13 States Ask Federal Appeals Court to Vacate Biden Electric Vehicle Mandate

Thirteen states are fighting the Biden administration's national pollution standards that favor electric vehicles and leave no room for ethanol and other biofuels to cut carbon emissions, the states argue.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on March 20 finalized pollution standards for passenger cars, light-duty trucks and medium-duty vehicles for model years 2027 to 2032. The standards require automobile companies to ramp up production of hybrid and electric vehicles.

Attorneys general in 13 Republican-led states filed a petition for review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, alleging EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) violated federal law on several fronts. The states ask the court to vacate the rule.

The states argue the agencies lacked legal authority to impose a fuel-content factor that "multiplies the nominal fuel-efficiency of electric automobiles by 6.67."

Also, the states said the DOE in particular "lacked statutory authority" to apply that new factor beginning in 2027 because the agency is required to do an annual review of the factor.

The lawsuit said the DOE did perform a required environmental impact statement required by the National Environmental Policy Act and that the final rule is "arbitrary and capricious."

The appeal was filed by attorneys general in Nebraska, Iowa, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce.

"We're pulling the plug on Biden's electric vehicle handout," Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said in a news release on Wednesday.

"Biden has made it clear that he will take every avenue possible to wage war on gas-powered vehicles. And Iowa ethanol is getting caught in the crossfire."

The lawsuit specifically focuses on what the states said is a misuse of the calculations for EVs.

"In Biden's most recent attack in the war on gas vehicles, he is creating a rule that overstates the efficiency of electric cars by more than six times," the states said on Wednesday.

"Biden's illegal boost to electric vehicles hurts car owners, car manufacturers, liquid-fuel producers and the electric grid. The rule manipulates a more than 30-year-old incentive for car manufacturers that design cars that run on gasoline, ethanol, biodiesel, or compressed natural gas. The benefit that was intended to support farmers and ethanol producers is now being exploited to harm them by giving handouts to electric vehicles. This rule favoring electric vehicles hurts car-owners, roads, and carbon emissions across the country."

While the new standards give automakers some flexibility in how they reduce emissions, the standards do little to use ethanol and other biofuels to reduce pollution.

The final rule requires 67% of new light-duty vehicles and 46% of medium-duty vehicles sold to be electric by 2032.

A Gallup poll conducted in March and published on Monday, found that Americans polled say they are less likely to purchase EVs compared to one year ago. That number dropped from 55% last year to 44% this year,

Source: DTN