Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s support of a review of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s California’s emissions standards won't stop a fast-moving trend, according to a local environmental activist.
“Kansas City has a significant network of EV charging stations,” said James Owen, an attorney, and executive director of Renew Missouri energy group. “Ameren is putting up EV charging stations along I-44, I-55 and in St. Louis. There are charging stations in Columbia. They're not splashy. It’s just being done by different parties.”
Owen was reacting to news that Schmitt, who is running for U.S. Senate, is among a group of attorneys general who filed a Petition for Review in the U.S. Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia seeking to overturn the EPA's decision to allow California to set its own vehicle emissions standards.
“I don't think you're going to see requirements on that anytime soon because Missouri doesn't really like mandates,” Owen told the St. Louis Record. “They don't like requirements in Missouri. They like incentives for people, but I don't think you're ever going to see that here in the foreseeable future.”
But Schmitt joined the legal action because he believes that in allowing California to set restrictive gas emissions standards, manufacturing will become astronomically expensive.
"Those additional costs are passed onto consumers, many of whom are Missourians,” Schmitt said in a statement online. “The Trump Administration understood that, and prohibited California from setting its own oppressive standards.”
The brief alleges that the EPA acted arbitrarily because it failed to address equal-sovereignty issues imposed by California’s Clean Air Act preemption however the California Air Resource Board (CARB) proceed to issue a rule last week that bans gas-only car sales by 2035 despite the multi-state lawsuit.
“It will probably get dismissed by the court," Owen said. "The free market is going to take care of this. If California is requiring this, auto manufacturers are going to start producing more electric vehicles. When people have them, they have opportunities to charge them. No politician is going to be able to stop the free market in that regard.”
Other states that are plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Ohio, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
"California now has a groundbreaking, world-leading plan to achieve 100 percent zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035," said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement online. “This plan’s yearly targets – 35 percent ZEV sales by 2026, 68 percent by 2030, and 100 percent by 2035 – provide our roadmap to reducing dangerous carbon emissions and moving away from fossil fuels. That’s 915 million oil barrels’ worth of emissions that won’t pollute our communities."