25 Republican Attorneys General Sue Biden Administration Over EV Mandate
On Thursday, the Republican attorneys general of 25 states joined together to file a lawsuit against President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over an economically devastating electric vehicle (EV) mandate.
The coalition was led by Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman (R), who has described the lawsuit as “slamming the brakes on President Biden’s radical green agenda that is punishing Kentucky families.”
https://twitter.com/RCforAG/status/1781313536695668879
The EPA announced the shocking new rules in March, where they explained that the new emissions demands would require carmakers to reduce “fleetwide average carbon emissions” by a staggering 56% in eight years, essentially forcing these companies to make and sell more electric vehicles.
The new rules are disastrous for the U.S. economy and will likely exacerbate already-skyrocketing inflation, causing serious problems for Americans’ cost of living.
According to Daren Bakst, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center on Energy and Environment, the new emissions rules are some of “the most extreme rules ever finalized by a federal agency.”
“The EPA’s rule would restrict the ability of Americans to buy gas-powered vehicles, a chilling abuse of power and a wanton disregard for individual freedom,” Bakst wrote in a statement when the regulations were unveiled.
Rather than allow for EVs to become more affordable and practical through natural innovation, the Biden administration and radical climate change activists within the U.S. government have chosen to use the power of government to force them upon the American people.
Now, half of the state attorneys general in the U.S. are suing the Biden administration to block the artificial push of high-cost, low-efficiency electric cars on Americans.
“The Biden Administration is willing to sacrifice the American auto industry and its workers in service of its radical green agenda,” the Kentucky attorney general wrote in a statement. “We just aren’t buying it. Demand for EVs continues to fall, and even those who want to buy one can’t afford it amid historic inflation.”
Numerous polls have shown that a majority of Americans are not ready to embrace EVs, with one Ipsos poll from last fall showing that 57% of respondents report that they are unlikely to purchase an electric car, while 11% were unsure and just 31% claimed that they were likely to purchase one.
Even with significant amounts of data that show similar results, Biden has been pushing for forcing auto manufacturers to follow his radical climate agenda since he entered the White House — including demanding in Summer 2021 that new auto sales be shifted to 50% electric by the end of the decade.
“There [is] a vision of the future that is now beginning to happen,” Biden said during a White House event at the time. “A future of the automobile industry that is electric. Battery electric, plug-in, hybrid electric, fuel cell electric, it’s electric and there’s no turning back.”
Despite Biden’s best efforts, which include billions in government subsidies, EVs are extraordinarily expensive for the average American. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R), who also signed onto the lawsuit, cited the shockingly high prices in a statement condemning the EPA’s latest emissions rules as “legally flawed and unrealistic.”
“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,” Morrisey wrote in the statement. “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.”