XPost: alt.politics.usa.congress, alt.energy.automobile, alt.california
XPost: alt.politics.republicans, sac.politics

The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to block California’s landmark mandate
phasing out gas-powered cars, dealing a substantial blow to the state’s aggressive transition to electric vehicles.

The decision to revoke a waiver that the Biden administration granted to California could upend the state’s decadeslong efforts and authority to
clean up its air pollution — the worst in the nation — and reduce
greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

The move by the Senate — following a vote in the House last month — sets
the stage for what is likely to become a high-stakes legal and political
battle between California and the Trump administration.

Republicans in the Senate and some Democrats in the House who voted in
favor of blocking California’s electric car mandate said it’s costly and impractical, and prevents consumers from making their own choices.

But Democrats in the Senate who voted against it, including California’s
Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, said the tactic used by Senate Republicans
is illegal and that the state’s mandate is vital to cleaning up polluted
air.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has made the adoption of zero-emission
cars and trucks a top priority, has denounced the move by Congress, vowing
that “zero-emission vehicles are here to stay.”

“The United States Senate has a choice: Cede American car-industry
dominance to China and clog the lungs of our children, or follow decades
of precedent and uphold the clean air policies that Ronald Reagan and
Richard Nixon fought so hard for,” Newsom said in a statement on Tuesday, before the vote.

Under California’s mandate, 35% of new 2026 model cars sold in the state
must be zero-emissions, ramping up to 68% in 2030 and 100% in 2035. It
builds on decades of tightening emissions standards for cars sold in the
state.

California officials may now have to rely, at least temporarily, on
voluntary efforts to clean up cars and trucks in order to meet federal
health standards for smog and soot. For instance, state officials could
offer financial incentives or rebates to persuade manufacturers to make electric cars and consumers to buy them. The state, however, faces a $12 billion deficit.

Culminating a late-night, marathon session on Wednesday, the Senate vote highlights the growing political division over electric vehicle and air pollution policy as concerns over cost, charging infrastructure and accessibility prevent many consumers from buying them, even in California, which leads the nation in sales.

For almost 60 years, California’s standards for vehicle emissions have
been central to cleaning up its air, particularly in the smoggy Los
Angeles basin and San Joaquin Valley. Vehicles are still the largest
sources of smog-forming gases and fine particles of soot, which can cause respiratory disorders, heart attacks and other serious and deadly health problems.

Because of its highly polluted air and large population, Congress gave California the power to set its own, more stringent vehicle standards
under the 1967 Clean Air Act. But before those standards can take effect,
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must grant the state a waiver for
each one.

Before Thursday, over the past six decades, the EPA and Congress have
never blocked any of California’s dozens of car and truck rules. Eleven
other states and Washington, D.C. have already adopted a version of California’s electric car mandate, according to the Air Resources Board.

“This is a major blow to the decades-long public health protections
delivered under the Clean Air Act,” said Will Barrett, the American Lung Association’s senior director for nationwide clean air advocacy. “It is
more important than ever that California and all other states…continue to
cut tailpipe pollution through homegrown, health-protective policies.”

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, of Wyoming, said Republicans reversed
a highly unpopular move by the Biden administration.

“They were losers going out the door and they said ‘we’re coming after you
— the American people — with our leftist dreams,’ ” Barrasso said. “This
is a whole new meaning in California of fantasyland … America can’t meet
these impossible standards, not next year, not in 10 years, and the
American people don’t want to meet those standards.”

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia, called
California’s zero-emission standards for both cars and diesel trucks
extreme and a threat to the economy. “I want to be clear, I have no
problem with electric vehicles. Consumers should be able to purchase the vehicle of their choice, but I do have a big problem with electric vehicle mandates that replace the will of the consumer and the will of the
government,” she said on the Senate floor on Wednesday night.

The Senators mostly voted along party lines. Fifty-one senators voted to rescind the electric car mandate waiver, while 44 voted against it.

