The U.S. Supreme Court’s historic ruling resulting in the Chevron deference overturned has created many questions, including: can you delete your diesel truck and will the EV push by the EPA be reversed?
In the video, Publisher Tim Esterdahl interviews Karen-Bailey Chapman, Senior Vice President, Public and Government Affairs for the Speciality Equipment Market Association (SEMA) and Chris Harto, Senior Policy Analyst, Consumer Reports.
Throughout this interview, they discuss what Chevron Deference doctrine meant, what happens now, and what this ruling means for diesel emissions and electric vehicles.
Video transcript:
00:00
this just might be the biggest change in Automotive in the past 40 years and people aren’t really talking about it hey it’s Tim pickup truck plus as should be talk in this video we’re going to talk about Chevron we’re going to talk about this law president was in place from the Supreme Court and it basically the law came out to be that they took the power away from the judges and they put it in the hands of agencies so what the Chevron Doctrine said was that in the case of a law that’s not very
00:27
specific a general law that’s know ambiguous that the agency experts could go ahead and decide what that law actually meant and implement it it allowed agencies like the EPA to expand in areas that caused a lot of controversy people a lot of people were concerned that the EPA was abusing its power and going above and beyond what the Congress had actually said was their job so it’s creating a lot of of questions out there I’ve seen some videos I’ve seen conversations online people talking about can they just
00:57
delete their diesels now because the EPA doesn’t have power over that emissions or can they get away from all this uh turbocharged v6s can we go back to V8s there seems like a lot of controversy about this and so I reached out to two experts we’re going to hear in this video from Karen Bailey Chapman she’s a senior vice president of public and government Affairs for the specially equipment Market Association I want to make sure I say SEMA correctly also known as SEMA we’re also going to hear
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from Chris harto he is a senior policy analyst with Consumer Reports both of these people have Decades of experience looking at public policy seeing what’s going on in the realm of the laws and implementations in the automotive industry and they have some really interesting things to say about Chevron there are two interviews I’m going to go and try to merge these best I can in my editing skills and give you guys a really good idea of where we’re at right now and where we could be in the future as Chevron has been overturned and now
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I’m joined by Karen Bailey Chapman she’s a senior vice president public and government Affairs for the specialy equipment Market Association welcome Karen morning Tim so I’m curious does that all fit in the business card uh it does actually really small font but it fits I love these titles I always these titles crack I know so uh SEMA and I’ve been to the SEMA show I’ve been a part of um of the group in different years but for those who don’t know SEMA is a uh was you have the the bio right here
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what I miss but it basically it works with the small businesses in the automotive space protect their rights and to make sure they can go to Marketplace and not be hampered by like ations which is what we’re talking about today look at that segue wow I’m on point it’s amazing um and now I’m seeing questions online I’m seeing videos guys are like hey I’m gonna go delete my diesel because now Chevron doesn’t exist anymore and I’m gonna go ahead do this and do that and I’m like well hold on a
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minute the world changed but it didn’t change change right so uh as as you wrote this little thing it says when what the overturning of Sheron does not allow people to do is break the law the law is a law still a law right that’s that’s my phrase I walk around the office saying the law is a law the law is a law so what do you making these people that they’re saying hey I can delete my diesel now because chevron’s not in in enforcement anymore and EPA definitely outstep their bounds and we
03:15
got to get back to 1970s emissions right I mean look I appreciate the enthusiasm and the fact is it is it is a an historic decision by the Supreme Court um but you know to to go back to the catchphrase the law is still the law so it did not turn the Clean Air Act it did not it did not overturn the laws that prevent us from using delete systems or or eliminating the emission systems so um but what it does do is just change how anybody that is enforced against uh with regard to to these systems and how it’s it’s viewed with within the courts
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and how it’s handled within the courts uh versus before all right I’m joined by Chris harto senior policy analyst Ekans reports and we’re talking more about Chevron uh I I’m just really curious about your thoughts on this because it just passed and seeing videos people saying I’m going to delete my diesel tomorrow and I’m G to get rid of all this stuff the EPA has no claim over this stuff anymore and because Chevron has changed the back the way the rule of law should be with the Constitution I’m
04:11
gonna go Ahad and delete my stuff so when you hear that do you go oh wait hold on or you go oh well yeah yeah definitely don’t do that um Che the the case uh the Looper break case uh which which overturns the Chevron Doctrine does not immediately change any regulation on the books uh it it all it does is is potentially make it easier in the future uh for um for lawsuits to uh change or or overturn certain certain regulations um so unless you want to be the guinea pig uh Guinea big case uh that tries to overturn turn
04:53
that and spend the next two or three years in in court trying to to fight it I I wouldn’t recommend uh uh doing that right now what else should people know about deleting their diesels yeah so so again the this case this this Looper braak case is really about agency interpretation of the law uh and and the the Clean Air Act is actually very clear about tampering with emissions controls the law says very specifically that it is prohibited to tamper with your vehicle and so even with this this case the court courts are unlikely to say
05:30
