On May 15, Senate President Petersen, House Speaker Toma, and the Arizona Trucking Association filed lawsuits in the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. These suits are aimed at stopping Biden’s EPA from going forward with their mandate to transition a significant number of gas-powered vehicles to electric vehicles.
These new rules would require about 70% of all new vehicles and about 25% of all semitrucks and other heavy-duty vehicles sold in the U. S. to be electric by 2032.
Also, on May 13, the Arizona Legislature joined another sixteen states in their lawsuit against the State of California for implementing a mandate which is potentially as detrimental as the Biden mandate. The California mandate requires that carriers’ entire fleet of diesel-powered trucks be replaced with electric trucks to be allowed to operate in California. In other words, even companies home based in Arizona and other states would only be allowed to operate in California using electric trucks. Naturally, this would have a negative effect in many states besides California.
This electric-vehicle fetish is not unique to the Biden Administration and the California Legislature. Democrat legislators in Arizona have been trying to implement mandates that favor EV’s for years.
In 2022, Democrat Senator Steel introduced Senate Bill SB1152, which would have required the establishment of a “zero emissions” corridor, that can be used only by “zero emissions” vehicles.
In 2023, Democrat Senator Sundarisham introduced Senate Bill SB1441. This bill would have prohibited municipalities and counties from issuing building permit for single-family residences unless they had, or installed, an outlet to charge EVs.
Any time that political agendas run afoul of science and market forces, we have a problem. These mandates are coming at a time when the general population is realizing the inferiority of electric vehicles, except under very specific circumstances.
A strong indication that the general public is losing its love affair with electric vehicles is the recent move by Hertz to dump 20,000 electric vehicles in 2024, and replace them with internal combustion engine vehicles. The demand for EV use is very weak. For a company that respects their stock holders’ needs and reflects its customers’ wishes, this is a good move.
The reason given for the Arizona Legislature to get involved in these lawsuits is that the Arizona Attorney General has refused to hold the Biden Administration accountable for this egregious abuse of power.