Bill Barr’s organization files lawsuit against California over strict zero-emissions rules for large vehicles

California is being sued by a free market business group, the legal department of which is led by former Attorney General William Barr, for the state’s zero-emissions vehicle mandate.

The tight new restrictions seek to phase out all diesel-powered, heavy-duty vehicles by 2036.

Launched in 2022, the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce filed the lawsuit this week with co-plaintiff Associated Equipment Distributors with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. The suit lists California Attorney General Rob Bonta and California Air Resources Board Executive Officer Steven Cliff as defendants.

The plaintiffs allege that California’s Advanced Clean Fleets regulations are in violation of the federal Clean Air Act because the state never obtained a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement the plan. The new rules, which kicked in this year, say trucking companies must begin transitioning their fleets from diesel-powered to zero-emissions vehicles this year.

“California’s attempt to effectively abolish the internal combustion engine by forcing Americans to buy EVs is not only illegal but a threat to our American free enterprise,” Barr told Fox News Digital. “This mandate is unlikely to produce any net reduction in carbon emissions, and even if it does, any benefit will be negligible in comparison to the massive costs these mandates impose on our economy and individual American families.”

Barr said the regulations would put a “choke hold” on the state’s economy. The lawsuit also alleges that the mandates are thwarted by the Energy Independence and Security Act, which allows the federal government to set fuel economy standards, and the Federal Aviation Administration, which yields state trucking regulations to federal standards.

The country’s most aggressive truck electrification plan, which requires all commercial truck sales for the fleet to be zero emissions by 2036, was adopted by CARB in 2023. The mandates target “high priority” fleets, which are companies operating 50 trucks or collecting $50 million in revenue each year. The policy states that a quarter of these box trucks and vans will be zero-emissions by 2028.

At the federal level, the Biden administration is also pushing for big rigs to go all-electric, posing a financial concern for truckers because electric vehicles are heavier, won’t go as far, and take longer to charge.

“I’m an owner-operator. I’ve been in the business for 30 years,” Mike Nichols, a Wisconsin-based trucker, told Fox News Digital. “Even if they subsidized the cost of the electric vehicle 100%, I still would refuse because I still would go broke. That’s how useless they are. If they gave me one of these things, I still wouldn’t take it.”

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Concerning the lawsuit in California, Bonta did not comment, but CARB spokeswoman Kate Lamb shared with Fox News Digital the projected climate benefits of the new regulations.

“While trucks represent only 6 percent of the vehicles on California’s roads, they account for over 35% of the state’s transportation-generated nitrogen oxide emissions and a quarter of the state’s on-road greenhouse gas emissions,” Lamb said.