Senate, House Leaders of Effort to Reverse Biden’s EV Mandate Slam Heavy-Duty Emissions Rule Finalized Today

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Representatives John James (MI-10) and Russ Fulcher (ID-01) slammed the Biden Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) finalized rule for heavy-duty vehicle emission standards that would require 30-40% of all new trucks be electric in just eight years.

Today’s rule is in addition to the new light-duty and medium-duty emission standards announced last week that will require two-thirds of new cars be electric in just eight years. The members will be leading Congressional Review Act efforts in both the Senate and House of Representatives to overturn the light- and medium-duty standards announced last week and the heavy-duty standards announced today.

“Biden’s EV mandates are delusional. American consumers and workers will pay the price for his administration’s attempt to get rid of internal-combustion engines,” the members said. “His EV mandate for heavy trucks will make everything more expensive as it wreaks havoc on our nation’s supply chain and makes us more reliant on China.

“The Biden administration has no plans for how to achieve the power generation, infrastructure, and critical minerals needed to make their EV mandate work,” the members continued. “They’re going to make car graveyards a reality across America by forcing the country to rely on current EV technology that doesn’t hold up for extreme cold, isolated communities, or long-distance drivers. We will be introducing Congressional Review Act legislation in both the House and Senate to make sure Biden’s EV mandates never become reality.”

Ricketts and James will be introducing the CRA for the light- and medium-duty vehicles rule. Sullivan and Fulcher will be introducing the CRA for the heavy-duty vehicles rule. The CRAs will be introduced once both rules are submitted to Congress. Sullivan and Ricketts are both members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. James and Fulcher are both members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

BACKGROUND

Title II of the Clean Air Act (CAA) addresses mobile (transportation-based) sources of air pollution emissions via the tailpipe by seeking to reduce pollutants from both on-road and nonroad vehicles (vehicle emission standards), as well as transportation (gasoline & diesel) fuel. Within Title II, CAA section 202 provides the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the authority to set emission standards for new motor vehicles.

Beginning in 2010, EPA began to interpret CAA section 202 as providing the Agency authority to regulate greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions from cars and trucks. Between 2010 and the end of 2022, EPA had promulgated three rounds of GHG standards for light-duty vehicles covering model years 2012–2026, and two rounds of GHG standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks covering model years 2014–2027.

Light and Medium Duty Vehicles Rule: On Wednesday, April 12, 2023, EPA announced the “Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium Duty Vehicles,” a proposed rule to reduce emissions from light-duty and medium-duty vehicles starting with model year (MY) 2027 through MY2032. In this rule, EPA is proposing multipollutant emissions standards for light-duty passenger cars and light trucks and Class 2b and 3 vehicles (“medium-duty vehicles”). EPA estimates that due to this proposal electric vehicles (EVs) will make up two- thirds of new vehicles by MY2032, a whopping 67 percent of overall vehicle production. In 2022, EVs accounted for a mere 5.8 percent of new cars sold in the US. The administration unveiled their finalized light and medium-duty vehicles rule March 20, 2024. See Ricketts and Sullivan’s joint statement on the announcement here.

Heavy Duty Vehicles Rule: On Wednesday, April 12, 2023, EPA announced the “Greenhouse Gas Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles – Phase 3” which would apply to heavy-duty vocational vehicles such as delivery trucks, refuse haulers, dump trucks, public utility trucks, transit, shuttle, school buses and trucks typically used to haul freight. These standards build on the Heavy-Duty NOx standards for MY 2027 and beyond, which EPA finalized in December 2022, representing the third phase of EPA’s Clean Trucks Plan. The administration unveiled their finalized heavy-duty vehicles rule today.