With the tide turning against heavy-handed government regulations, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is facing a new lawsuit. Instead of it being filed by the Trump administration, the plaintiffs are four truck brands: Daimler, PACCAR, Volvo, and International Motors.
A shocking number of people can’t perform basic roadside repairs.
Those companies say they have no choice after being put in an “impossible” spot by CARB. The reason why is the California Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) mandate, which is why the lawsuit asks that CARB be legally stopped from enforcing it.
There’s no doubt CARB sits in a severely weakened position after Congress invalidated the EPA waiver granted to the state regulatory body. The argument is that action on the federal level means CARB has no legal authority to enforce ACT and other regulations.
Apparently, CARB wants to keep enforcing ACT after the truck manufacturers entered the Clean Truck Partnership (CTP) back in 2023, reports industry journal CCJ.
In their court filing, the plaintiffs accuse CARB of enforcing “unlawful standards, while also taking measures to insulate itself from lawful challenges to those standards.” It goes on to claim the state regulation agency is using CTP “as a backdoor to enforce California’s preempted emissions standards.”
There are other signatories on the lawsuit, which include Ford Motor Company, Cummins, and General Motors Company, Stellantis N.V. We’d say this is a revolt of the industry against California, which for decades has held unbelievable power over automakers and truck manufacturers.
The tables are turning as these companies smell the blood in the water. Obviously, California doesn’t want to lose its special powers, but it’s possible the action taken by Congress this summer might have forever blown away its ability to hold onto even a shred of that.
Image via Leif Bergerson/Pexels
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