More than 20 states blasted the Biden administration's new vehicle emissions targets, arguing in a joint letter that the proposal is unlawful, unsustainable, and would effectively force gas-powered vehicles off the market.
In the letter, attorneys general from 25 states claim the Environmental Protection Agency’s newly proposed vehicle emissions targets would damage the U.S. economy, undermine grid reliability, and pose a threat to national security.
The administration “wants to use the power of government to force a massive shift in demand for automobiles, with the government putting its thumb on the scale in favor of EVs,” wrote Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who co-authored the letter alongside West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.
“Government shouldn’t pick winners and losers, and an EPA rule that would kill gas-powered vehicles does just that,” he added.
The attorneys general take issue with the EPA’s proposed 2027-2032 vehicle emissions targets. The targets call for a further 56% reduction of tailpipe emissions compared to existing 2026 requirements.
The plan is “unrealistic, unwise, and unsustainable,” they argued, especially given that EV sales in the United States today represent just 8.4% of new vehicles sold.
Importantly, EPA rules also project 60% of all new vehicle sales in 2030 will be battery electric vehicles (BEVs) — an amount that increases to 67% by 2032.
That’s a sharp uptick from the 50% of EV sales by the end of the decade that the administration had targeted in 2021 — a goal that crucially also included plug-in hybrid vehicles, which other critics have noted were taken out of the equation under the EPA’s new rules.
Such a rapid acceleration in EV sales threatens to place significant strain on U.S. power grids as well, the states argued — straining capacity and raising the risk of blackouts throughout the U.S.
How much additional power EVs will require is difficult to quantify. A 2020 estimate from the Brattle Group suggested as much as $125 billion would need to be invested in grids to meet the demand created from EVs; a number that has likely risen substantially alongside the higher EV targets.
“America’s power grids not only lack the capacity to accommodate the proposed rule’s new demands but are also nowhere near secure enough to handle them safely,” the 25 state leaders said in their filing.
They also argued that the proposed emissions standards would force an outsized reliance on China for mid- and downstream EV battery processing as the U.S. races to build out its own domestic supply chain.
The EPA’s cost-benefit analysis is flawed, they argued, and ignores “significant hurdles” to the industry that such a high rate of EV adoption requires.
Signatories included Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.
The Biden administration has argued that the new proposed vehicle standards are a “historic” investment that will slash carbon emissions, improve air quality, and lower costs for consumers.
But it has also sparked criticism from top U.S. auto groups, including some who have criticized the targets as “out of whack” and unachievable.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents nearly all major U.S. auto manufacturers besides Tesla, said in its own filing that the EPA’s proposal is a “de facto electric vehicle mandate” that risks limiting consumer choice, disadvantaging the auto industry, and triggering “substantial” price hikes for all types of vehicles.
AAI President and CEO John Bozzella said EPA’s proposed modeling of new EV sales “looks like a hockey stick” and assumes near-perfect conditions, including public and private charging availability, critical mineral availability, and grid capacity.
The states, meanwhile, described the push as a “draconian proposal” and a “top to bottom attempt to restructure the automobile industry.
“Encouraging quicker market change within the bounds of an agency’s operative statute is one thing,” they said in the letter. “But mandating fast and extreme transformations before supply chains, national security, or consumer confidence have any hope of keeping up is another thing entirely.”