Trump Admin Sues California, Alleging Electric Truck Mandate Illegal

The Department of Justice is charging the state of California with defying federal law by enforcing its electric truck mandate, according to complaints filed in California and Illinois on Thursday evening. The complaints ask the federal courts to declare California’s mandate illegal and to block the state from implementing it any further.

The move highlights President Donald Trump’s aggressive push to promote traditional energy sources and gas-powered vehicles, as well as reversing Biden-era policies that conversely promoted green energy and EVs. It also strikes a blow to a plan that California regulators and environmental groups hoped could serve as an emergency backstop in the face of the Trump administration’s energy agenda.

“These actions advance President Donald J. Trump’s commitment to end the electric vehicle mandate, level the regulatory playing field, and promote consumer choice in motor vehicles,” the DOJ said in a statement.

Under federal law, California is only authorized to set its own vehicle emissions rules if the Environmental Protection Agency grants the state a waiver to do so. While the Biden administration had offered waivers allowing California to implement electric truck and electric vehicle mandates, Congress passed resolutions earlier this year rescinding them. According to the DOJ, however, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has circumvented those resolutions under its so-called Clean Truck Partnership, which the agency has continued to enforce.

That partnership includes CARB and four manufacturers—Daimler Truck, International Motors, PACCAR, and Volvo Group—that collectively control nearly 100 percent of the U.S. heavy-duty truck market. As part of the partnership, those companies agreed to increasingly replace their production of diesel-powered truck engines with electric motors over the next decade in a way that mirrored the state’s electric truck mandate.

“The Clean Truck Partnership was designed exactly for a moment like this. In order to create market certainty, truck makers agreed to abide by the CTP regardless of federal action,” Adam Zuckerman, a senior clean vehicles campaigner with the left-wing group Public Citizen, said this week.

But that plan took a hit earlier this week when the four truck makers who signed onto the Clean Truck Partnership sued CARB in an attempt to exit the agreement. The companies wrote in their lawsuit that they are “caught in the crossfire” between California and the federal government. One of the DOJ’s complaints is related to that case.

“Agreement, contract, partnership, mandate—whatever California wants to call it, this unlawful action attempts to undermine federal law,” acting assistant attorney general Adam Gustafson said on Friday. “President Donald Trump and Congress have invalidated the Clean Air Act waivers that were the basis for California’s actions. CARB must respect the democratic process and stop enforcing unlawful standards.”

The complaints, meanwhile, come days after House Republican leaders obtained evidence showing that CARB has continued to enforce its EV mandate.

“The Committee has been made aware that CARB staff is denying auto manufacturers approval to bring vehicles to market unless the manufacturers agree to comply with the preempted regulations,” the lawmakers wrote to the state agency on Monday.

Overall, California’s electric truck mandate requires that all commercial trucks sold be electric by 2036. Truck fleets managed by local governments must be entirely electric by 2027, and large private truck fleets must ensure 25 percent of their box trucks are electric by 2028 as well.

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