California’s overexuberant push for the “energy transition” in cars and trucks is well known. Electric cars and trucks aren’t yet ready for prime time, and the charging infrastructure they need to function is underdeveloped despite the tons of government money spent on it.

But at least electric cars and trucks exist. California is also phasing in mandates for zero-emissions freight trains that do not currently exist in the United States.

All freight trains in the U.S. are currently diesel-powered. They’re extremely fuel-efficient compared with trucks, the closest alternative mode of transportation, and airplanes. But fuel-efficient isn’t enough for California. Much like the car regulations that don’t give credit for fuel-efficient hybrids, it has to be zero emissions.

The California Air Resources Board (arguably Ronald Reagan’s biggest mistake) is mandating that railroads set aside money based on their emissions until 2030. At that point, locomotives 23 years old or older will be banned. Railroads are supposed to use the money they are forced to save to develop and purchase new zero-emissions locomotives. By 2035, all new locomotives will be required to have zero emissions.

Railroads will have to scrap numerous useable locomotives come 2030, since their life span can be 40 years or more. The money they will be forced to set aside until 2030 is money they can’t use to maintain infrastructure, pay workers, or lower costs for customers. And there’s no guarantee that battery technology will improve to the point that it can power entire freight trains by 2035.

One of the primary reasons trains are able to transport freight so fuel-efficiently in the United States is that freight trains are extremely long. Trains offer significant economies of scale, but they require a lot of horsepower at the front (and also often in the middle) to work. A battery-powered train would almost certainly be weaker than a diesel-powered one simply because the energy density of diesel fuel is so high.

Trains are the archetypal example of interstate commerce, and the same locomotive pulls trains across the country. If California’s regulations stand, they will become a de facto national standard, much like its emissions standards for trucks. No state should have the power to set national standards, and the railroads are currently suing CARB on federalism grounds.

California’s concern for emissions only goes so far. Other environmental regulations in the state are preventing major intermodal projects that would make it easier to transport goods over land by encouraging greater reliance on trains instead of trucks. BNSF, the largest freight railroad in North America, has been stuck in environmental red tape since 2005 over an intermodal yard it wanted to build closer to the Port of Long Beach, which would save trucks 20 miles back and forth from the port to its current facility. Private investors have also wanted to build intermodal facilities to be served by rail further inland, to help relieve truck congestion near the ports. Regulations have so far prevented those projects as well.

Instead of allowing private companies to help lower emissions by making it easier to use trains instead of trucks, California is mandating that railroads develop zero-emission green trains that don’t exist yet. Central planning is going as it usually goes.