As Gov. Tim Walz’s administration considers whether to adopt tougher vehicle emission standards that mirror ones in California, car dealers who oppose the idea are working to make the decision a campaign issue.
The Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association is circulating a pledge to legislative candidates saying they oppose Minnesota following California regulatory decisions such as the Clean Cars rules, and 123 candidates have signed on so far.
“Voters should ask candidates this year, if you’re running to represent Minnesotans, why aren’t you opposed to California being in charge of an important part of our economy,” MADA President Scott Lambert said in a prepared statement.
The vast majority of those 123 candidates are Republicans, and the issue has largely split along party lines. Nine DFLers have also signed the pledge, however, including three state senators — Dan Sparks, Ann Rest and John Hoffman.
There may be more DFL lawmakers who oppose the car rules, and at least two DFL senators who have not signed the pledge, Kent Eken and Tom Bakk, have expressed skepticism or opposition to the rules. Three Democrats in the House who did not sign the pledge voted this year to restrict the MPCA’s ability to regulate motor vehicle emissions.
The decision to adopt the vehicle standards is unlikely to be made by the Legislature. Walz believes the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has authority to enact them unilaterally based on existing state law, and Republican-led efforts to strip that power have been rebuffed by the DFL-controlled House.
Regardless, the California rules have become an issue in the election and at the Capitol. All 201 seats in the Minnesota House and Senate are up for election this year. Democrats hold a 75-59 majority in the House while Republicans hold a slim 35-32 advantage in the Senate.
What Walz wants to do
Under federal law, California is the only state that can set its own auto emission standards. Other states can choose to either follow California’s rules, however, or use standards set by the federal government.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Greta Kaul[/image_credit][image_caption]Gov. Tim Walz[/image_caption]
The governor argues adopting California rules will help Minnesota slash greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change and increase the number and variety of electric cars for sale in Minnesota.
The transportation sector makes up Minnesota’s largest share of greenhouse gas emissions, and the state has made a concerted effort to speed up adoption of electric vehicles. That includes putting money from a settlement with Volkswagen toward charging infrastructure.
Republicans have balked at the emissions rules, saying they will lead to an increase in the up-front cost of cars and lead to fewer choices for gas-powered cars at dealerships. (Environmental groups note that electric cars save money over time on the cost of fuel and maintenance.)
New order complicates standards
The GOP has also warned that following California’s lead will tie Minnesota to a state that is making far more aggressive moves to curb carbon emissions than Walz has advocated for. Lambert said he believes Minnesota opposition to Clean Cars is growing, particularly after California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered a ban on sales of new gas-powered cars and trucks by 2035, the toughest rule in the country aimed at reducing auto emissions and promoting electric cars.
Generally, Minnesota has little leeway when adopting the LEV and ZEV standard. The MPCA’s website says Minnesota has to follow California’s standards “verbatim.”
But how Newsom’s order affects Minnesota is complicated. Attorneys at the MPCA say California’s executive action, issued in September, doesn’t change existing vehicle emission regulations that Minnesota’s Clean Car standards would be based on, and it has no immediate effect, according to MPCA spokesman Darin Broton.
If the executive order becomes California rule or law, California would need a federal waiver before it could be implemented, the MPCA says. Still, at that point, Minnesota would need to decide whether to adopt the new California emission standards, sales ban included, or return to the federal ones.
Broton said the MPCA has no plans to ban the sale of gasoline powered vehicles. For now, it’s possible Minnesota could keep the ZEV rules it is considering while ignoring Newsom’s new mandate, Broton said. States can also choose to follow only the California LEV mandate, and skip the ZEV one.
Dave Clegern, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, said Newsom’s executive order sets a goal for new regulations beyond 2025, when the current phase of ZEV regulations end. “The Order will certainly inform the regulations that will go into place post-2025,” Clegern said in an email.
Officials in Oregon, a state that has already adopted the LEV and ZEV mandates, said states following those California rules don’t have to mirror California’s ban on the sale of gas cars and can keep their existing programs. “Unless Gov. [Kate] Brown decides to follow California’s action, the state is not requiring the sale of only ZEV vehicles by 2035,” said Susan Mills, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
[image_caption]State Sen. Ann Rest[/image_caption]
Rest told MinnPost she didn’t consider the MADA survey as a pledge against clean car standards, but rather a question about surrendering policy-making authority. Even though Minnesota has a choice between picking California’s rules or the federal ones, Rest said she also opposes letting the feds “dictate our policy regarding Clean Cars.”
