API Sues to Block Biden’s De Facto EV Mandate

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is filing on Thursday a lawsuit seeking to block the Biden Administration’s new strict tailpipe emission standards, which opponents say are a de-facto mandate for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing and purchases.

In March, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the finalization of new tailpipe emission standards. The agency boasted that these were the strictest standards ever, adding that they would save money, create jobs, and eliminate billions of tons of CO2 emissions.

API and other organizations argued at the time that the new regulation “will effectively eliminate most new gas-powered cars and traditional hybrids from the U.S. market in just eight short years.”

In April, the attorney generals of 25 U.S. Republican-governed states urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the new rule on tailpipe emissions, find it “unlawful,” and “vacate the agency’s final action.”

“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,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who led the lawsuit effort along with Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman.

The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) has also criticized the new tailpipe emissions rule, saying last month that despite the dealers’ efforts and investments to promote EVs, “the EPA’s final rule remains far ahead of consumer demand.”

“As a result, this rule is not achievable in the time frame provided and would severely limit the ability of consumers to choose a new vehicle that meets their budget and transportation needs.”

Now the API, which will be joined by corn grower associations that rely on gasoline to boost their ethanol industry, is taking the EPA to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to seek that the new rule be blocked.  

“Today, we are taking action to protect American consumers, U.S. manufacturing workers and our nation’s hard-won energy security from this intrusive government mandate,” API Senior Vice President and General Counsel Ryan Meyers said, as carried by Reuters.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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