Trucking company sues to stop Pennsylvania from importing California’s regulations

Harrisburg, PA; June 13, 2023: Today, Peters Brothers, Inc. — a family-owned trucking company — filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania’s unlawful attempt to outsource regulations on truck sales to California regulators.

In 2002, the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board promulgated a regulation that incorporates California’s standards for heavy diesel engines — like those in commercial trucks — in perpetuity. As a result, when California recently adopted a new regulation requiring new engines to meet dramatically more stringent emissions standards, and requiring extended warranties, those rules automatically became the law in Pennsylvania as well.

“Pennsylvania cannot give away governing power to unelected bureaucrats in California,” said Luke Wake, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “Pennsylvanians should only be governed by their own representatives in the state legislature — no one in Pennsylvania ever consented to be ruled by the California Air Resources Board.”

State regulatory agencies cannot outsource rulemaking authority to government agencies in other states. Doing so subverts democratic accountability to the people and is an affront to our Constitution.

The case is Peters Brothers, Inc., et al., v. Penn DEP, et al., filed in The Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg, PA.