Several environmental groups have sued the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Maine Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) for allegedly failing to do enough to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the state.
Involved in the lawsuit are the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), Sierra Club, and Maine Youth Action (MYA).
These organizations are pursuing legal action against the Maine DEP and BEP for not adopting California’s Advanced Clean Cars II Program, which would have mandated that 82 percent of new car sales in the state be comprised of zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs) by model year 2032.
[RELATED: Maine BEP Rejects Controversial EV Mandate]
The Plaintiffs are asking the Cumberland County Superior Court to declare that the State’s decision to reject this mandate was “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.”
These groups are also seeking to have the Court require the State to adopt the Advanced Clean Cars II Program, or a comparable alternative, by November 1 of this year.
[RELATED: Maine Lawmakers Will Now Have the Final Say Over Agency Rulemaking Related to Potential EV Mandates]
The CLF, Sierra Club, and MYA state in their filing that they have brought this suit in an effort “to compel the Defendants to carry out their statutory obligation to promulgate regulations necessary to ensure compliance with Maine’s climate requirements set forth in [state law].”
Maine’s Climate Law — 38 M.R.S. §576-A – §577-A — requires the state to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions to less than 45 percent of 1990 levels by 2030. The law further requires that emissions be reduced to below 80 percent of this threshold by 2050.
These environmental organizations allege in their suit that the Maine DEP and BEP are in violation of this law because they have “abdicated” their “statutory obligation” by repeatedly rejecting rules aimed at “transportation decarbonization.”
Because the transportation sector has been identified as the primary contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in Maine, the Plaintiffs argue that the state is obligated to take steps specifically aimed at reducing the environmental impact of this sector.
According to the Plaintiffs’ filing, the Defendants have only adopted two rules related to Maine’s Climate Law, both of which were aimed at “narrow slices” of the building sector.
These groups contend that the Board and Department’s “failure or refusal to fulfill their obligations” — and their rejection of the EV mandate in particular — “have harmed and will continue to harm a variety of [their] interests,” including their “economic, property, health, and professional interests.”
More specifically, the defendants allege that they have suffered: “property and financial impacts due to sea level rise and other climate change effects; impacts on winter recreational activities that are snow- or ice- dependent; negative health impacts from elongated and worsened allergy seasons; consumer harm from lack of choice of affordable [ZEVs] in Maine; and harm to their businesses that are dependent upon availability of [EVs] in Maine.”
In 2019, An Act to Promote Clean Energy Jobs and to Establish the Maine Climate Counsel was signed into law, setting statutory goals for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the state.
This law also directed the newly-formed Climate Counsel to develop an updated action plan for achieving these benchmarks every four years.
The first of these four-year plans — released in December of 2020 and titled Maine Won’t Wait — found “a potential compliance pathway” that would allow the state to achieve its 2030 and 2050 goals through “a largely electrified transportation and building sector, combined with a transition to a clean electricity sector.”
According to this report, the transportation sector was found to be responsible for producing about 54 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The report went on to declare that the “most significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in [this sector] will come through the long-term and large-scale electrification of our transportation systems.”
On March 30, 2021, Gov. Janet Mills (D) issued an executive order directing the Governor’s Energy Office (GEO) and the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future (GOPIF) to “develop and implement a roadmap” that would “accelerate the widespread adoption of [EVs], plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and other clean transportation technologies in Maine.”
[RELATED: Electric Vehicle Mandate Slated for March Hearing as Mills Touts EV Charger Investments]
As a result of this, the Maine Clean Transportation Roadmap was released in December of 2021, making a number of suggestions for how to create a “favorable environment” for increased EV usage in the state, including expanded EV charging and increased “education and awareness.”
“However,” the CLF, Sierra Club, and MYA state in their lawsuit, “the EV Roadmap only endorses two recommendations for bringing more EVs into Maine and directly increasing EV adoption to meet Maine Won’t Wait’s transportation goals and achieving Maine’s Climate law’s requirements: adopt the Advanced Clean Cars II rule and adopt the Advanced Clean Trucks rules.”
Similar to the Advanced Clean Cars II rule, the Advanced Clean Trucks rules would mandate that anywhere from 40 percent to 75 percent of new medium- and heavy-duty truck sales be comprised of ZEVs by model year 2035, depending upon the vehicle’s class.
[RELATED: Maine Considering California-style Rules to Limit Sales of Gas-Powered Cars and Trucks]
The Plaintiffs go on explain that Maine is one of thirteen states to have previously adopted California’s Advanced Clean Cars I Program, a set of rules that are applicable through model year 2025.
Twelve states, plus Washington DC, have moved to adopt California’s Advanced Clean Cars II Program, and ten states have adopted the Advanced Clean Trucks Program.
The CLF, Sierra Club, and MYA have filed four counts against the Maine DEP and Maine BEP.
The first of these states that the Plaintiffs are “aggrieved by the failure or refusal of Defendants to fulfill their obligations under Maine’s Climate Law” by not “adopt[ing] rules to ensure compliance” with this statute.
The second count makes this same claim with respect to the Defendants’ failure to adopt rules that are “consistent” with Maine Won’t Wait or that “prioritize greenhouse gas emissions reductions by sectors that are the most significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions.”
The third count alleges that by rejecting the controversial EV mandate — “based on factors that are unsupported by the record” — the Maine DEP and BEP “acted in a way that was arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.”
The fourth and final count contends that the Plaintiffs are “aggrieved” by the State’s decision to not adopt the Advanced Clean Cars II rule because it “was necessary to ‘ensure compliance’ with the emissions requirements in Maine’s Climate Law.”
As a consequence of these allegations, the CLF, Sierra Club, and MYA are asking the Court to make several declarations and to compel the Maine BEP to “adopt rules ensuring compliance with Maine’s Climate Law requirements, prioritizing emissions from transportation, and consistent with Maine Won’t Wait” by November 1, 2024.
Also by this date, the Plaintiffs have asked the Court to order the Maine BEP to adopt the Advanced Clean Cars II rule, “or an alternative rule that reduces emissions from the transportation sector consistent with Maine’s Climate Law.”
Click Here to Read the Full Lawsuit
The Maine Wire reached out to Deputy Commissioner David R. Madore of the Maine DEP and was informed that neither the Department nor the Board comments on pending litigation.
