ALEXANDRIA, Va.—NACS, along with other stakeholders, filed a petition in federal court in Washington, D.C., challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s waiver that would allow California to implement a mandate zero emission vehicle.
“We strongly support further development of competitive markets for electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and other technologies,” said Doug Kantor, general counsel for NACS. “But technology mandates will reduce incentives for environmental gains from a range of vehicle fuels and technologies. We should encourage innovation to achieve environmental performance goals. It would be much more effective in reducing emissions and providing the competitive prices, goods and services that American consumers deserve. »
In August, the California Air Resources Board passed a plan that requires all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the state to be electric vehicles or plug-in hybrid electrics by 2035. Currently, 16% of all new car sales in California are zero. – pollution control vehicles.
The plan is a phased approach. By 2026, 35% of new cars and trucks sold in the state must be zero-emissions, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen vehicles, and baselines will increase to 68% in 2030 and 100% by 2035.
The petition filed by NACS and other stakeholders says the EPA does not have the authority to grant California a waiver for emissions aimed at global climate change. It also says that the EPA’s waiver-reinstatement decision also cannot stand based on the agency’s new and cramped view of its review authority.
“The EPA’s analysis of its reconsideration authority is closely tied to its misreading of the law and therefore does not provide an independent basis for its decision. In any event, an agency has the inherent power to reconsider a decision based on an incorrect reading of a law, and nothing in the Clean Air Act provides otherwise,” the petition reads. “The EPA properly exercised its inherent reconsideration power when it withdrew California’s waiver in 2019.”
In 2019, the EPA reversed the waiver that had allowed California to apply greenhouse gas regulations separate from those imposed by the EPA on most of the United States. This spring, the EPA changed course and granted a new waiver to California. A centerpiece of California-crafted regulation that would be reinstated by the new waiver is the requirement that a number of new vehicles sold in the state be “zero-emission vehicles”. While all types of vehicles create emissions, whether during their operation or during the process of generating the energy needed to operate them, California defines plug-in electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, as well as hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, to be “zero emissions”.
The petition also outlines how the mandate would harm the convenience and fuel retail industry as well as other related industries.
“By design, California’s greenhouse gas standards and zero-emission vehicle mandate reduce demand for liquid fuels and their feedstocks by forcing automakers to sell vehicles that use significantly less fuel. liquid or no liquid fuel at all,” the petition read. “Lowering the demand for these fuels financially harms the petitioners and the petitioners’ members. California itself found that “the oil and gas industry, fuel suppliers and service stations are likely to be ‘the industries’ most affected” by California’s Advanced Clean Cars program and the ‘substantial reductions gasoline demand” in California.
Seventeen states have filed motions seeking to block California’s waiver. US fuel and petrochemical manufacturers, Energy Distributors of America and the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance have joined the petition with NACS.
“Our members are accelerating investment in electric vehicle chargers to serve this market, but different states setting technology mandates won’t work,” Kantor said. “The track record of policymakers deciding which technologies will be best for future Americans is poor.”
The Convenience Matters podcast, “Where do electric vehicles make the most sense?” examines the findings of a Fuels Institute study looking at lifecycle emissions from electric vehicles and gasoline-powered vehicles. NACS also has a topic page on electric vehicles.