California is poised to ban internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by 2035—if, that is, the state is able to defeat a lawsuit filed in May of 2022 seeking to revoke the state’s authority to regulate emissions from new vehicles like the 2023 Ford F-150. This authority—enabled by a waiver from the federal government, and once revoked by the Trump Admin—allows the state to set its own emissions standards, and given that many states follow California’s emissions standards, its regulations affects a broad swath of the country. If the lawsuit succeeds and California’s waiver is revoked, its ICE ban would fail, too.
The lawsuit doesn’t only affect California. Several states follow California’s emissions standards, and automakers are understandably reluctant to build vehicles only for the California-standards markets. Rather than ignore the state and its 11 percent of all vehicle sales in the U.S., a majority of automakers have made all of their vehicles California emissions compliant.
The lawsuit is led by Ohio Attorney General, Dave Yost, and joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and West Virginia. The lawsuit alleges that the California waiver violates a doctrine known as equal sovereignty, pointing to California’s unique status in being able to set its standards higher than the federal average. Revoking California’s waiver would also gut its ICE ban.
Despite the wishes of those AGs at the center of the lawsuit to revoke California’s emissions authority on vehicles, the state might get its way in the end. A majority, if not all, automakers have already begun their own transitions to zero emissions vehicles with many phasing out ICE vehicles completely on or well before 2035. If there are no vehicle emissions to regulate, California won’t need the authority, and the point is moot.
Source: Read Full Article