“So much of what we need to achieve in Massachusetts is based on the availability of these electric vehicles,” said Anna Vanderspek, electric vehicle program manager at the Green Energy Consumers Alliance.
As of 2021, the most recent year of data, the state had reduced emissions by 28 percent.
Massachusetts’ new program would require dealers to make sure 35 percent of the model 2026 cars they sell are electric. Each year, the amount of EVs required to be sold would increase until 2035, when all new vehicles in Massachusetts are required to be electric, as per state law.
In the final quarter of 2024, more than 14 percent of all new vehicles sold in Massachusetts were electric, according to data from the Alliance for Automative Innovation. It’s progress compared to past years, but there’s still far to go.
On Thursday, House Republicans in Washington voted through a resolution to stop that. Massachusetts is able to regulate tailpipe standards thanks to a special federal waiver given to California, which allows it to go beyond federal standards and allows other states to follow suite. The California standard, adopted by Massachusetts and over a dozen other states, is called the Advanced Clean Cars II program.
Next, the resolution will travel to the Senate, where success is far from certain. Both the Senate Parliamentarian — a nonpartisan position that advises the senate — and the Government Accountability Office, have ruled that Congress cannot revoke the waivers.
Just as Republicans in Washington are trying to undo the push for more EVs, the auto industry is also mounting a pressure campaign at the federal and state level.
“Fossil fuel interests have been against any sort of clean car or efficiency rules for decades now, and we’re also seeing some of the automakers push back pretty strongly,” said David Reichmuth, senior scientist in the Clean Transportation program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
That push back includes support from a key trade association, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which sent a letter to Congress this week opposing the clean car rule.
“Allowing these gas vehicle bans (something never attempted before in the United States) to proceed will increase automobile prices and reduce vehicle choices for consumers across the country at precisely the same time they are adjusting to the marketplace shock of 25 percent tariffs on imported vehicles and auto parts,” John Bozzella, the organization’s president, wrote.
A spokesperson with the Alliance for Automotive Innovation declined an interview request from the Globe.
Here in the Bay State, Robert O’Koniewski, executive vice president of the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association, said his organization has been reaching out to lawmakers and the Healey administration to ask them to slow down.
The issue, he said, is that while some Massachusetts dealers are doing well with selling electric vehicles, others aren’t selling any at all. “Going from zero to 35 percent in one year is just not realistic,” he said. “It’s basic math.”
But if the state is going to slash sufficient climate-warming emissions, it’s imperative that the switch to EV speeds up, said Daniel Gatti, the former state director of clean transportation, and, he said, this program is the best way to do it.
“If you delay implementation of these standards, you’re talking about more gas vehicles on the road for 10, 15, 20 years,” he said. “It becomes much more challenging to meet our mandates, not just for 2030 but for 2035 for 2040.”
Massachusetts is far from alone in grappling with these questions. In early April, Maryland’s Governor Wes Moore walked back his state’s commitment to the program, stating that Maryland would not enforce it for the first two years.
In the event the program survives the federal effort to shut it down, it’s still not clear whether Massachusetts, or other states, will remain in the California protocol.
Massachusetts already decided it would not enforce a similar rule about electric heavy duty trucks following pressure from the industry and from cities and towns who were finding dealers unable to supply them with the trucks they needed.
Maria Hardiman, spokesperson for Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said the state is aware of concerns about the program. “We remain committed to working with all stakeholders on a path forward that eases the burden on car customers and dealerships, who are already being harmed by President Trump’s tariffs, while continuing to increase access to affordable electric vehicles and achieve our climate goals,” she said.
But without this program, it’s also not clear how the state will achieve its climate goals, which are legally mandated and have already been pushed farther out of reach by steps taken during the first months of the Trump administration.
In a state hearing on Wednesday, Representativ. Mark Cusack of Braintree — chair of the Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy — acknowledged that the state is “in the process of reviewing all of our climate and emission mandates, goals and plans” as a result of the Trump administration’s freezing of federal funds and pause on offshore wind leasing and permitting.
That adds another wrinkle to the electric car challenge, because switching to EVs alone does not eliminate emissions — the power they use to charge must come from clean, renewable sources too, and right now, half of New England’s grid is powered by natural gas.
It’s not clear where things will go from here, said Kathy Harris, clean vehicles director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who called the threats to electric vehicles “an unprecedented assault on the ability for states to act in a manner to protect their residents.”
She added: “What is important is that right now, states can continue to give the signal to the industry that they are supportive of this transition towards towards cleaner vehicles.”
Sabrina Shankman can be reached at sabrina.shankman@globe.com.
