As California moves ahead on electric vehicles, Missouri, other states try to pull plug

  California is moving closer to banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, but Missouri and 16 other states are trying to block the maneuver.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is running for U.S. Senate, is among a group of Republican attorneys general who filed a lawsuit in May seeking to overturn President Joe Biden’s decision to allow California to set its own vehicle emissions standards.

Schmitt said allowing California to issue its own rules could cost Missourians down the road.

“If California is able to set restrictive ‘gas emissions’ standards, manufacturing becomes astronomically expensive, and those additional costs are passed onto consumers, many of which are Missourians,” Schmitt said in announcing the lawsuit.

On Wednesday, a Schmitt spokesman said, “We will continue to fight California’s efforts to impose their radical policies on the rest of the country.”

In addition to Missouri, other states that have joined the lawsuit are Ohio, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and West Virginia...MORE