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Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall in a statement Wednesday celebrated the withdrawal of a California request for the Environmental Protection Agency to approve stricter regulations on commercial trucking company emissions.
The California Air Resources Board withdrew their request to the EPA for a waiver allowing the enforcement of their Advanced Clean Fleet regulation on Jan. 14.
Advanced Clean Fleets would have required California truck buyers to increasingly purchase zero-emission trucks. This mandate would be regulated by a phased schedule based on truck fleet sizes and trucking company’s annual revenues.
The rule would have ended the sale of new fossil fuel trucks in California by 2036. It would have also required all trucking companies with over 50 vehicles or $50 million in gross annual revenue operating that operate vehicles within the state to convert their medium and heavy trucks to zero emission vehicles by 2042.
Marshall, a day after CARB pulled their waiver request, said in a statement on his website, “The fanciful policies of California will never work in Alabama. There is no way that every small business that works in California could afford electric trucks, some of which cost $400,000, not to mention the cost to install charging stations and the costs of maintenance.”
“My colleagues and I will always step in when California attempts to mandate nationwide compliance with its radical, unworkable, and destructive policies,” Marshall continued. “Thankfully, reason and the rule of law prevailed this time, and in less than a week, we will have President Trump back in office with an administration that would never even consider such an expansive request by a state.”
In September 2024, Marshall was part of a 24 state coalition of Republican attorneys general, led by Nebraska, who filed a formal comment to the EPA opposing California’s regulation request.
Marshall’s office wrote that if Advanced Clean Fleets were approved, California would “exceed its statutory and regulatory authority by implementing an electric-vehicle mandate that is sure to disrupt the Nation’s logistics and transportation industries.”
CARB Chair Liane Randolph said the regulation request was withdrawn in anticipation of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office.
“The withdrawal is an important step given the uncertainty presented by the incoming administration that previously attacked California’s programs to protect public health and the climate and has said will continue to oppose those programs,” Randolph said.
CARB’s withdrawal of their waiver request comes less than a month after California was granted approval by the EPA for a waiver to enforce their Advanced Clean Cars II and Heavy-Duty Omnibus regulations.
These regulations will require all new passenger vehicles sold in California to have zero direct emissions by 2035, as well as truck engines reducing nitrous oxide emissions by 75 percent and particulate matter by 10 percent.
Marshall has been a vocal opponent of increased emissions regulations for businesses, taking to X five days prior to his Advanced Clean Fleets announcement to celebrate BlackRock Inc. dropping out of a coalition of top U.S. corporations who pledge to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
“Another one bites the dust. My colleagues and I won’t stop until the anti-competitive ESG racket is unraveled,” Marshall wrote of BlackRock’s withdrawal, referring to environmental, social and governance, a set of standards for investment that prioritize environmentally and socially responsible investing.