that it’s okay for you to tamper with the emissions controls on your vehicles that’s probably going to require an AC of Congress to change that if you want to be able to continue to do that so I mean looking at your information and you did a article on the big day and how was overturned um there’s a lot of like questions now moving forward what is this what is this what’s it mean for you know I think we have two pieces here we have the what’s already in place and we we know that emissions related equipment
06:00
was in the 1970s Clean Air Act they had they had way to do that then they redid the inflation reduction act and added greenhouse gas wording in there as well so EPA seems like they’re they’re pretty much set where they’re at we’re not going to roll that back right well I mean that’s actually being you know especially with the newer regulations especially the tailpipe emission standards that they finalized earlier this year uh this is going to give a different perspective um from the court
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systems in terms of the challenges that are being brought forward with the new new emissions or the new Mission standards that have been released by the by the EPA but kind of stepping back a moment here and saying okay so what is this do so what was the Chevron Doctrine right and so the Chevron Doctrine was 40 Years of legal precedent that basically gave courts or you required courts to give deference uh or defer to the federal agencies that when the law was either silent or ambiguous that if the agency kind of filled in the blanks the
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court gave deference to that so the overturning of Chevron takes that away from sort of that precedent and so what does that mean for our industry that means now whenever you have a challenge to um to a law uh where say our industry says it’s this way and the EPA says no it’s that way uh when we go to the courts now the courts must say no this is actually what the law says so if you filled in the if Federal agency you filled in the blanks or the law was kind of ambiguous and you filled in the blanks or unigui it sorry it’s a word I
07:34
make up words uh if you unigui it um the Court’s no longer required to say oh okay Federal agency we have to defer to what you say the courts have to go back and say no the law said this and so then the courts make that decision so in it if you know sort of in simply put it kind of gives our industry a better day in court and more of that opportunity in court uh whenever there’s a challenge between what we believe versus what say a federal agency is saying it should be um writing the article I was looking up
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the inflation reduction acttion I was like well this along with the changes to the Clean Air Act over the years says emissions and greenhouse gases as part of the EA’s job yeah yeah and you really what this what this case says is you know you have to stay you know the agencies need to stay within those bounds of of what it says when it’s a little bit unclear than the courts can weigh in in you know used to be they they said well the agency knows what they’re doing uh we’re going to defer to what whatever their interpretation is of
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that whatever this you know statement in the law that maybe is a little bit unclear or vague um now it says no that’s not the case it’s actually um you know the Court’s role to determine what what that vague language means and where the line is on what you can and can’t do as a regulatory agency um so it doesn’t yeah it just it shifts the burden of proof really a little bit away from the agency um but it doesn’t you know if the law says you can’t delete your pickup truck then you can’t delete your pickup truck
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and actually in some ways this case could make it worse because uh you know EPA has stated and has chosen to you know only selectively enforce this this law they they’ve said they’re not going to enforce it on race cars or or off-road vehicles um you know that they’re not going to go after you know Jeff who who lives in Oklahoma in in his driveway they’re not going to go after him they’re they’re Focus on on some narrow enforcement uh you know an environmental NGO could sue and say actually the law says this is illegal
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EPA choosing not to enforce this law more broadly is the problem uh is a problem and you know the law is very clear clear that this is illegal so choosing to not to enforce it on some people could like this could actually um you know come back to make it even worse in in the case of delete devices um like the chevron case itself the original case was the oil company Chevron suing uh I like it was it was a EPA wanted to set a weak standard um and the court said no you are basically it it gave the the agency the the authority to um set a weaker
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standard than Maybe it should have um like it said oh we defer to the agency um in a case that there was it was actually a deregulatory case where they were trying to weaken rules um and the court said yeah okay you can you can do that and we’re g to defer to the agency’s judgment on on this versus no the law say yeah anyway it’s it’s interesting so it it can cut both ways in terms of uh whether it leads to deregulation or or increased regulation depending on the you know how that um you know what the history is and what
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the law says and how it all plays out in court so have you been uh have you been surprised at the amount of attention the chevron case getting right now I mean you’ve been interviewed I’m assuming a couple times I’m doing an interview people are talking about um not really I mean it is a big change it’s a bit you know it’s something that’s been in in place for 40 years um it’s been been kind of the law of the land and it’s been used in hundreds of different cases um so it it is a shift it is like it
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definitely leans in general in the deregulatory uh Direction um you know it is I think there’s you know I work mostly on cars and and uh um Emissions on the emission side of things I think where it maybe gets a little trickier is my my colleagues who work on the safety side um and you know some of those uh statutes are a little more vague um you know it just depends on where in the regulatory space you are like how how risky it is and how how much it changes but um it certainly means you know there’s always the lawsuits but I think
