Republican State Attorneys General File Lawsuit Against Biden Administration Over New Climate Regulation

A 21-state coalition led by Republican attorneys general is suing the Biden administration over its new climate rule, which mandates that states with federal interstates and highways must adopt stringent carbon dioxide emissions standards.

“The Administration is attempting to co-opt states to carry out its extreme climate change agenda by unlawfully requiring states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said in a news release. “But President [Joe] Biden’s Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Highway Authority (FHWA) lack authority to regulate in this area, let alone the power to force states to comply with their federal regulatory program.”

Joining Mississippi in the lawsuit are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

On Nov. 22, the FHWA issued a final rule that state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) must measure and report greenhouse gas emissions associated with transportation. Further, they must set targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and report on progress toward such targets.

“President Biden is unconstitutionally ramming his radical climate agenda through administrative agencies that lack Congressional authority to implement such actions,” Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said in a news release. “We will not stand by while this administration attempts to circumvent the legislative process.”

The complaint, filed Thursday at U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, states, “Congress has not given FHWA or U.S. DOT 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 Federal Government may not compel the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program,” the complaint states. “[T]he 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.”

The complaint notes the FHWA previously issued a similar rule, but it was repealed after the agency determined the measure might duplicate “existing efforts in some States” and imposed “unnecessary burdens on State DOTs and MPOs that were not contemplated by Congress.”