Automakers Defy Republicans To Back Stronger Emission Rules

A group of 5 automakers in the United States have decided to balk at Republican efforts to destroy California's vehicle emission rules by coming out publicly to support the legislation. The Trump administration had previously put the brakes on California's efforts to reduce emissions in their own state, but the Biden administration recently gave them the greenlight to do it, which prompted a lawsuit from multiple Republican-controlled states. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

A group of five auto makers here in the United States have decided to defy Republicans and come out publicly this past week to support the Biden administration's decision to allow the state of California to enact their own vehicle emission standards in an attempt to address climate change. Now there's some backstory in here. I've talked about it in the past. California had many years ago set their own standards. Aside from what the federal government had. They made their stricter, they wanted their vehicles to be cleaner, and they had that going until a few years ago, when Donald Trump said, Uhuh, you can't do that. And he took away their ability to do it. Biden came back and just a few months ago said, oh, hell no, California, you can have this back. You can do this. This is good. You can tell auto makers that they have to make cleaner vehicles in your state.

Well, 17 Republican attorneys, general. Um, which still sounds weird to say, but yes, that is the plural of that attorneys. General 17 of them got together recently to Sue the state of California saying, how dare you? How dare you try to make the air a little clearer in California? How dare you try to keep people healthy. This is unfair to the auto makers and to the other states. And that of course is where the auto makers come in, because now you've got Ford Volkswagen, BMW, Honda in Volvo coming out and saying, Hey, actually, we're good with this. Like we like this. We've actually signed an agreement that we're willing to do this in the state of California. And they've filed this by the way, in support of the motion that Republicans are suing for. So when you have the very industry that is affected by this rule, coming out against your own lawsuit, willing to go to the mat in court against you, you've already lost your case.

Now in a normal world, you've already lost your case. We don't live in a normal country, right? We have disgusting partisan judges, some of whom have been funded by the fossil fuel industry and the, uh, places where judges are elected. And so this case is probably gonna go to trial and it has a good chance of actually succeeding. But again, in a normal country, if we didn't have such a partisan judiciary, the judge would look at this and say, okay, well, you're saying it's unfair, but the people that it affects say, it's totally cool. They like it. I'm gonna throw this case out because there's no injury. And that is exactly what should happen. These attorneys general do not have any provable injury. When the alleged injured party says, actually I like this. I, I want to do this. We've signed onto it. And we need all the other lawmakers to do it too. If anything, we are the ones that should be suing the other auto in, uh, makers for not being on board with

This. But it is what it is. Republicans continue to fight for dirt or air for sicker people, for lung problems, for pollution, for global warming and all of that, because Republicans just don't care. This is all symbolic, right? They have no dog in the fight. They got nothing to lose from this. They're just doing it because it's a positive step forward that the country is making and nothing scares Republicans more than forward progress.