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there’s more chance of some of those lawsuits uh being successful um yeah no I I mean I’m Fallen pretty close because of my audience and my outlet covering trucks exclusively and SUVs um and I you know it’s I’ve had a few friends reach out with the news and they all celebrating I’m like like like I told you earlier that’s I don’t think that’s the case like I think you’re yeah I mean I think it’s been a little bit overblown on both sides both uh you know the the pro- regulatory side you know panicking
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and the anti-regulatory side um kind of celebrating and being like Oh it’s you know it’s Anarchy we can do whatever we want you know nothing you know none of this stuff matters anymore like that’s that’s not what it says um and you know what it probably means from a legal perspective is it matters a lot more which judge you get so there’s a lot of like you know which which court does does the case go to it gives a lot more uh are courts have become more polarized unfortunately uh and politicized in a in
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a not very productive way um in both directions and uh so you know it kind of it get it just gives more power to those judges to to make determinations uh that they might not have previously had the the authority to do you know and one of the things that I’ve been seeing that’s been kind of you guys talk about it as well um preserving the choice and vehicle Purchase Act it’s a federal Bill and what you’re looking at is California there’s been a lot of waivers in recent years the California EPA has given them
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different waivers the California a Resource Board basically sets some higher emission standards in the rest of the country other states adopt it it seems like that is a point of contention that is something that would be could be challenged in court because I don’t as as far as the audience knows is a good example of this because I don’t recall that the EPA has the power to give those waivers in the in the law well I mean that’s I think what what we’re going to start to see in the court systems and
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testing in testing that theory look under the Clean Air Act California was allowed to make its own rules because their emission systems their emission standards predated actually the federal they also have some unique geographies dealing with Smog and and whatnot with with the mountains and the ocean and sort of how that all in the harbors so so they they were given that permission there are questions as to the now 16 other states that have attached themselves to California emission standard saying okay is that actually
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legal and I think we may see that challenged in the courts um but it ALS goes back to really what the federal government recently did this this sum this spring when they um you know put out the final rules with regards to tailpipe emissions that’s actually being challenged in the courts and that will now with the overturn of Chevron it’s going to force the courts to to take a different look at this and not give difference uh to the EPA um I actually just saw an article this morning come across my desk where um the
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DC Circuit Court which is where the first it’s the first line of courts that you have to go to when you challenge a Federal agency they’ve actually gone and said we actually need new briefs on an issue related to actually tailpipe emissions as well as the fuel economy standards that the government’s pushed this is up till model year 26 so it’s the previous set of of um emission standards that would put put forward um they said we need to get this sort of rebrief um by the parties because of the Chevron Defence or
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because of the overturn of the Chevron of of the Chevron Defence so so we’re already seeing it you know just a couple weeks later um since that Court uh since that Court decision um saying okay the courts have to now start to look at this differently I I just I thought that that was the emission stuff and tailpipe emissions was part of the Clean Air Act was the epa’s rule in doing that so if if they’re I’m not a legal scholar at all but I’m just thinking we’re challenging that moving forward doesn’t
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that make bigger changes in the past well what it actually does is that we’re we’re s you see the litigation starting to play out with the current standards that were put forward is the fact that the government actually can’t choose the technology they can’t say you can choose you can use this technology but not that technology uh I think that’s the big thing with the California um with the California acc2 which is the complete elimination of the internal combustion engine that’s an elimination of
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Technology um we don’t believe the authority was given to the EPA to choose one technology over the other they can set standards but you can’t eliminate Technologies and speaking of the the Technologies and things do you think I’ve I’ve seen people do some videos and articles about how this reduces the EV mandate push they feeling they feel like that met government has an EV mandate it’s going to go all EVs and they feel like this may overturn that push well I think I mean we believe that this
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actually um we have good we have a good chance of overturning um what’s been put in place I mean there’s both obviously the legal the legal fight over whether or not the EPA could choose uh to make the regulations mandating one technology of another um but then there’s also the political uh the political outcomes it’s obviously a top issue in the in the presidential campaigns right now um it’s one of the probably top three issues that you see mentioned uh so you’re seeing it played out sort of in both
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parts of our government both on the political side as well as on the judicial side yeah I mean there’s a lot of people that are really enthusiastic about this changing ruling there’s been a lot of thought over the years that the EPA has been moving way too fast and if you look at the last 20 years of trucks A lot’s changed right so we have diesel emissions we have small displacement V6 engines we have multi-speed Transmissions we have a focus on co2 and greenhouse gas emissions uh do you see like a a big like court case going
