Grand Canyon Times

The Arizona Legislature has joined a group of 16 states and a Nebraska trucking operation in a lawsuit brought against California public officials, for the latter’s environmental initiative to ban the use of internal combustion engines in medium and heavy-duty vehicles statewide.

In a lawsuit filed May 13 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming – along with the Arizona State Legislature and the Nebraska Trucking Association – charged Executive Officer of the California Air Resources Board Steven S. Cliff and California Attorney General Robert A. Bonta with circumventing federal law, by compelling companies to use expensive and less efficient electric-powered vehicles for commercial purposes in the Golden State, rather than tried-and-true internal combustion-powered vehicles.

“California’s regulation, which is called Advanced Clean Fleets, masquerades as a rule for in-state conduct. But by leveraging California’s large population and access to international ports on the West Coast, Advanced Clean Fleets exports its ‘in-state’ ban nationwide, creating harms which are certain to reach plaintiffs’ states. The regulation forces truckers in and out of California to retire their internal combustion trucks if they want to come to California,” the suit says, in part.

“This will inevitably disrupt the supply chain for all manner of goods, slow interstate transportation, raise prices on goods across the country and impose costs on taxpayers and governments around the country. It is a misconceived and nationwide policy executed without the blessing of Congress or the consent of elected leaders in affected states.”

The suit continues that when Congress enacted the Clean Air Act and Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 under the Commerce Clause, those laws gave regulatory control of motor and air carriers to the federal government; control which supersedes any state measure.

“California, like state plaintiffs, cannot ignore the Commerce Clause. That means it cannot bypass the CAA and the FAAAA nor impose rules that fall within the Commerce Clause’s negative implication. But defendants, California’s chief law enforcement and environmental enforcement officers, have done just that through their implementation and enforcement of Advanced Clean Fleets. Advanced Clean Fleets forces certain owners and operators of trucks to retire their working internal combustion trucks and replace them with battery-electric trucks that are less efficient, less affordable and less available,” the suit states.

“Any covered truck fleet owner who refuses to comply is penalized with denial of access to California, the Nation’s largest state economy and a hub for international trade. Advanced Clean Fleets also forces truck manufacturers to make fewer of the internal combustion trucks that truck owners want to buy. Those businesses are also prohibited from doing business in California if they do not comply. Advanced Clean Fleets is barred by the Constitution, the CAA and the FAAAA. And defendants’ enforcement of this unlawful rule has injured and will continue to injure plaintiffs.”

The state plaintiffs argue their economies “require access to the California market [and] rely heavily on the trucking industry to do so,” but “by burdening fleet companies with unpopular restrictions on the types of trucks that they may drive into California, Advanced Clean Fleets imposes significant barriers to interstate and international trade.”

According to the plaintiffs, a transition from internal combustion trucks to electric-powered ones, as required by Advanced Clean Fleets, also transfers additional costs onto them, as they contend “battery-electric trucks cause more damage to highways than internal combustion trucks, are not subject to fuel taxes, and are more expensive to purchase than internal combustion trucks.”

The plaintiffs seek both declaratory and injunctive relief for damages, and to prevent the enforcement of the Advanced Clean Fleets initiative.

Plaintiff counsel include the attorneys general of all 16 states, Justin D. Smith of James Otis Law Group in St. Louis, Mo. on behalf of the Arizona State Legislature, and Nathan D. Clark and Jessica K. Robinson of Cline Williams Wright Johnson & Oldfather in Lincoln, Neb., on behalf of the Nebraska Trucking Association.