Sacramento, CA – With its upcoming Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) regulatory package, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) threatens to further burden California’s consumers and businesses with expensive and unachievable new mandates. ACF ignores the realities of California’s increasingly over-taxed grid, while the cost of the proposal poses a significant threat to all California businesses and would damage many small, family and minority owned businesses at the worst possible time.

The ACF mandate follows CARB’s Advanced Clean Cars II (ACCII) rule, which was approved just last August. Together, both ACCII and ACF would add more demand to a grid that is already struggling to provide enough energy. Just days after adopting the ACCII regulation, the State issued a flex alert asking Californians to avoid charging their electric vehicles to help avoid a catastrophic blackout. The increasing demand on our electrical grid in such a short timeframe is unsustainable and will lead to severe, unintended consequences.

Even worse, the electric trucks on (or coming to) the market do not come close to providing the capability to support the needs of the trucking industry. Electric big rigs do not have the battery capacity, range, or charging efficiency to meet the demands of today’s fast-paced trucking industry. The likelihood that we see EV trucks capable of long hauls, up steep grades, by the time CARB’s new mandate goes into place is highly unlikely.

CARB’s ACF proposal is particularly harmful to small, family, and minority owned businesses across the state. CARB’s own analysis acknowledges that, if implemented, the regulation could lead to the elimination of businesses including, “gasoline stations and vehicle repair businesses.” This comes at the same time gas stations are investing in new, cleaner, alternative fuels that can meet the demands of heavy-duty trucks and can burn 90% to 95% cleaner than traditional diesel at a much lower cost. CARB has repeatedly ignored renewable diesel and instead plans to move forward with an expensive mandate on technology that doesn’t exist.

“I continue to be extremely disappointed by CARB’s willingness to impose new, expensive, and unrealistic mandates on Californians,” said Elizabeth Graham, Executive Director of the California Fuels and Convenience Alliance. “Ultimately, like so many other mandates adopted by CARB, it will be consumers that bear the costs of onerous regulations like ACF. What makes this regulation more painful is that it arrives at precisely the same time Californians are battling with unprecedented inflation that is reducing their standard of living. ACF will unnecessarily and drastically raise cost on all business to achieve climate goals that can be realized through other methods. We urge CARB to reject this proposal and bring industry to the table to achieve realistic solutions to the issues of today.”