Lawmakers Wants Minnesota To End California Car Standards

(KNSI) – A Central Minnesota lawmaker wants the state to abandon California clean car standards approved in 2021 by the Governor and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. The Consumer Choice of Fuel Act (SF 3065) got a hearing on Wednesday in the Senate’s State Government Finance and Policy and Elections committee. The bill would prohibit any state agency from banning any product in the future based on its fuel choice.

Princeton Senator Andrew Mathews is one of the bill’s authors and says it’s in response to the governor and the MPCA’s push to force dealerships to carry a number of electric vehicles on the lot.

“We’re hearing from car dealers all over the states going. We’re investing a lot of resources when the market is here. If our customers want to buy them, they bend over backwards to try to get these electric vehicles in stock so they can sell them to their customers. But they’ve told us all the way along you can’t arbitrarily mandate that we have these things in stock, whether we have a market for them or not. That just makes no sense whatsoever.”

The new rules can’t go into effect for two more years. Mathews thinks other gas-powered engines will be phased out if the law isn’t changed.

“If these agencies keep going unchecked like this they’ll probably start moving into areas where they’re going to start banning and stopping you from even being able to buy these types of products with gasoline engines in them.”

He says that could mean an end to gas-powered lawnmowers, weed trimmers, generators, golf carts, snowmobiles, and watercraft. SF 3065 has a companion bill in the House called HF 3206. The bill will likely be included in a larger package.

In July, Minnesota became the 15th state to adopt clean car standards based on California’s standards. According to the governor’s office, the policy makes two clean cars standards, including low-emission vehicles (LEV) and zero-emission vehicles (ZEV). The LEV standard forces vehicle makers to build cars, trucks, and SUVs that produce lower greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants for sale in Minnesota. The ZEV standard requires manufacturers to develop more vehicles with ultra-low or zero tailpipe emissions for sale in Minnesota, including electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid models.

California has changed its standard and is planning to ban the sale of all gas-powered vehicles by 2035.

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