President Joe Biden’s bid to remake the auto industry has drawn entrenched opposition and quick mobilization from Republican lawmakers at the state and congressional levels.
In April, the White House announced the EPA’s proposed rules in an attempt to ensure that electric vehicles make up a solid majority of new auto sales by 2032. The Biden administration is similarly trying to reshape the trucking industry. However, a growing number of politicians have argued that the moves represent a violation of congressional intent and administrative law.
In Arizona, where Democrats control the attorney general’s office, Republican state legislators filed comments against the EV push and are considering legal action if the emissions rules are finalized. Now, 23 Republican attorneys general are coming out against the program as well, saying in a letter on Wednesday that the push is “unlawful, unwise, and unsustainable.”
In a statement to National Review, Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron said Biden “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.”
“But Americans don’t want what he is selling,” Cameron said. “This is the latest head-in-the-sand approach to achieving the Left’s impossible green-energy fantasies.”
In the House, Representatives Tim Walberg (R., Mich.) and Andrew Clyde (R., Ga.) led 16 colleagues in introducing the Choice in Automobile Retail Sales, which would prohibit the Biden administration from implementing the aggressive emissions standards
“The rule is a disaster and must be reversed,” Walberg wrote on Twitter.
Any legislation would be subject to a veto from Biden, and overriding the president on issues like ESG and emissions rules on trucks has so far proven unsuccessful.
Neverthless, Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) has joined Republicans in signaling the upper chamber’s opposition to Biden’s climate agenda on several occasions. Manchin has even launched a blockade of the president’s EPA nominees over the administration’s proposed rules that are strict on carbon emissions from power plants.
The new rules on power plants face similar criticism from other lawmakers. In late June, Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.) and John Barasso (R., Wyo.) sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission expressing their concern that the new rules would have a negative impact on the electric grid’s reliability.
John Sauer, the former solicitor general of Missouri who has been retained by the Arizona lawmakers to challenge the electric-vehicle push, told National Review that the EPA is creating a situation where new capacity from oil and gas power plants is being shut down while demand on electric grid capacity is upped.
“EPA is on a collision course with itself, and the victims are going to be consumers and ordinary Americans,” Sauer said.