JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced today that his office joined a coalition of 19 states in challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) decision to allow California to illegally ban existing tractor-trailers and heavy-duty vehicles by forcing truckers to buy zero-emission trucks and mandating net-zero emissions standards, which would regulate the current trucking industry out of existence.
“I will always fight to protect Missouri businesses, and that includes the trucking community that is vital to the success of our state,” said Attorney General Bailey. “Joe Biden is partnering with California to attempt to upend Missouri’s economy through the federal administrative state, and my office isn’t going to stand for it.”
The Biden Administration gave authority to California to force most buses, vans, trucks, and tractor-trailers to be zero emission by 2035. The ban is part of the Biden Administration’s aggressive climate change agenda, which hikes prices for businesses and consumers. Costs for electric trucks already start at about $100,000 and can reach the high six figures. California’s new regulations are setting the standard for the rest of the country, as eight other states have already adopted California’s truck ban under EPA’s permission, and more are considering it.
California’s Advanced Clean Trucks regulation violates the Clean Air Act and other federal laws as it would have a “nationwide scope or effect” that would harm other states and their trucking companies.
The truck ban will not only increase costs, but will devastate the demand for liquid fuels, such as biodiesel, and cut trucking jobs across the nation. More than 70% of Missouri communities depend exclusively on trucks to move their goods, and there are more than 12,000 trucking companies in Missouri, most of them small, family-owned businesses.
Currently, just 2% of heavy trucks sold in the United States are electric.
Missouri is joined in filing this lawsuit by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.