During his first year as Minnesota's governor, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz took executive action to adopt California's electric vehicle regulations in the state, bypassing the Legislature in a move that lawmakers and auto dealers argue violated state statute.
"If Washington won't lead on climate, Minnesota will," Walz remarked on Sept. 25, 2019.
Walz's comments came after he directed the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the state's lead environmental regulator, to craft a "clean cars" rule similar to California's Advanced Clean Cars program. Under federal law, California may receive a waiver authorizing it to implement stricter emissions standards than the federal government.
Walz ultimately outlined a plan to force new gasoline-powered vehicles to produce far fewer emissions and mandate automakers to deliver more electric vehicles to dealers in the state beginning in 2024. And he took the action without consulting Minnesota's Legislature, by leveraging a little-known provision in a piece of legislation passed years earlier.
The aggressive action by Walz, whom Kamala Harris named her running mate earlier this week, indicates that he is willing to push climate measures regardless of potential legal hurdles. And it may foreshadow how a Harris-Walz administration could broadly pursue a climate and green energy agenda at the federal level.
"Governor Walz has never seen a California energy policy that he did not try to implement in the state of Minnesota," Isaac Orr, a Minnesota-based energy expert, said in an interview.
"There's been a concerted effort from the Walz administration to mandate that auto dealers stock electric vehicles on their lots. It adopted the California zero-emission vehicle mandate, and that was through the administrative rule making process," Orr continued. "He didn't even want that to go to the legislature, because he knew that he couldn't get it passed through the legislature."
Minnesota's clean cars rule was formally adopted in July 2021, making the state the 14th to follow California's lead. The regulations went into effect this year for model year 2025 and are projected to lead to a more than 200 percent increase in electric vehicle sales, according to the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.
When asked about the potential negative implications of forcing more electric vehicle sales after the rule was finalized, Walz told reporters that the "sky did not fall" when other states adopted their clean cars programs, the Associated Press reported. In recent months, though, automakers have reported significant losses in their electric vehicle businesses as sales have slowed.
The rule was loudly opposed by GOP state lawmakers and faced a legal challenge from the Minnesota Auto Dealers Association, which argued Walz had illegally given the state's authority on emissions regulations to California regulators.
"Governor Walz unilaterally imposed California emission standards on Minnesota via administrative rule," Minnesota Auto Dealers Association president Scott Lambert told the Washington Free Beacon. "He bypassed the legislature completely."
"I don't believe the Governor understands the rule he implemented, and I believe he has been misinformed by his own agency," Lambert said. "The fact that he is kept so insulated and away from contrary opinions is concerning."
Lambert added that, for six years, his organization has requested meetings with Walz but has been stymied by the governor's office. He also said the governor has, during that same time span, blamed scheduling conflicts for never attending the group's auto show, where the group touts "how the industry is promoting EVs without government-imposed mandates."
In 2022, the Minnesota Auto Dealers Association challenged the state's clean cars rule and warned that the regulations were anti-consumer and would lead to large quantities of unsold inventories on auto dealership lots. Months later, an appeals court ruled that the state is allowed to adopt the California standards and that the Walz administration hadn't violated a statute.
The group also unsuccessfully challenged the rule in federal court. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
"Tim Walz bypassed the legislature to impose expensive California style vehicle mandates that have driven up the cost of cars, and has teamed up with Kamala Harris who wants to get rid of gas powered vehicles," Minnesota House minority leader Lisa Demuth (R.) said in a statement. "Democrats have blocked every effort here in Minnesota to roll back these unpopular mandates. Americans need to reject these extreme and expensive policies and vote against Harris and Walz this November."
"I don't think it would have passed in the legislature, basically adopting the California automobile standards. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work for Minnesota," Republican state representative Dean Urdahl told the Free Beacon in an interview. "My constituents are very concerned."
Overall, between January and March, just 9.3 percent of light-duty vehicles sold in the United States were either plug-in hybrid or battery-electric, a decline from 10.2 percent in the final quarter of 2023, according to data released last month by the auto industry association Alliance for Automotive Innovation. Battery-electric sales dropped nearly 1 percentage point year-over-year, the data showed.
In Minnesota, just 6.5 percent of new car sales were electric, the data showed, placing the state behind several others without electric vehicle mandates, such as Utah and Florida.
At the same time, major auto manufacturers—including General Motors, Ford, and Volkswagen—have also announced plans to substantially scale back EV production amid the considerable economic roadblocks facing the sector.
Automakers lose around $6,000 on every single EV they sell for $50,000, a March study conducted by Boston Consulting Group concluded. The average EV transaction price is $56,371, nearly $8,000 more than the average transaction price of gas-powered vehicles, according to the most recent Kelley Blue Book data.
The Harris-Walz campaign didn't respond to a request for comment.