It is unclear if Rest is in favor of Minnesota’s current effort under way to adopt the California auto rules. The MADA explicitly tied its pledge to the MPCA’s rule-making proposal to follow California. “I support a clean car standard but we need a lot of attention to details and how it works in MN,” Rest said in a text message.
Running in a key state swing race, Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, also signed the auto dealers’ pledge, while her DFL opponent, Aleta Borrud, supports the Clean Cars push.
“Those decisions really belong in Minnesota, they don’t belong out in California,” Nelson said in a recent interview.
CORRECTION: State Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein, a DFL state Senate candidate in Senate District 41, said she does not approve of the auto dealers’ pledge even though she was on the list of legislative candidates provided by the auto dealers. Kunesh-Podein said she supports the MPCA moving ahead with its Clean Cars rules. The story has been updated.
So long as we are able to burn fossil fuels without paying the costs of using the commons – air – as a lightly regulated & free sewer, we will make minimal progress against climate change. A carbon tax would be effective, but most of us are unwilling to impose an ongoing cost for energy use. Even so, there has been progress.
Deep in the article we seek the text of the actual “pledge”: “I pledge to oppose efforts which would result in placing regulatory control over Minnesota constituents into the hands of a regulatory body of another state.”
However, as the article makes clear, in adopting the California standards, Minnesota would not be “placing regulatory control over Minnesota constituents” in the hands of California regulatory agencies. The Minnesota legislature (or the MPCA, if it has the authority as Governor Walz suggests) would be exercising its judgment to adopt a set of standards that California has adopted. If California later revises its standards, the legislature or MPCA will exercise its judgment again to decide whether to adopt those revisions.
So unless my summary is inaccurate, the “pledge” is just more obfuscation and dishonesty, here, as Mr. Parker notes, to allow the fossil fuel industry to continue to extract profits from the public commons.
I think your summary is pretty accurate.
Electric vehicles will come into their own regardless of GOP obstruction. Like renewable energy, the cost advantage will become obvious as initial prices drop with increased production. Further, drivers will enjoy far more reliability and decreased maintenance costs for vehicles with only 20 moving parts – and no more catalytic converter, muffler, starter, transmission, fuel pump, oil changes, and weekly trips to the gas pump – thousands in savings over “gas buggies”.
Sounds to me like the MADA is concerned that the transition to cleaner cars, an inevitability by the way, will leave them behind. Could that be because Tesla, the clear leader in ZEVs, has eliminated auto dealers from its distribution network? Perhaps it’s because most of their profits come from maintaining and repairing cars, and electric cars require far less maintenance and repair? Certainly not. Much more likely it’s due to their love of freedom, and their concern that Minnesota retain control over state governmental functions. Xcel Energy ought to counter, asking legislative candidates to sign a reduced energy cost pledge, asking them to sign on to ZEV incentives to better balance electric consumption and reduce average cost by having more customers charge electric vehicles during the low consumption late evening and overnight hours. That would be some good entertainment – how would a Republican caught between two corporate masters possibly decide?
Perfectly said. Nothing about this pledge is anything but backwards thinking and the polar opposite of the Republican “think of the children” chant.
Quite true.
The only “pledge” any elected official should make or honor is their oath of office. Pledges to special interests like this reveal the inherent inequality and corruption residing in our political system. Any pledge to put the special interests of a few businesses above and beyond the interests of people of MN should be grounds for removal or special elections.
I think that when it comes to a change likely to happen between 2035 and 2050, 15-30 years from now, those of us who will not be alive at that time or will have aged out of owning a car should leave it to younger people to decide, as they, rather than us, will deal with the horrible results of failing to curb climate change.
California is ahead of the country based on their experience. They had legendary problems with smog before clean air standards were created. That is why they have higher standards – they had a bigger problem. However, now we all have climate change. Rising temperatures, more extreme weather and natural disasters like tornados, hurricanes, drought and wild fires. Wild fires create air pollution, which given the California climate and topography, results in major air pollution. Do we want our northern forests to be destroyed by climate change and have the terrible problem they have with wild fire? How about our lakes drying up?
Live for today and not thinking forward results in a lot of suffering for those who follow. Of course, car dealers are going to think about their current situation and surviving in a difficult environment, but to reign in major problems like climate change, everyone needs to do their part. Opposing something that might harm you when you know that the result will be widely harmful in the future has to be challenged.
