- A group of 15 Democratic AGs filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in support of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and its defense of its final rule setting Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA).
- In the brief, the AGs respond to petitioners’ argument that NHTSA unlawfully relied on state zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) standards when projecting electric vehicle adoption in its baseline fleet, asserting that those state standards are preempted. The AGs counter that this preemption claim fails because it constitutes an improper collateral attack on state ZEV standards and falls outside the court’s jurisdiction, as NHTSA is not authorized to determine the validity of state ZEV standards. They further argue that NHTSA’s modeling was neither arbitrary nor capricious and that the agency would have issued the same federal standards regardless of state ZEV policies.
- The AGs urge the court to reject petitioners’ preemption argument against state ZEV standards.
- We previously covered the petition for review in this case, filed by a group of 26 Republican AGs, which asks the Court of Appeals to declare the final rule unlawful and vacate the Deputy Administrator’s final action.