The Maine Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) has officially rejected the controversial electric vehicle (EV) mandate that has been under consideration for the past several months with a 4-2 vote on Wednesday.
Last year, a citizen petition initiated by the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) was submitted to Maine BEP asking for “the requirements of the California Advanced Clean Cars II” to be incorporated into Maine’s existing regulatory code.
Although only 150 people Maine residents signed the petition, it set in motion a bureaucratic process that could have allowed the Mills Administration to impose sweeping controls on what kinds of vehicles can be sold in Maine — all without the approval of Maine’s elected lawmakers.
[RELATED: Maine Considering California-style Rules to Limit Sales of Gas-Powered Cars and Trucks]
Adoption of these new regulations would have essentially resulted in the state phasing out the sale of traditional gas-powered cars and trucks in favor of EVs over the course of the next few years.
In its most recent form, this mandate would have required that 51 percent of new car sales in Maine be comprised of EVs by model year 2028 and 82 percent by model year 2032.
[RELATED: Electric Vehicle Mandate Slated for March Hearing as Mills Touts EV Charger Investments]
Going into Wednesday’s meeting, the BEP could have either adopt this rule change, reject it, or table consideration of it until a later date.
Wednesday’s meeting went on for several hours and consisted of a brief period of public comment, a back-and-forth with Department staff, and a lengthy deliberation among Board members.
During this time, some members of the Board emphasized the expected environmental benefits of the proposal, suggesting that targeted action regarding automobile emissions would be the state’s best bet for reducing the degree to which Maine negatively impacts the environment, given that this has been estimated to be the state’s largest source of carbon emissions.
It was also noted Wednesday that if the Board were to adopt these rules, there would be a number of opportunities to reevaluate the program over the next few years, and the state would theoretically retain the ability to reverse this regulation at any point if it were deemed inappropriate or unfeasible at a later date.
Others on the Board brought to the forefront a variety of concerns that Mainers have raised over the past few months with regard to this proposal, including a lack of charging infrastructure, insufficient electrical grid capacity, accessibility for lower income Mainers, decreased functionality in cold weather, and government interference with market forces.
Although numerous technological advances alleviating a handful of these concerns have been promised, members of the Board expressed discomfort in moving forward with these rule changes given that so many uncertainties are still on the table.
Board members also questioned if it would be realistic to expect the Maine to go from having only a small percentage of new car sales be comprised of EVs to increasing this share to 51 percent over the course of just a few years.
At the close of Wednesday’s meeting, the Maine BEP brought months of deliberation over the controversial EV mandate to a close, voting 4-2 in opposition to adopting the proposal.
BEP Executive Analyst William F. Hinkel told the Maine Wire that Board members Steve Pelletier and Barbara Vickery voted in favor of the rule change, while Bob Duchesne, Rob Sanford, Bob Marvinney, and Susan Lessard voted to reject the proposal.
Hinkel also noted that Sarah Alexander was absent during Wednesday’s meeting and did not participate in either vote.
The mandates were voted down……for now. Never trust these bureaucratic hacks and continue to keep an eye on them.
Thankful for all the pressure from the public. God is good. See what can happen when you stick to your guns?
Might not win ’em all, but better to try and win some than to stay home and lose everything.
To bad the EPA basically put rules in place to mandate EV’s nationwide.
I hope more than a little pressure was thrown at those on the BEP. Thank god they voted this way. I thought that being good lackeys they would back up Queen Mills. Glad I was wrong. Now I wonder what kind of scheme our beloved royalty will come up with to try and play this game another way. I hope she is upset over this. Serves her right for trying to do this foolishness without answering to the voters. Who does she think she is?
Ford Motor Company has lost billions of dollars on this craziness by building cars that only idiots want to buy. Ford dealers are crying because they have them on their lots and can’t sell them. Varney Ford in Newport has one that they put in every big newspaper ad. Near $50,000 price tag on it which is cheap for that trash. They said in their ad yesterday they had 8 of them on hand. Hahahahahaha! Ain’t selling EV’s a lot of fun guys? You think your buyers are stupid or something? Sucks to be you fools.
Don’t for a moment think these environmental whackos will stop at this setback. They never give up but will change their tactics and keep pressing on. They are ideologues who will try to force this crap upon us all.
It is very irritating to hear regulators beating around the bush as if the time to mandate EVs is coming, when critical-thinking scientists, engineers and philosophers don’t see carbon dioxide as a harmful pollutant. It is harmless at many, many times above present levels and has never been at high enough levels to be a planet change agent. It will always increase during a climate cycling warming interval and decrease during the cooling interval.
Leave it alone, government, people will be free to choose what they want to purchase for transportation.
For now we’re good. I guarantee it will be back next year and the year after that until it goes into effect. Leftty radicals are like young children who have not learned the lesson of the meaning of the word NO.
Steve Pelletier and Barbara Vickery MUST BE REPLACED.