CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey recently joined a multistate comment letter asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to maintain a federal legal block on California’s Advanced Clean Fleets regulation.
The California regulation attempts to impose an electric-truck mandate on fleet owners, operators, and manufacturers — including trucking companies that drive one truck for as little as one day per year in the state.
Morrisey and the rest of the 24-state coalition argue that the EPA should not allow California to exceed its statutory and regulatory authority by implementing an electric-vehicle mandate that is sure to disrupt the nation’s logistics and transportation industries.
Morrisey
| Courtesy photo
“This ‘authority’ leaves California with a slice of its sovereign authority that Congress withdraws from every other state,” Morrisey said. “This radical climate agenda the Biden-Harris administration continues to shove into hardworking Americans’ throats will cause massive job losses, increase costs and devastate the demand for liquid fuels, such as biodiesel.”
In West Virginia, the trucking industry supports 34,360 jobs, according to the West Virginia Trucking Association. The group also says trucks transported 61% of total manufactured tonnage or 65,448 tons per day and that more than 84% of communities in the state depend exclusively on trucks to move their goods.
In the comment letter, the coalition says it opposes California’s request for a preemption waiver.
“Through Advanced Clean Fleets, California is attempting to export its radical climate agenda to our states, using its large population, market share, and access to international ports on the West Coast to force nationwide compliance with its ban on internal-combustion trucks,” the September 16 comment letter states. “Our states oppose this unprecedented overreach. Our states’ economies depend on the logistics, farming, and biofuels sectors, and Advanced Clean Fleets threatens all three (and more).”
The AG coalition says other States are connected to California via the interstate system and an electric-truck mandate in California would mean more battery electric trucks traveling in their states. They say that’s “a mandate our states did not ask for and do not support.”
“Not only is Advanced Clean Fleets bad policy — it is also illegal, and no waiver granted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can change that,” the comment letter states. “We submit this comment to explain the five reasons that granting the waiver California requests would be unlawful.
“First, Section 209(b), which singles out California for special treatment, violates the States’ equal sovereignty and is unconstitutional. No waiver can be granted under that statute. Second, given Advanced Clean Fleets’ novel electric-vehicle mandate and implications for EPA’s own statutory authority to set emissions standards, granting a waiver would violate the major-questions doctrine. Third, granting a waiver would be unlawful because Advanced Clean Fleets violates two more federal laws: the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 and the dormant Commerce Clause. Fourth, California has failed to carry its burden under each of the three statutory factors that EPA must consider in deciding whether to grant a waiver. Finally, if EPA grants a waiver, it should not grant a waiver that would allow California to enforce Advanced Clean Fleets retrospectively, as California requests. Just one of these legal impediments is sufficient to deny California’s request for a waiver. Advanced Clean Fleets suffers from all five.”
Under the EPA’s Clean Air Act, only the federal government can set emissions standards for vehicles. After California asked the EPA for a waiver to enforce Advanced Clean Fleets, the EPA solicited comments on whether to allow California to implement its regulation.
The coalition’s comment letter argues that granting a waiver would be unconstitutional because it would permit California to regulate motor vehicles in a way that none of the other states can.
The comment letter also argues that nothing in federal law permits California or the EPA to ban internal-combustion vehicles altogether. Given California’s large population and access to ports for international trade, should the EPA allow Advanced Clean Fleets to be enforced, Morrisey and the coalition say the regulation will have significant nationwide effects on the supply chain.
Morrisey joined the Nebraska-led comment letter with Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.