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forward all that kind of stuff or do you think we’ll just have a period of of calm has the EPA had enough regulations passed last couple years to update the Clean Air Act that they’re F or where do you think we’re at with that uh I mean you know I think I think we we’ve definitely seen a lot of lot of new regulations uh passed uh during this Administration um you know I you know we’ll we’ll see what what happens you know over the next four years I certainly could you know they’ve they’ve done a lot and there’s
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probably a period of pause on on significant new vehicle regulations uh coming up but uh definitely going to be a lot of uh a lot of fights in court over the regulations that have been uh passed uh over the past three or four years um you know pretty much every rule that EPA ever writes get challenged by somebody whether it’s the Auto industry whether it’s the oil industry um you know there’s always a lawsuit yeah and and you have a quote here in Auto news that jumped out to me it says the cafe standards will push
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some improvement to the fleet Cafe as corporate average field economy but the rate of improvement for the fleet would decline significantly at least what is required by regulation you’re going from a standard as pushing pretty significant amounts of electrification to Marginal improvements year-over-year I think that’s people’s takeaway has been like this EV push from the government is not going to be substantiated by the Clean Air Act and not from the changes happened to that and so Chevron returned uh you know I that that again
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will be be something that’ll be litigated by the court but um yeah and and sort of we have these two sources of regulation for for light duty Vehicles we have the uh Department of Transportation corporate average fuel economy rule which is really very narrowly focused on the fuel economy of gasoline powered vehicles um and then you have epa’s emission standards which you know include not just greenhouse gases but um particulate emissions KNX uh other harmful pollutants um that are you know are allowed to to include
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electric vehicles and and push you know what what you know they’re allowed to set the rules based on the technology that’s available in in the market um you know and certainly some of this will be be fought out in the court in terms of you know how far EPA is is allowed to go with those regulations or not and so you guys have 7,000 member companies what’s your sense on the companies’s your your membership’s viewpoint on this are they excited for the overturning are they like uh I don’t think it’s going to
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change anything you know kind of so so where you at with this no I think people are pretty heartened it’s it’s nice to finally feel like we’ve got a bit of a win um because the industry has been sort of felt I think to be under attack for several years now um but you know just to put it into into a numbers perspective the the industry that we represent specialty automotive aftermarket industry were a $337 billion impact to the US economy so then breaking that down a little bit further 33% of our members are internal
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combustion engine dependent so they make parts that are only internal combustion engin so it’s you know wheels and tires not impacted if you do reupholstering you do stereo systems you paint not impacted but 33% are ice dependent um so what is that translate to that’s over a 100 thousand excuse me hundred billion dollars of impact to the US economy that’s a risk when you think about our industry employs 1.
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3 million people across the country largely obviously in small businesses is that’s over 300,000 jobs that are at risk from small businesses so so our industry is obviously very concerned about the fact that this is a pretty significant impact given given the magnitude of of what we represent what we contribute to the US economy the jobs that we create and and our ability to continue forward W that’s that’s a lot of Moola it’s a lot of Moola or money or cash as kids called these days and so from the standpoint
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you guys talked a lot of consumers well Consumer Reports you talked a lot of consumers it’s in a name so I I’m just curious what kind of uh advice you giving consumers now that Chevron has been overturned are you doing a wait and see approach you’re saying Nothing’s Gonna you know it’s fine where we at with this yeah I mean I you know I think no nothing is changing overnight here uh what what the chevron case really means is that uh Regulators need to be very careful when they’re writing the
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regulations to make sure they’re staying within the bounds of the authority that Cong gave them uh it it probably means that Congress needs to be a little bit better at writing the laws a lot of times Congress gets a little lazy and they they write things in sort of uh wishy-washy vague language on purpose because they don’t want to have to take the time to um really narrow it down and be very specific um and so it just it means more work both on the regulatory side and in Congress when in in how you
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write these laws and how you write these regulations uh so it’s more of an overtime uh you know what what sort of shifts do we see okay what do you guys think of that it’s a pretty interesting interviews I was able to conduct and thank you both to Karen and to Chris and I was thinking as I was doing these interviews is this much to do about nothing or is it still a really big deal I it’s an interesting question in my head and I don’t know that came to conclusion but I’m curious if you guys
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did came to conclusion do you think this could be a massive change EPA or do you think it’s just going to be status quo moving forward I I just again I’m up in the air on this i’ be curious to read your comments also make sure you check out the videos on this channel over here website down below as well pickup trt talk.
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com as always thanks for watching I will see you down the road
