to issue its own set of truck emissions standards. Those radical standards go further than the regulations set for the rest of the country and effectively ban the sale of gas or diesel trucks.
California’s truck ban requires that about 55% of delivery vans and small trucks, 75% of buses and larger trucks, and 40% of tractor-trailers and other big rigs be fully electric by 2035. By 2045, gas and diesel trucks will be outright banned from being sold in California. States are forced to comply with California’s zero-emissions standards to compete in the market. This incentivizes truck manufacturing companies to spike prices for gas and diesel vehicles so that Americans won’t buy them.
In fact, the Clean Air Act provision used to justify the EPA’s waiver is unconstitutional precisely because it violates the equal sovereignty principle. The EPA’s waiver also triggers the major-questions doctrine, a legal principle that means big regulations need to go through Congress, rather than unelected bureaucrats. And make no mistake, with California’s truck ban, rural America will be left in the dust. Charging stations are scarce in the countryside.