Biden's new green big rig standards could bankrupt small business, 'Shark Tank's' Kevin O'Leary says
The Biden administration's stringent emissions standards for big rig trucks are based on technology that doesn't exist in a broad enough capacity and could cripple the small business economy, "Shark Tank" investor Kevin O'Leary told Fox News on Monday.
"Mr. Wonderful" told "The Story" the emissions mandate's timing is impossible to meet right now.
"We talk about this quite a bit in the sector of the economy where [there are] 5 to 500 employees, small businesses that use a lot of transportation services for consumer goods and services. There's no way this is going to work on that schedule," O'Leary said.
The EPA, under administrator Michael Regan, announced "technology-neutral and performance-based" emissions regulations Friday that will apply to model-year 2027 trucks and thereafter.
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"Building on our recently finalized rule for light- and medium-duty vehicles, EPA’s strong and durable vehicle standards respond to the urgency of the climate crisis by making deep cuts in emissions from the transportation sector," Regan said in a statement.
The new rules could lead to half of vocational trucks, and a quarter of long-haul tractor-trailers produced in 2032 being electric-powered.
"The batteries don't exist for this," O'Leary said Monday, claiming current EV-powered big rigs tend to average a maximum of 200 miles.
"That's not the definition of a long-haul transport… [It] won't work. The grid is woefully underserved."
While O'Leary said he didn't want to be a pessimist on the advent of the fledgling EV technology, he predicted the EPA will have to adjust its standards in the near-term or oversee a debilitating hit to the U.S. economy because of them.
He predicted the mandate will fall short of its goals within three years and that if it is not adjusted, "you basically bankrupt where 62% of jobs are created in America: small business."
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"We don't have the tech," he added. "So let's everybody wake up and smell the lithium batteries for a while – they don't work yet," O'Leary argued.
A trucking trade leader also told FOX Business the price of trucks is likely to triple if the mandate continues as-is.
"[That's] assuming they can get these electric trucks. They're not going to have a place to plug in. They're not going to have the power flowing through the infrastructure to charge," American Trucking Association president Chris Spear told FOX Business' Grady Trimble.
"They're going to be out of business," he said of smaller trucking outfits in particular.
However, some federal lawmakers praised the new emissions rule, with one Democrat calling them a "win-win for the planet and public health."
"It supports the United States in reaching President Biden’s ambitious climate goals while cleaning up the air we breathe," said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., in a statement released by the EPA.
"Today’s rule will be especially critical for disadvantaged communities located near freight corridors that are overburdened by air pollution, as well as the millions of children who are currently riding dirty diesel buses to school each day."