CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is leading a coalition of 26 states in a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about its proposed rule that he says would effectively mandate automakers to shift to electric-dominant vehicles.
The proposed Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards unveiled recently by the NHTSA would push automakers from a fleet average of 44.2 miles per gallon for passenger vehicles sold in model year 2024 to a fleet average of 57.8 mpg in model year 2032.
“First of all, Congress did not give the NHTSA such power to reshape an industry that would ultimately affect the pocketbooks of consumers — this proposed rule is legally flawed and unrealistic,” Morrisey said, writing in the October 16 letter that, “In short, this proposal is about transforming the American auto markets to lead with EVs. It aims to morph a longstanding scheme to regulate internal combustion engine vehicles into one that erases them from the market.
Morrisey
“So it’s part of a broader federal plan to ‘substantially restructure’ a crucial sector of our economy.”
NHTSA is barred by law from considering electric vehicles fuel economy in setting standards.
“This is part of the Biden administration’s so called ‘green new deal,’ which would ultimately kill America’s energy security and independence by making us dependent on resources and components that can come only from abroad,” Morrisey said. “This would also have devastating effects in the daily lives of consumers — many of whom are already suffering from the burdens of historically high inflation.”
“Our power grid — already stretched thin by increasing electrification across all sectors and other governmental action — could not handle the massive predicted uptick in EVs,” the coalition wrote. “At a minimum, U.S. manufacturers will have no option but to become embroiled with geopolitically troubling suppliers. The Proposed Rule cannot explain how our energy and manufacturing infrastructures will handle the EV wave it wants to create.”
The AGs says the proposed rule would place more strain and demand on the nation’s energy grids — the grids won’t have the baseload capacity to take on even more demand from electric vehicles, particularly in the off-hours that people charge these cars. They say the NHTSA ignores the production and distribution challenges that lie ahead if proposals like this are adopted.
“We simply aren’t ready to jump into mining cobalt and producing the special magnets that would be needed in the next few years,” Morrisey said. “This proposed rule will make us dependent on other countries, some are our geopolitical foes, for materials.”
Attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming joined Morrisey in the letter.
