Politically Unstable: What is California’s ‘inefficient tire’ ban and why does it matter?

Video

Friday, August 28, 2026

OPINION:

Snow tires, mud tires, all-terrain tires — gone? California’s new efficiency standard could wipe out most of the tires on the market by 2033.

Marc Morano from ClimateDepot.com joins Kelly Sadler on Politically Unstable to explain the rule, the backlash from tire makers, and why this fight could spread far beyond California.

[SADLER] What is an inefficient tire? An inefficient tire to me is one that a tire that doesn’t roll.

[MORANO] That’s right. And all tires roll. No, what this is is they’re considering tires that are inefficient, meaning not aerodynamic enough, not fuel-mileage conscious enough. Doesn’t meet their specific requirements for carbon dioxide reduction. Their goal is to remove the equivalent of almost half a million cars off the road, you know, equivalent in CO2 reductions. That’s what’s going on behind this energy efficiency.

So when they say a noncompliant tire, say you got one from the factory that was just sort of your boring middle-of-the-road tire and you want to upgrade. So you have an SUV you want to upgrade to maybe a mud tire or an aggressive all-terrain. Well, hey. That’s not very good with resistance. That’s going to cause a lot more resistance with the road, i.e. more traction in that case, or even people who live in the mountains want snow tires. All sorts of specialty tires are going to be impacted.

And the tire manufacturers themselves say 70% of the tires currently sold in California may not be legal to be sold by the time this is fully implemented. That’s how insane this is. So it’s climate-focused, climate-motivated, and it’s unelected bean counters in California coming after just the next thing. I mean, they’ve already come after the pizza ovens, the gas stoves, the dishwashers, the washing machines, the dryers, the ceiling fans, gas-powered cars. Why not add tires to that list?

[SADLER] So what has been the response from the tire industry? Let’s say Goodyear, Bridgestone, Michelin, because it seems like they’re going to have to change their business model to deal with California. California has a huge economy; a lot of tires are sold in the state of California. What is the industry’s response, as well as the car dealerships and the car manufacturers, let’s say Ford?

[MORANO] Well, I can say no one likes this, and they’ve all been pushing hard against it. Dunlop Tire, Goodyear, they’re actually saying, as I said, 70% of the tires won’t be legal to be sold. And this is a huge business model problem. And California knows it. California dreaming is that they set environment, energy, climate policy for the rest of the country. And for years, they had that sort of terrorist role to be able to do that with the — starting with the California Air Resources Board — this is back now, and I think it was 2021 maybe, where they actually did the EV mandate and they started the slow gas-powered car ban.

And their goal was to force the auto manufacturers to follow, because California is such a big market. And then you add to that, you have other insane states that will likely follow, including Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York. A lot of these blue states will follow whatever. I live in Virginia and we have a law on the books that says whatever California does, Virginia will follow. So we had the California gas-powered car ban, EV mandate on our books just because we were blindly following California. It’s nuts.

And so this is huge. The tire manufacturers see what’s coming. What it really means, at least in the short term, is people leaving California to cross state lines to buy tires. Just like they’re probably buying tobacco, fireworks, gas, stoves- who knows what else they have to buy in California. They’re going to have to cross over. Manufacturers are sounding a big warning on this, but this is California. Nothing usually deters them, except that the Trump administration was able to reverse the gas-powered car ban. And that took federal statutes. That took court cases. It took years. California is like — I want to say environmental terrorist, but they’re like an economic terrorist when it comes to this. They can do a lot of damage. Damage lasts for years. It takes a lot of years to overdo it.

[SADLER] When does this ban go into effect? I read it, it’s a two-phase ban. And is there any way to reverse it before it does go into effect?

[MORANO] Well, in terms of reversing, yes. This is five unelected board members of the California Energy Commission, and it was a unanimous vote. And so they have to have the efficiency standard in place by — for original equipment tire replacement — by 2033, and the automakers are saying that by that point, you know, especially the way these bureaucrats — not even the way something’s written or the initial ruling — it’s actually how it’s going to be interpreted, and then how it makes economic sense to react to it.

So even if a bureaucrat lays out, well, here’s all you have to do: follow these 14 steps and you can still sell that tire, a tire manufacturer is going to look at that and say, that’s insane, I’ll never do it, we’re just not going to sell that tire there. And that’s the reality of it. The unelected bureaucrats don’t ever see that part of it. They just say, well, I just follow these 18 point plan and they can do it. No, well, no company will do that if the 18-point plan is going to cost more and not be even remotely cost-effective. They’ll just say, not worth it, not going to happen. And that’s what’s going to end up happening to the California consumer.