DES MOINES, IOWA (November 7, 2023) — Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird on Friday, November 3, led a nineteen-state coalition in challenging the Biden Administration for illegally allowing California to ban traditional gas or diesel trucks.
In June, AG Bird sued the Biden Administration over its scheme that gives California the authority to force most buses, vans, trucks, and tractor-trailers to be electric by 2035. The trucking industry employs approximately 100,000 Iowans, making up almost ten percent of the State’s work force. California’s truck ban will force many of these truckers out of business through drastic price-hikes and regulations.
The truck ban illegally bypasses the Clean Air Act’s mandatory four-year transition process required for electric vehicles by halving that period for California. California’s market power, and the presence of major ports along its coast, gives it oversized influence in the national trucking industry. The ban forces manufacturers to focus on electric-vehicle production to keep up. Eight other states have already mimicked California’s truck ban.
“We’re suing to stop California’s radical truck ban in its tracks,” said AG Bird. “Not only is California’s truck ban illegal, but it will devastate Iowa’s trucking businesses with increased costs and regulations. The EPA is giving California special privileges while the rest of the country is expected to comply with its extremist climate-change agenda. But we won’t stand for it. We’re fighting back against the Biden Administration in court because California doesn’t get to dictate the trucks we drive.”
The Biden Administration’s waiver for California’s truck ban violates the law, specifically the Constitutional federalism principles that prohibit one state from getting special treatment over another. With this waiver, California has been illegally granted the power to set its own vehicle emission standards, while the rest of the country must either follow federal standards or adopt California’s.
Iowa led the brief joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Read the full brief here.
