hydrocarbon fuels that don’t put much more than water and CO2 back into the atmosphere, because we’ve already got the damn infrastructure for that, and liquid fuels are far better storage mediums. You park your car with an ICE engine for six weeks, and that gas you bought will still be there, still storing as much energy. Park an electric for six weeks without trickle-charging, and you’re almost certain to recap my friends and acquaintances experiences of coming back to a dead vehicle whose power has been drained by parasitic loads and physics. Not too many long-term parking garages have trickle chargers…

    On the infrastructure issues alone, they’re idiots for trying to go electric. Until they perfect non-chemical battery solutions that can be charged instantaneously, liquid hydrocarbons will continue to beat the crap out of electric for convenience and common sense. Hell, a modern ICE barely pollutes at all, compared to the “old days”. Better to focus on improving that, than this pie-in-the-sky stupidity that we’ve boondoggled billions on.

    Frankly, just like with renewables? The only reason those things exist is due to government subsidies set up by rent-seeking idiots with zero common sense or actual engineering knowledge. Every single engineer I know who wasn’t an affirmative action graduate or hire can tell you that the math for any of this new-agey bullshit simply doesn’t work. Not with today’s technology, or anything foreseeable.

    Someone could still come up with an energy storage breakthrough, but I’m not seeing any savior candidates on the horizon.

  4. John says:

    “Better to get this law thrown out now than to wait until food become unaffordable because there aren’t enough reliable trucks to deliver it.”

    Don’t worry, then the geniuses in DC will just impose price controls. Unaffordable isn’t half of it. If DC thinks people are cranky now, just wait until they can’t get enough food to feed their families.

  5. […] Texas Sues Biden Administration Over EV Trucking Mandates. “Better to get this law thrown out now than to wait until food become unaffordable because […]

  6. Foo says:

    Thanks Mr Person for this great blog.

  7. William says:

    I question whether we even still have the capacity to build the required trucks in the time frame given.

    Isn’t this just a foreign manufacturers give away, that is, a gift to China?

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