OAKLAND; Attorney General led a coalition of 26 states, counties and cities in filing a lawsuit today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit challenging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s final rule weakening corporate average fuel economy standards, the attorney general’s office said.
The lawsuit alleges the rule is contrary to law and that NHTSA contravenes its congressional mandate to set fuel-economy standards at their "maximum feasible" level; the office said the backsliding standards for the next five years require less efficiency than what the U.S. fleet achieved in 2021.
The filing says NHTSA misinterprets its statutory authority by ignoring the presence of millions of electric vehicles in the existing fleet and that the agency used defective analyses of affordability, sales, fleet turnover, fuel savings and vehicle safety to make the rule appear net-beneficial. The office said the agency's approach produces a "dramatically distorted" analysis of the maximum feasible standard.
The attorney general's office said NHTSA's rule would eliminate roughly $220 billion in fuel savings drivers would have realized under the prior standards and would end the CAFE credit trading program in 2028; the office said that change would harm electric vehicle industries that employ Californians.
Attorney General Bonta said, "The President started a war that has created volatility in oil markets, disrupted global energy supplies, and left families and businesses paying the price at the pump. Yet, the Trump Administration is attempting to gut fuel economy standards and force Americans to spend billions more on gas while poisoning the air in our communities." He added, "The Trump Administration is doing this to line the pockets of their Big Oil donors. California will not stand idly by, we will defend fuel economy standards that keep costs down, protect public health, and build a better, sustainable future."
The office framed the legal claim around the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975; it said the statute requires NHTSA to consider technological feasibility, economic practicability, other government motor-vehicle standards and the need to conserve energy when setting standards.
The filing was joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, plus the City of Chicago, the City and County of Denver, the City of New York and the City and County of San Francisco.
The attorney general's office framed the suit as a defense of drivers, consumers and public health and cited recent related actions it has taken, including a victory after the federal government conceded that conditions on Department of Transportation grant funding for California were unlawful and previous litigation over suspended electric vehicle charging grant programs.
State
Rob Bonta
Attorney General · Democrat
Named 3 times in this story.
Portrait: Official portrait
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