‘Dire Consequences’: Arizona Lawmakers to Battle the Biden Administration over Electric-Vehicle Push

As automakers cut jobs in anticipation of the rapid transition to electric vehicles the Biden administration is pushing, lawmakers from Arizona have decided to challenge what they view as stunning federal overreach.

In April, the White House announced the EPA’s proposed rules in a bid to ensure that electric vehicles make up a supermajority of new auto sales by 2032. The most aggressive proposal in the package would have the auto industry cut emissions in passenger cars and pickups by half from 2026 to 2032.

“These proposed rules will have dire consequences for everyday people here in Arizona, risking our economy, our power grid, and our national security,” Arizona senate president Warren Petersen told National Review.

Petersen added that he and Arizona house speaker Ben Toma are acting in place of Democrats in the state, who are using their control of the governor’s mansion and the attorney general’s office to back these policies.

“We are stepping into the gap to hold the line against federal overreach,” explained Petersen, adding that it’s in the best interest of Arizonans for the legislature to “fight these negligent rules, and sue the EPA if they don’t change course.”

National Review also spoke with John Sauer, legal counsel for Petersen and Toma who was until recently solicitor general of Missouri. He helped prepare the comment letters submitted to the EPA criticizing the proposed rules on passenger vehicles as well as heavy-duty trucks — letters that prepare the ground for future litigation. Should the EPA go forward with these rules, “we are expecting a very significant legal challenge,” Sauer explained, adding that the administration is en route to an “epic smackdown.”

Sauer said that in addition to consumers facing rising costs and greater safety issues, the administration is set to violate administrative law in various ways. The central problem is that Congress has not delegated to the EPA the authority to make a rule of such economic and political significance. Just last year, the Supreme Court emphasized in West Virginia v. EPA that Congress must make a clear and unequivocal statement in order for an agency to act in these cases.

“We have a situation where EPA is stating in press releases that the purpose of this rule isn’t really to change emissions standards and make ordinary fossil fuel burning cars run a little cleaner. The purpose is to transform the entire automative fleet in the United States,” said Sauer, explaining that the agency is admitting the emissions-standards constitute a “major question.”

“They’re taking what is a pretty ordinary, garden-variety form of delegation [from Congress] and interpreting it as a mandate to transform an entire foundational industry in the United States economy,” Sauer added. In this case, the EPA is relying on the Clean Air Act.

Further, explained Sauer, the wrong agency is promulgating these rules, with the Department of Transportation normally tasked with setting energy efficiency standards for vehicles.

The legal issues don’t stop with the administration’s lack of statutory authority. The Arizona lawmakers assert in the comment letter that the rules would create safety issues the EPA hasn’t considered: lithium batteries carry a fire risk and they also add weight to vehicles, which may lead to increased fatalities. The EPA also assumes the vehicles would be affordable to everyone.

“Failure to consider factors that ought to be considered is a textbook violation of administrative law,” Sauer explained.

Additionally, the EPA claims that rapidly increasing the amount of electric vehicles in America would only increase the electric grid load by 1 to 4 percent. This, said Sauer, is an arbitrary and capricious estimate, and it’s more reasonable to estimate an increase of around 40 percent.

On the flip side, the EPA is also considering strict carbon limits on power plants. The agency is thus creating a situation where new capacity from oil and gas power plants is being shut down while demand on electric grid capacity is upped.

“EPA is on a collision course with itself and the victims are going to be consumers and ordinary Americans,” said Sauer.

The emissions rules on heavy-duty trucks are also intended to substantially increase the amount of electric trucks. That would impact consumers by creating rising costs in the shipping industry. Another thing the EPA hasn’t considered is the amount of charging stations needed. An average truck travels 1,000 miles in a trip and would need en-route charging stations given the current technology. However, said Sauer, only the origin and terminus charging stations are accounted for by the EPA.

Arizona lawmakers are not the only group filing comment against the proposed rules. O.H. Skinner, who leads Alliance for Consumers, said in a Thursday letter to EPA administrator Michael Regan obtained by National Review that “the current EPA proposal is best understood as yet another attempt to weaponize the agency rulemaking process, and the power of the federal government, to wipe away things that everyday consumers overwhelmingly like, use, and rely upon for life’s essential needs.”

Skinner added that early indications from California, which has enacted similar rules, provide warning signs for what is to come for consumers throughout the country.

Derek Kreifels, CEO of State Financial Officers Foundation applauded the effort from Arizona lawmakers and groups like Alliance for Consumers. “In an already tough economy riddled with inflation, regulations like these that drive up prices could be disastrous for people’s pensions and hurt the American people who are working paycheck to paycheck,” Kreifels said in a statement to National Review.