PHOENIX — Republican leaders in Arizona are taking legal action against federal and California electric vehicle mandates that they say are harmful government overreach.
State Senate President Warren Petersen, House Speaker Ben Touma and the Arizona Trucking Association filed petitions to review EPA regulations designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on Wednesday.
“Democrats’ climate change agenda imposes expensive and unattainable targets on the auto and trucking industries, which will undoubtedly lead to higher consumer prices,” said Senator Frank Carroll, vice chairman of the Arizona Senate Committee on Transportation, Technology and Missing Children. . In a press release. “We don’t have the infrastructure to operate these vehicles, and the average working-class citizen or trucking company can’t afford them.”
According to the release, Arizona does not have sufficient charging infrastructure and power grid capacity to accommodate the needed changes.
🚨For immediate release: President of the Senate @votewarren He’s suing the Biden administration’s EPA in California over costly and economically damaging electric vehicle mandates pic.twitter.com/It5BNoePx3
– AZSenateRepublicans (@AZSenateGOP) May 15, 2024
What electric car mandates do Arizona Republicans oppose?
The petitioners are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to declare EPA rules titled “Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards for Heavy Vehicles – Phase 3” (petition here) and “Multipollutant Emission Standards for Model Years 2027 and 2027.” Later, light and medium vehicles (petition here) are illegal.
“These rules exceed EPA’s statutory authority, are arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion,” Petersen said in the statement. “In the absence of our attorney general holding the Biden administration accountable, the Legislature will gladly protect our citizens from this blatant use of power.”
Petersen and Thoma previously raised objections to the rules in letters to the EPA last year.
On Monday, Petersen and Thoma signed on with the GOP-controlled Legislature on a lawsuit against California’s advanced clean fleet regulation. Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, are 16 states and the Nebraska Trucking Association.
“This attempted ban flies in the face of controlling law while defying real world realities and burdening American families and businesses, already suffering from high inflation, with further costs,” the lawsuit says.