Electric vehicle regulations are an attack on freedom and free enterprise – Orange County Register

FILE – President Joe Biden drives a Cadillac Lyriq through the showroom floor during a tour at the Detroit Auto Show on September 14, 2022 in Detroit. Biden, a self-described “car guy,” often promises to lead by example by quickly converting the sprawling federal fleet to zero-emission electric vehicles. But efforts to achieve his ambitious climate goals by eliminating gasoline-powered vehicles from the federal fleet failed. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

In a recent interview, Transportation Department Mayor Pete Buttigieg lamented the alleged recalcitrance of consumers who are reluctant to buy electric vehicles: “I feel like we’re living in the early 2000s and I talk to some people who think We could just have landline phones forever.” ”

When we looked, no one came up with the idea of ​​mandating cell phones. The reason the Biden administration and its allies in California are using state coercive power to force electrification is because consumers correctly recognize that electric vehicles are not yet ready for prime time. Nowhere is this more evident than in current efforts to advance the electrification of the country’s heavy-duty fleet.

Electric cars are more expensive, have a shorter range and are less reliable than their conventional counterparts. But there are at least some use cases where they can be useful – such as short commutes in urban areas with extensive charging infrastructure. Things are different with heavy commercial vehicles. New battery-electric trucks cost more than twice as much, transport less than half as much and have only a fraction of the range of their conventional counterparts. Electrifying these trucks will be literally impossible in many cases and enormously costly in all other cases. For this reason, there are practically no heavy electric vehicles on the road today.

That hasn’t stopped the Biden administration or California from moving forward. Biden’s EPA just announced new standards to force electrification of about 40-50% of the heavy-duty fleet by 2032. In order not to be outdone, California has set itself the goal of no longer selling any new vehicles with internal combustion engines by 2035 and that there will no longer be any trucks and vans with internal combustion engines on the road by 2045.

Consider California’s latest rules, the so-called “Advanced Clean Fleets” regime. Concerned that fleet owners might simply hold on to their old conventional trucks instead of purchasing California’s preferred electric vehicles, the state has launched a new program that will provide certain disadvantaged fleets with vehicles crossing California – even if just for one single day – committed to scrapping their existing internal combustion vehicles and replacing them with electric vehicles.

There is nothing particularly “progressive” about this new purchasing mandate. If battery-electric trucks were truly “advanced,” private fleets would already be buying them. That’s because electric trucks drive up costs, slow down transportation, and place even more strain on a power grid that’s already on the verge of collapse. And as truck transportation becomes more expensive and unreliable, so does everything else: groceries, diapers, baby food, and all other consumer goods. It’s not just the shipping companies that pay for this. We all will do it.

As explained in our new legal challenge to these rules, California’s system is completely illegal. In fact, it is prohibited (or, to use constitutional parlance, “excluded”) by federal law in at least three different ways. The Clean Air Act specifically prohibits states from “adopting” or even “attempting to enforce” any state law or regulation “relating to the control of new motor vehicle emissions.” The Energy Independence and Security Act gives the Department of Transportation exclusive statewide authority to determine the “maximum practicable” truck efficiency improvements. And the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act “preempts state trucking regulations” “relating to a price, route, or service” of a truck fleet.