The whole issue is largely – but not entirely – making a mountain out of a molehill. Of course such a pledge works to the interests of conventional vehicle dealers. They’re the ones most directly threatened by such wide-scale adoption of EV technology – much of their service business would dry up. On the other hand – and there’s always the possibility of drastic and rapid change if circumstances warrant it – a total change to EVs from fossil-powered vehicles seems unlikely to me. I’m 76 and drive a hybrid. Unless and until charging technology and availability is dramatically improved, I have no intention of moving any closer to switching to a pure EV. I still take lengthy auto trips in the summer, and at present, doing so in an EV is cost-prohibitive on my retiree’s budget. I normally drive 600 to 700 miles in a day, and an EV with a range of 220-250 miles (pretty good right now, but less-than-adequate, I hope, in a decade) turns a one-day trip with one hotel room rental necessary into a 3-day trip with 3 rented hotel rooms. Sorry, but that’s unacceptable. My hybrid gets excellent fuel mileage – that’s why I bought it – so the fuel savings of an EV, while substantial over a long span of 10 years or so, are not that dramatic over the course of a single trip when comparing to my hybrid. Useful, certainly, but not game-changing. What Republicans are billing as more government overreach seems more like something Minnesotans would have direct control of through both the Governor’s office and the legislature, if it came to that.
It doesn’t seem to matter what the issue is,…
there’s a certain crop of people,…
who, because of traumas in their past,…
cannot bear to follow the advice of other people,…
no matter how much smarter or better informed those people might be (experts?),…
this includes their mechanics, their doctors, their dentists, etc.
“You’re not the boss of me!” seems to be the overarching theme of some of far too many of our “conservative” friends,…
even directed toward people who are trying to save their lives,…
and those of their children and grandchildren,…
indeed, all the people of the planet.
I can only hope and pray that some of them might find friends, clergy, counselors, and or leaders to follow,…
who will help heal their traumas (rather than amplify them)…
and thereby restore them to the kind of healthy functioning,…
that will protect and extend their lives,…
and the lives of all the rest of us and our planet as well.
Lacking that, continuous “rage listening” and “rage watching” “conservative” information sources, including clergy,…
is going to get us all killed.
We’re becoming a nation that revels in the Dunning Kruger syndrome. The less our legislators know, the smarter they think they are and that applies double to the people who elect them. Minnesota used to be proud to be a leader in several areas of science. Now, we’re just a state full of corn-welfare queens and marginally employed pickup drivers.
I’ve been wondering just how much real improvement we will see if the MN Senate goes to DFL leadership. My sense is that unless we can clean up the operations of the Legislature, getting rid of the “omnibus bill” system and other special-interest-favoring habits, not that much will really change. And I don’t see much appetite for structural reform among DFLers.
As long as we don’t have a mandate for ZEV vehicles, we will not have full access to the newest and best battery vehicles. This could be seen as a disingenuous complaint by MADA because they don’t want to invest in training and service infrastructure. GM has 23 new ZEV’s coming out in the next two years. Already we have no access to the Kia and Hyundai electric models, which are lower price and better range than most offerings, as will the new Nissan. Quit using the legislature to limit consumer choice. And AGAIN the GOP interferes in personal choice because their masters pay them to.
Exactly. ZEV’s are available and (becoming) affordable. But not here. Neither new nor used electric vehicles are readily available for purchase. I think that there is only 1 dealership that specializes in electric vehicles besides the Tesla store. And yet, there are theoretically dozens of models “available.” Just not here. I’ve pretty much assumed that the next vehicle I purchase will be electric. I also assume I will have to drive my current one until it’s beyond dead to make that happen given the lack of availability and choice here. It’s unclear why other than your explanation, so thank you for that enlightenment.
I would just remind these dealers that almost all of them remain in business because Democrats bailed them and their industry out of collapse and bankruptcy. The Republicans they embrace were perfectly willing to let them fail and collapse in the name of small government and economic Darwinism.
We need to move towards more sustainable energy and transportation policy, these guys might want to consider the wisdom of cooperative rather than adversarial relationships. Adversarial confrontations tend to in end in win or loss scenarios, and if you’re tying fortunes to a political Party that in the midst of imploding your more likely to just lose rather than influence the outcome.
I have never known the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association to be right about anything. A very anti-public-interest operation.