By Sen. Brad Farrin

Several Maine environmental groups petitioned the Board of Environmental Protection to adopt California’s aggressive Advanced Clean Car and Truck rules for Maine. In doing so, the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Sierra Club and Conservation Law Foundation hope the Board will adopt the rules in pursuit of what can only be described as unrealistic environmental goals. Unfortunately, these environmental groups also risk upending Maine’s entire economy.

Hello, this is Senator Brad Farrin of Somerset County. I’m joining you today because while Republicans are just as concerned about our environment as these groups are, the adoption of these rules, particularly at this time, would be disastrous for Maine’s people.

First, Maine’s economy is not even comparable to California’s, a state that has almost 40 times our population and an annual household income 24% higher than we do. You could even argue that our energy costs are in fact higher than California’s, which is putting our state’s economy at risk.

Indeed, Mainers’ household budgets have been negatively impacted by high inflation, high interest rates and even higher electricity and energy costs the past two years. According to a recent study, cumulative inflation of about 16% since the beginning of 2021 has cost the average family $10,000 per year; and consumers are feeling it.

Just last week, the Federal Reserve said consumer credit card debt hit an all-time high of $1 trillion, indicating American families are struggling just to keep up with the current economy. When we talk about housing, higher interest rates have had an even greater impact.

And businesses aren’t much better off. The state’s record-low labor participation rate, wage pressures of those who are working, interest rates and supply chain issues have decimated margins for many companies, leaving very thin balance sheets as a result.

So yes, the state of our economy is not very good, which brings me back to the issue at hand – Maine adopting California’s zero emission vehicle standards and how that may push our fragile economy over the edge.

The new rules call for increasing the percentage of zero-emission vehicles sold in Maine in 2027. At least 15% of all new medium- and heavy-duty trucks and 43% of passenger vehicles sold that year in Maine would have to be electric. And the cost of these vehicles are $4,600 higher on average, according to Kelly Blue Book.

Cost aside, if you speak with any construction or transportation industry professional, most will say the proposed rule for new trucks is unreasonable, especially considering the need to travel hundreds of miles each day and handle the heavy loads they carry. Some delivery runs in rural Maine are more than 250 miles and payloads are thousands of pounds in excess of the weight of the batteries needed to even power these trucks.

And that’s if you can even get them. Consider the fact that the manufacturer of the electric buses used by Maine transit companies in southern Maine, Proterra Inc., just filed for bankruptcy. If you can buy them, electric buses cost about $1 million each, two to four times the cost of a comparable bus running on gasoline or propane.

Most alarming of all, however, are the unanswered questions that we would only have four years to solve: Do we have enough charging stations? Can our electric grid handle it? And with our current cost of electricity, can we even afford to charge these vehicles?

These arbitrary zero emission vehicle standards will do nothing but cost Maine’s consumers and companies extraordinary amounts of money and time, and harm our economy. It would be cruel to force this on Maine families now who are struggling just to pay their electric bills. And our companies may not be able to survive the extra costs.

That is my opinion, and I ask you to weigh in with yours. Go to maine.gov/DEP/rules and submit your own comments. Your opinion is valuable and the Board is accepting public comments from now until August 28.

Again, this has been Senator Brad Farrin of Somerset County. Thank you for listening.

Sen. Brad Farrin represents the communities of District 3. He is the Senate Republican Lead for the Legislature’s Transportation Committee.