Attorney General Cameron Challenges EPA’s Approval of a Ban on Gas-Powered Vehicles

Coalition’s lawsuit challenges the EPA’s special treatment of California.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (June 13, 2023) – Attorney General Daniel Cameron joined a 19-state coalition contesting the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to allow California to ban certain gas-powered vehicles, including trucks and vans. The coalition’s lawsuit challenges the EPA’s special treatment of California.

Under the Clean Air Act, California may seek a waiver to impose its own vehicle emissions standards, something no other state is allowed to do. Here, California requested and received a waiver from the EPA. That waiver greenlights California’s requirement that, by 2035, all buses, vans, trucks, and tractor-trailers abandon gas and diesel power and shift to electric power alternatives. Because of California’s influence on the vehicle market, the rule will impact consumers across the nation and lead to higher prices for everything from food to automobiles.

“This is Democrats’ latest move to surrender America to a woke climate agenda,” said Attorney General Cameron. “I joined this coalition to keep the Biden Administration’s California values from infecting Kentucky and to protect the livelihoods of the thousands of families that depend on the trucking industry.”

A ban of this kind would be exorbitantly expensive. Prices for electric trucks start around $100,000 and can reach the high six figures. California’s rule would also devastate the demand for liquid fuels like biodiesel and cut trucking jobs across the country. In the Bluegrass State alone, the trucking industry provides almost 113,000 jobs.

This is Attorney General Cameron’s latest effort to fight President Biden’s extreme climate agenda and protect the economies of energy states like Kentucky.

Earlier this year, Attorney General Cameron led a 19-state coalition in opposing the EPA’s excessive regulation of air quality standards. And, in April he sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy rebuking a regulation that would make illegal over 50 percent of gas stoves currently on the market.

Attorney General Cameron was joined by attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia in filing suit.

To read a copy of the lawsuit, click here.