Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor joined a 21-state coalition to push back against the Biden Administration’s latest climate rule, which mandates that states with federal interstates and highways adopt stringent CO2 emissions standards to help achieve President Biden’s economy-wide goal of having “net-zero” emissions by 2050.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is leading the charge by filing a lawsuit challenging the rule, which 20 other attorney generals have signed onto.

According to the new rule, states are required to establish targets for reduced CO2 emissions, and to track and report their progress to the federal government.

The rule is seen as particularly harmful to states like Alaska with extensive rural communities where the average driver covers many more road miles than those living in urban settings.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials blasted the rule, saying the “targets are not broadly attainable and ignore the unique scenarios of each state.”

The coalition also makes clear that the proposed measure violates the principles of federalism by requiring states to implement a federal regulatory program.

Some of the strategies proposed for states to lower greenhouse gas emissions include road pricing, ramp metering, increased coordination with transit and non-motorized improvements and fees to incentivize the decommissioning of low gas mileage vehicles – strategies which will force individual states to spend time, resources and money with no clear guidance for what success looks like.

The attorneys general argue that Congress has not granted the Department of Transportation authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

“Biden has made repeated attempts to use federal agencies to carry out his wishes when the law doesn’t support his extreme green agenda,” Attorney General Treg Taylor noted. “In this instance, like so many before it, a federal agency not only overstepped its boundaries by creating this mandate but sought to force states to enforce the mandate. Alaska will continue to fight all Biden administration efforts to bypass Congress, the Constitution, and the law.”

The attorneys general assert that the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) overstepped its legal limits because Congress has not given it “authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

“Nor can the Agencies compel the states to administer a federal regulatory program or mandate them to further Executive policy wishes absent some other authority to do so—which is lacking as to this rule,” the letter states.

The coalition also makes clear that the proposed measure violates the principles of federalism by requiring states to implement a federal regulatory program.

The complaint explains: “The Constitution is also clear that action by the states cannot be mandated through federal action like the Final Rule. ‘The Federal Government may not compel the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program [because] the Constitution protects us from our own best intentions: It divides power among sovereigns and among branches of government precisely so that we may resist the temptation to concentrate power in one location as an expedient solution to the crisis of the day.’” Accordingly, “even if Congress believed the Final Rule was the best means of reducing CO2 in order to address climate change, the states could not be directed to implement the policy choices of the federal government.”

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