Judge blocks Biden's emissions rule forcing states to set greenhouse gas reduction targets

A federal judge on Monday blocked the Biden administration's new emissions rule that would have required states to set greenhouse gas reduction targets to receive federal highway funding, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.

What's the background?

The day before Thanksgiving, the Biden administration's Federal Highway Administration announced new regulations forcing state departments of transportation to "establish declining carbon dioxide" goals, Blaze News previously reported. The White House and the rule's supporters touted the measure as having "flexibility" because it did "not mandate how low targets must be."

According to the new rule, the targets and the progress made toward those targets would "be used to inform the future investment decisions of the Federal Government."

Critics argued that the Biden administration was using the rule to force Americans to switch to electric vehicles or public transportation.

Republican North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer released a statement in November accusing the "Biden bureaucracy" of "returning to their stale playbook of inventing illegal, punitive regulatory schemes."

"This final rule is contrary to congressional intent, usurps state authority by putting the federal government in the driver's seat, and is fundamentally unworkable in rural states like North Dakota," Cramer added.

Emissions rule faces legal challenge

A coalition of 21 states filed a lawsuit in December against the president, the United States Department of Transportation, and the Federal Highway Administration, claiming the agencies lacked the authority to regulate emissions or force states to follow the new measures, Courthouse News Service reported.

The plaintiff states in the case included Kentucky, South Dakota, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) argued that the rule would impact "the American economy" by requiring states to "make choices about projects, contracts, and regulations in order to meet the declining targets."

"Any mandated decline in on-road CO2 emissions will disproportionately affect states with more rural areas," Cameron wrote in the suit.

"States with fewer metropolitan areas have fewer options available to them to reduce CO2. Many of the ideas for how states can decrease GHG emissions — congestion pricing, road pricing, ramp metering, increased coordination with transit and non motorized improvements, paying fees to scrap low mileage heavy duty vehicles — are options more conducive to metropolitan areas, not rural ones," he continued. "Low population densities limit the efficacy of public transit and congestion pricing as options that would reduce vehicle miles traveled and, consequently, CO2 emissions."

United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky Judge Benjamin Beaton, appointed by former President Trump, blocked the Biden administration's rule on Monday.

In his opinion, Beaton declared, "Even assuming Congress gave the Administrator authority to set environmental performance standards that embrace CO2, the Administrator exercised that authority in an arbitrary and capricious manner."

Beaton agreed that the rule lacked a statutory basis. However, he did not enjoin the regulation's enforcement or vacate it.

A spokesperson for the Federal Highway Administration told the DCNF, "The Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration remain committed to supporting the Biden-Harris Administration's climate goals of cutting carbon pollution in half by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050."

"We are reviewing the court's decision and determining next steps," the spokesperson added.

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