Hilgers and including Kentucky, have signed a brief against a federal electric truck mandate.
On March 29, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rolled out a new electric truck
mandate to increase sales of electric semitrucks from 2027 through 2032.
The EPA will require electric models to account for 60% of new urban delivery trucks and 25%
of long-haul tractor sales by 2032. The cost of electric trucks are typically two to three
times more expensive than diesel trucks, according to the Institute for Energy Research.
Truckers will also have to invest $620 billion for charging infrastructure and it will likely
cost utilities $370 billion to upgrade their networks.
On Wednesday, Hilgers filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stop
the Biden-Harris Administration from imposing this mandate on truck manufacturers.
The attorneys general argued that EPA's electric-truck mandate raises a "major question"
that Congress has not clearly authorized EPA to decide. The brief points out that just
0.1% of all heavy-duty trucks sold today are powered by batteries, but EPA's rule would
increase that number to 45% in less than a decade.
According to the brief, this could create a massive shift in the nation's trucking and
logistics industries, will slow down the transportation of essential goods, stress the
electric grid and raise prices for Americans.
The brief also argues that EPA has never before forced manufacturers to produce heavyduty electric vehicles and that allowing the electric-truck mandate to stand would short
circuit the ongoing policy debate that should be left to Congress and the States.
The other states in the coalition are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma,
South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and
Wyoming.
Trucks at a Love's travel center in Long Beach, Miss.
Photo by Steve Wilson | The Center Square
