24 states join court case seeking to stop electric semitruck mandate

(The Center Square) — A coalition of 24 states, led by Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, have signed a brief against a federal electric truck mandate.

On March 29, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rolled out a new electric truck mandate to increase sales of electric semitrucks from 2027 through 2032.

EPA will require electric models to account for 60% of new urban delivery trucks and 25% of long-haul tractor sales by 2032. The cost of electric trucks are typically two to three times more expensive than diesel trucks, according to the Institute for Energy Research.

Truckers will also have to invest $620 billion for charging infrastructure and it will likely cost utilities $370 billion to upgrade their networks.

On Wednesday, Hilgers filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stop the Biden-Harris Administration from imposing this mandate on truck manufacturers. A coalition of 24 states, including Louisiana, teamed up in the Nebraska v. EPA challenge.

"The EPA's attempt to transform the trucking industry and supply chain infrastructure goes well beyond the agency’s authority," Hilgers said in a news release. "Once again, the Biden-Harris Administration’s radical climate agenda will harm Americans. A national electric-truck mandate will raise prices for groceries, strain the electrical grid, and disrupt the transportation, logistics, biofuel, and farming industries that drive the Nebraska economy.

"Our brief makes the common-sense and rule-of-law argument that whether to require manufacturers to sell electric trucks is a highly consequential decision. That decision should be left for Congress and the States — not for unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington."

The attorneys general argued that EPA's electric-truck mandate raises a "major question" that Congress has not clearly authorized EPA to decide. The brief points out that just 0.1% of all heavy-duty trucks sold today are powered by batteries, but EPA's rule would increase that number to 45% in less than a decade.

According to the brief, this could create a massive shift in the nation's trucking and logistics industries, will slow down the transportation of essential goods, stress the electric grid and raise prices for Americans.

The brief also argues that EPA has never before forced manufacturers to produce heavy-duty electric vehicles and that allowing the electric-truck mandate to stand would short circuit the ongoing policy debate that should be left to Congress and the States.

"Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' bureaucrats in D.C. want everyone in Louisiana to drive an electric vehicle or frankly no cars at all — and now they want to transform the trucking industry to require an 'electric-truck mandate,'" Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a news release. "This would only raise prices even more for industries and consumers throughout our state and country."

The other states in the coalition are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.