Responding to an active effort to convince President-elect Donald Trump to retain the Biden-Harris Administration’s tailpipe rules and forgo a key campaign promise to halt EV policies, the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) has released a letter urging the incoming administration to “stay the course and reject widely unpopular electric vehicle mandates.”
SEMA’s letter follows news reports that several of the nation’s largest automakers are requesting Trump keep the Biden-Harris Administration tailpipe emissions policy “that would eliminate consumers’ vehicle choice by mandating electric vehicles.”
The letter notes, “It is disheartening to hear that some within the automotive industry are seeking to largely keep the Biden Administration’s tailpipe rules in place. On behalf of SEMA’s members, we support your stated goal of a Day One end to EV mandates. As you are well aware, such mandates stifle the innovation and ingenuity that makes our nation great.”
SEMA argues that EV mandates are “the antithesis to what drives America. Whether these mandates arrive in the form of tailpipe emissions standards that can only be achieved through the sale of EVs or waivers that enable some states to impose their own standards on other states (as is the case of California’s standards that as many as 16 states can adopt), they all destroy consumers’ freedom to choose what vehicles they want—or need—to drive. While EVs are a part of the solution for reducing carbon emissions for mobile sources, mandates rob our nation’s innovators of the opportunity to develop new technologies and solutions that meaningfully reduce emissions in a way that doesn’t hurt consumers and small automotive businesses. They harm our economy, threaten to stifle interstate commerce and place millions of jobs at risk.”
Read the full letter here.
