Attorney General Todd Rokita: ‘California liberals should not set environmental policy for Indiana’

INDIANA – Attorney General Todd Rokita Thursday expressed his strong objection to new standards on greenhouse gas emissions proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which are based on a unique consideration of California priorities.

Todd Rokita

“These proposed new standards completely disregard the distinct conditions and economies of the individual states, and they neglect important national interests critical to America as a whole,” Attorney General Rokita said. “President Biden’s EPA bureaucrats openly admit that they developed the new rule with a special focus on California. On behalf of Hoosiers, I contend that California liberals should not set environmental policy for Indiana and the rest of the nation.”

Attorney General Rokita and 15 other attorneys general submitted a letter to the EPA registering their adamant concerns regarding the EPA’s notice of proposed rulemaking titled, “Revised 2023 and Later Model Year Light-Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards.”

“California’s unconstitutional favoritism under the Clean Air Act, and attempted domination of federal policy, is not a valid basis for promulgating nationwide emissions standards,” states the Ohio-led letter. “Moreover, the proposed standards rest on an overly speculative cost-benefit analysis and entirely fail to consider how reliance on China for raw materials and manufacturing will harm our national security.”

By granting California special status, the letter states, the Clean Air Act itself “violates the doctrine of equal sovereignty — a doctrine inherent in our Constitution and express in Supreme Court precedent — by allowing California to exercise sovereign authority that the Act takes from every other State.”

The letter is attached.