The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (Maine DEP) has told the Maine Wire that reporting from the Portland Press Herald about a pending emissions mandate is inaccurate.
According to the Maine DEP — and contrary to Wednesday’s report from the Press Herald — Maine lawmakers will not have the opportunity to vote on whether Maine should adopt a set of controversial rules that will mandate electric vehicle sales in Maine.
Deputy Commissioner of the Maine DEP David R. Madore told the Maine Wire that, “regretfully,” the article published by the Press Herald earlier this week “is inaccurate.”
“The Board of Environmental Protection has not asked the legislature to take the issue away from the Board,” Madore said.
The Maine Board of Environmental Protection (Maine BEP) still plans to vote on the set of controversial California-inspired vehicle emissions standards without involvement from elected officials — despite intending to ask lawmakers to revise state statutes so that legislative oversight will be required for these kinds of rules in the future.
Known as the Advanced Clean Cars II Program, the regulations currently under consideration by the Maine BEP would mandate that 51 percent of new car sales would need to be comprised of “zero-emissions” EVs by model year 2028 and 82 percent by model year 2032.
“In fact,” Madore continued, “the Board intends to vote on the proposed rule Chapter 127-A, Advanced Clean Cars II Program, after the public comment period has closed.”
Although the newspaper did accurately report in its initial article that “the BEP will ask lawmakers to revise state law” with respect to rulemaking for vehicle emissions standards, the scope of the Board’s expected recommendation as described by the paper was not reflective of the Maine BEP’s actual intent.
Under the Maine Administrative Procedures Act, agency rulemaking falls into one of two categories: routine technical or major substantive.
While routine technical rulemaking occurs entirely within a department, major substantive rules are subject to the legislative review process, as described under 5 M.R.S. §8072.
Agency rule changes are only categorized as major substantive if lawmakers have passed legislation explicitly deeming them to be.
Although Maine law used to require under 38 M.R.S. § 585-D that rule changes related to vehicle emissions standards — such as the ZEV mandate currently under consideration by the Board — be categorized as major substantive, lawmakers repealed that provision in 2005.
With this portion of the law no longer on the books, the controversial EV mandate was automatically categorized as routine technical when it was taken up by the BEP.
According to Madore, the Board intends to recommend that lawmakers reintroduce such a provision so that future rulemaking on this issue by the agency would be subjected to legislative review — as it once was — but this change would “presumably” not affect the BEP’s authority to adopt the ZEV mandate currently under consideration.
“The Board plans to submit to the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources a report summarizing its activities in calendar year 2023,” Madore told the Maine Wire. “That Report is expected to include a recommendation to the Legislature that it consider revising 38 M.R.S. § 585-D to require that rulemaking proceedings regarding motor vehicle emission standards be legally classified as major substantive rather than routine technical.”
“This presumably would not affect the Board’s current Chapter 127-A rulemaking proceeding,” Madore said.
“Some Board members and some members of the public raised this issue, leading to the anticipated recommendation that the Legislative consider whether any future rulemakings on the subject should be a major substantive rulemaking proceeding,” Madore concluded.
The Press Herald published a second story on the topic Friday, stating that DEP “clarified” their statement to the paper, which was the basis of it’s original story.
This second story noted that Maine BEP’s Executive Analyst William F. Hinkel “said that the board plans to submit a report summarizing its 2023 activities and include a recommendation that the Legislature consider revising state law to authorize lawmakers to rewrite vehicle standards.”
“He did not say that the BEP also would still vote on the proposed rule,” the article states.
“It was a misunderstanding,” Madore told the Maine Wire, “and I appreciate [the Portland Press Herald]’s willingness to set the record straight with today’s story.”
The Maine BEP recently reopened public comment for the Advanced Clean Cars II Program after delaying their scheduled vote on December 21 in response to the deadly and destructive storm on December 18 that caused widespread power outages throughout the state.
The Board will be accepting public comment concerning the proposed ZEV mandate until February 5, 2024 at 5pm.
Written comments can be sent to [email protected] with the subject line “Comment on Chapter 127-A: Advanced Clean Cars II Program (Reposting).”
A second public hearing on the mandate has not been scheduled by the Maine BEP at this time, and the Board has not yet announced the expected date of its vote on the rule change.
Time for a peoples referendum to rein in these unelected bureaucrats
MeglaManiacs
“That Report is expected to include a recommendation to the Legislature that it consider revising 38 M.R.S. § 585-D to require that rulemaking proceedings regarding motor vehicle emission standards be legally classified as major substantive rather than routine technical.”
I believe the technical term for this is “locking the barn door after the horse is gone”.
I believe that the big storm a week or so ago shows the down side of EVs. If you loose power for a few day or a week in rural areas you are screwed. What do you do in an emergency when your battery is dead and you can’t charge it.
…pretty much can condense this article into 2 words: BEND OVER!
And when do those stinking BEP members run for election again?
The founders would despise seeing “laws” made by bureaucrats who do NOT answer to the voters. It would have been appalling in the late 1700’s and is even more appalling today.
Great, unelected bureaucrats are really running the state and country now.
They have too much power and cost too much money and too many jobs.
They need to be shut down asap
The term “Zero Emissions Vehicle” as applied to electric vehicles is deceitfully misleading. If all vehicles in the US were electric, they would still use the same amount of energy to drive around as do petroleum-fueled vehicles. The difference is that for EVs, the energy is generated in electric power stations rather that in the vehicle’s gas or diesel engine. Electric supply to the grid still comes primarily from fossil fuels — about 60% at present. Not only that, but EVs are much heavier than petro-fueled vehicles of comparable size, which means that they consume more energy when accelerating or climbing hills. (Parenthetically, they also cause much more damage in collisions and wear their brakes out faster.) Not only that, but using electricity means a significant energy loss in transmission lines and in battery function. People are being deceived into believing that EVs are emission-free when in fact that is far from true. Such deception is facilitated by mass hysteria about climate change. Best advice: Think for yourself and use common sense. When you see a stampede going, remove yourself from it before the cliff arrives.