Attorney General Knudsen Files Lawsuit Against “Net-Zero” Highway Emissions Rule Implemented By Biden

Helena, Mont – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen filed a lawsuit on December 21st, challenging an unlawful Biden administration greenhouse gas emissions rule that would require states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles on its roadways to help achieve President Biden’s economy-wide goal of having “net-zero” emissions by 2050. The lawsuit is the 36th that Attorney General Knudsen has filed against the Biden administration. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) have established the "National Performance Management Measures; Assessing Performance of the National Highway System, Greenhouse Gas Emissions Measure." This measure requires states with National Highway System mileage to set declining targets for reducing on-road CO2 emissions. However, the FHWA and DOT do not possess the authority to impose this mandate. “This rule is another unlawful and overreaching regulation by the Biden Administration to force the President’s radical green agenda onto Americans regardless of the costs,” explained Attorney General Knudsen in a press release. “This one-size-fits-all approach might work for the Washington, DC bureaucrats who cooked it up, but it won’t work for Montana.” The rule will disproportionately harm states with more rural areas. According to federal data, the average Montana driver drove 14,640 miles in 2020, 2.5 times more than the average driver in Washington, DC. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials blasted the rule when it was proposed, saying the “targets are not broadly attainable and ignore the unique scenarios of each state.” States like Montana that are both rural and growing in population would “likely have the largest challenge of all” in implementing the rule. The ideas the agencies provided for states to decrease greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the rule are impractical for rural states and would require Montanans to additional fees. These include congestion pricing, road pricing, ramp metering, increased coordination with transit and non-motorized improvements, paying fees to scrap low mileage heavy duty vehicles. Additionally, and as acknowledged by the defendant agencies in the rule, the rule would make continued economic growth more challenging and require state transportation departments to expend significant resources to set the targets and report the data to the federal government. The lawsuit argues that the final rule is illegal because it goes beyond the agencies' legal authority, infringes upon the powers of the Legislature and States, and is inconsistent and unfair. As a result, the suit requests that the court nullify the rule completely and forbid its implementation.