Minneapolis – Seventeen states with vehicle emissions standards tied to rules set in California face heavy decisions about whether to follow that state’s tougher new rules that require all new cars, vans and SUVs to be electric or hydrogen by 2035.
Under the Clean Air Act, states must comply with the federal government’s standard vehicle emissions standards unless they choose at least partially to follow California’s stricter requirements.
Among them, Washington, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Vermont are expected to adopt California’s ban on new gasoline-powered vehicles. Colorado and Pennsylvania are among the states that probably won’t. The legal ground is a bit more blurry in Minnesota, where the state’s “clean car” rule has been a political minefield and the subject of a legal battle. Meanwhile, Republicans are rebelling in Virginia.
The Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association says its reading of state and federal law is that new California rules start automatically in the state, and it’s bringing this issue up in court because it’s trying to prevent it.
“The technology is that vehicles don’t perform well in cold weather,” said Scott Lambert, president of the trade group. “We don’t all live in Southern California.”
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency officials say the state should launch an entirely new rule-making process to adopt California’s changes. And in court filings and legislative hearings, they said they don’t plan to do so now.
“We are not California. Minnesota has its own plan,” Governor Tim Walz said in a statement. He described the Minnesota program as “a smart way to increase, rather than reduce, consumer choices. Our priority is to reduce costs and increase choices so that Minnesota residents can drive whatever car suits them.”
Oregon regulators are taking public comment until September 7 on whether they will adopt the new California standards. The administration of Democratic Governor Jared Polis has said that Colorado regulators, who have adopted the old California rules, will not follow the new California laws.
“While the governor shares the goal of a rapid move toward electric cars, he doubts that 100% of cars sold will be required to be electric by a certain date because technology is changing rapidly,” the Colorado Office of Energy said in a statement.
Regulators in Pennsylvania, which have only partially adopted the old California standards, said they would not automatically follow its new rules. Under Democratic Governor Tom Wolf, Pennsylvania began the regulatory process last year to fully comply with California rules, but abandoned them.
Virginia was on track to adopt California rules under legislation passed last year when Democrats were in complete control of Virginia’s government. But Republicans who control the House of Delegates and Republican Governor Glenn Yongkin say they will push for their state’s disengagement.
Minnesota auto dealers are trying to make their state’s current rules — and the possibility of their tightening to incorporate California’s new restrictions — a problem in the fall election. Lambert said control of the legislature and the governor’s office is ready, and traders hope to persuade the 2023 legislature to roll back the regulations unless they win in court first.
The MPCA, with Walz’s support, adopted California’s existing standards by setting administrative rules last year amid a bitter fight with Republican lawmakers who were resentful of the legislature’s exclusion from the decision. Lawmakers have even tried unsuccessfully to withhold funding from Minnesota’s environmental agencies. One victim was Laura Bishop, who resigned as MPCA commissioner after it became clear she lacked the votes in the Republican-controlled Senate to win ratification.
Walz and his administration coined the Minnesota Clean Vehicle Rule as a fairly painless way to increase the availability of electric vehicles and help the state meet its greenhouse gas-reducing goals. The rule seeks to increase offerings of battery and hybrid vehicles beginning in 2025 by requiring manufacturers to comply with existing California standards for low- and zero-emissions vehicles.
Lambert said auto dealers in the state are not opposed to electric vehicles. They currently make up 2.3% of new car sales in Minnesota and consumer interest is expected to continue to grow. But he said the lower range of battery-powered cars in cold weather makes them less attractive in northern tier states. He said Minnesota rules already threaten to strain dealers who use more electric cars than their customers buy, and the adoption of California’s ban will only make matters worse.
Under federal law, by Lambert’s reading, states are required to either fully adopt California’s rules or follow less stringent federal emissions standards. He said they couldn’t pick and choose from the parts of each. This effectively means a “ban on the books” in Minnesota on sales of new conventional-fuel cars starting in model year 2035, he said.
The Lambert Association was already fighting Minnesota’s existing clean car rules in the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and the petition expected California to make the changes it announced late last month. A key issue is whether “any future amendments to the incorporated California regulations automatically become part of the Minnesota rules,” traders argue.
MPCA lawyers maintain that they do not, and asked the court to dismiss the appeal. MPCA Commissioner Katrina Kessler has made similar arguments for months, including before a skeptical Senate committee last March.
Aaron Clems, chief strategy officer for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, who will present his own arguments against the traders in court, acknowledged that the legal landscape is puzzling. He said it was not clear if his group would eventually invite Minnesota to follow the new ban in California.
“We haven’t done enough analysis of the California rule to know whether we would push for adoption in Minnesota,” Clems said. He noted that other issues are coming into play, including incentives for electric vehicles in the inflation-reduction law that President Joe Biden recently signed into law, and the stated intentions by some major automakers to go all-electric.
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Associated Press reporters Jim Anderson in Denver; Gillian Flakus in Portland, Oregon; Mark Levy of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2022 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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