Twenty-five US states launch legal challenge to Biden tailpipe emissions rule

Twenty-five Republican-led states sued the United States Environmental Protection Agency April 18, hoping to block a new EPA rule designed to limit car tailpipe emissions and advance the Biden administration's push for electric vehicle adoption.

The suit, filed in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and led by Kentucky attorney general Russell Coleman and West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrisey, asks the court to vacate the EPA's car emissions action, Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles. The petition says the states will prove to the court that EPA's rule exceeds the agency's statuary authority and "otherwise is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law."

The filing represents an immediate legal challenge to the Biden administration's aggressive auto pollution regulations for model years 2027-2032, which were unveiled March 20 and formally published Thursday, and which EPA administrator Michael Regan called "the strongest vehicle pollution technology standard ever finalized in US history." The administration has made transportation decarbonization the core of its climate agenda.

The lawsuit was joined by the attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

"This rule is legally flawed and unrealistic, to say the least," Morrisey said in a statement. "With the high prices of electric vehicles, this would have devastating effects in the daily lives of consumers -- many of whom are already suffering from the burdens of historically high inflation. This is an attack on rural America and rural Americans who are working really hard to make ends meet -- they are going to get bludgeoned by this rule."

An EPA spokesperson said the agency had "no further information to add" on pending litigation.

Rule and reaction

EPA projections released alongside the Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles predicted auto manufacturers "may choose" to produce EVs for 30%-56% of new light-duty vehicle sales and 20%-32% of medium-duty vehicle sales from 2030 to 2032, pursuing the Biden administration's goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change by electrifying at least half of the light-duty automotive fleet by 2030. When factoring in light trucks along with passenger cars, the standards project an industry-wide average target for the light-duty fleet of 85 g/mile of CO2 in 2032, representing a nearly 50% cut in emissions from 2026.

Those standards, including a more gradual initial ramp-up of emissions requirements, represented a softer final rule than what the agency initially advanced. The original proposal was subject to months of heavy lobbying from usual suspects like oil industry and biofuels interests, but also auto manufacturers, autoworkers, and dealerships associations, all of whom shared concerns about the proposal's assumption of near-term EV adoption. The final rule was more lenient toward plug-in electric hybrids, which one senior administration official said could comprise as much as 13% of new vehicle production.

The EPA projects carbon dioxide reductions of 7.2 billion mt through 2055, roughly four times the transportation sector's total emissions in 2021. In March, a senior administration official projected the changes would reduce US oil demand by 14 billion gallons through 2055.

EVs accounted for 9.5% of new light-duty vehicle sales in 2023, according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. S&P Global analysts forecast 13 million light-duty EVs will be sold in 2024.

Since the rule's announcement its opponents -- including some Republican legislators, as well as oil and biofuels trade groups -- have pushed back against what they view as a de facto "EV mandate," vowing legal challenges.

In a joint March 20 statement, Senators Pete Ricketts of Nebraska and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said the rule was "delusional" and vowed to introduce Congressional Review Act legislation to overturn it. The American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers lamented that new internal combustion engine vehicles would be forced out of the US market within the next decade.

"This regulation will make new gas-powered vehicles unavailable or prohibitively expensive for most Americans. For them, this wildly unpopular policy is going to feel and function like a ban," American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers President and CEO Chet Thompson and American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers said in a joint statement. Both organizations promised to challenge the rule in court.

Last July, the states that issued this legal challenge wrote critically of the then-proposed rule, and cited the "major questions" doctrine raised by the Supreme Court to reign in the EPA's implied regulatory authority. In the announcement made on April 18, Morrisey referenced West Virginia v. EPA, a 2022 decision that the EPA needed "clear congressional authorization" to regulate industries in certain ways. "The EPA must regulate within the express boundaries of the statute that Congress passed—the agency can't regulate similar matters without explicit Congressional authorization," Morrisey said.

Despite the initial industry pushback, the final rule received robust praise from the auto industry. John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents auto manufacturers that produce nearly 99% of cars and light trucks sold in the US, appeared at the EPA's event with Regan. "The future is electric," he said March 20.