“I wonder if any other member of this chamber grew up like I did, where on
a pretty regular basis, we would be sent home from grade school because of
the intensity and dangers of smog that settled over the San Fernando
Valley, the city of Los Angeles,” Padilla said during a Senate session on Tuesday, ahead of the vote.

Schiff said on X Wednesday night that Senate Republicans are “doing the
bidding of the oil industry” after Donald Trump promised to help that
industry if it donated $1 billion to his campaign. He said it will mean “Californians and others will be breathing dirtier air, as will others
around the country.”

Line chart showing days per year exceeding current federal ozone 8-hour
health standard. In 1980, there were 211 days exceeding. In 2023, there
were 115. There is a steady decline, though the numbers fluctuate year to
year.
The Senate also planned to vote Thursday on blocking two other California
rules approved by Biden’s EPA. One is the Advanced Clean Trucks rule,
which was enacted in 2020 and requires manufacturers to meet ramped-up
targets for zero-emission heavy and medium-duty trucks for 2024 through
2035. The other is a 2020 regulation reducing nitrogen oxides — a key ingredient of smog — emitted by trucks and buses.

President Donald Trump has long opposed California’s unique authority to
set its own limits on emissions from cars and trucks. On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order that aimed to eliminate federal
and state electric car regulations and subsidies and restore “consumer
choice in vehicles.”

“Trump and his congressional allies have declared war on the environment
and this is the first major legislative battle,” said Dan Becker, director
of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign.

The Senate action follows an April 30 vote in the U.S. House of
Representatives that shocked environmentalists because 35 Democrats joined Republicans to block California’s electric car mandate.

Included were two California House Democrats, both of whom represent
districts in the smoggiest part of the state: Rep. Lou Correa of the 46th District in northern Orange County, and newly elected Rep. George
Whitesides, from the 27th District in northern Los Angeles County.

“As Americans, we all want to do our part to protect the environment. As a lawmaker, my primary job is to listen to my neighbors and respect their
choices to do what is best for their families and their circumstances.
That means protecting consumers’ rights to drive whatever vehicle makes
sense for them and their pocketbooks,” Correa said in an emailed
statement.

California’s mandate has come under fire from auto dealerships and some
car manufacturers who once were more in line with the goals of
aggressively requiring more sales. Sales of electric cars have undergone a bumpy road, taking off in the post-pandemic years, but they did not
increase last year.

About 23% of all new cars sold in California were zero emissions during
the first three months of this year, compared to 25% for all of 2024 and
2023, mostly because of a drop in Tesla sales. Californians own 2.2
million zero-emission cars; about 150 models are now sold in the state,
40% more than a year ago, according to the California Energy Commission.

John Bozzella, CEO of an alliance of automakers, in a statement earlier
this month welcomed the move by Congress, saying it would “prevent the inevitable jobs and manufacturing fallout from these unachievable
regulations.”

Column chart of new California car registrations that were battery
electric, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen fuel cell, by quarter. The trend
begins with 1,680 in 2012 Q1 and increases steadily until dipping in 2020
Q2, then increasing to 119,554 in 2023 Q2. In 2025 Q1, there were 100,326 sales.
The Biden administration’s EPA granted the waivers for California’s
electric car mandate and nitrogen oxides truck rule late last year, and
for the zero-emission truck rule in March 2023. Under the federal Clean
Air Act, the EPA can only legally reject a waiver if it’s “arbitrary or capricious,” unnecessary for addressing air pollution or technologically infeasible due to inadequate lead time.

“Congress voted decades ago to allow California, with the nation’s most smog-choked cities, to adopt stronger vehicle air pollution standards,”
Becker, a clean-air advocate, said. “This vote will set a dangerous
precedent of overturning state law protecting tens of millions in
California and 11 other states that have adopted its strong clean air protections.”

The Senate’s votes are likely to set up a legal challenge from the Newsom administration. Experts say the state could sue claiming improper use of
the Congressional Review Act.

That law is meant to allow Congress under a new administration to revoke
rules recently enacted by the previous administration. But it applies only
to regulations, and experts say the waivers are not regulations so they
cannot be revoked by Congress. In addition, the three waivers are already
in effect, and the diesel truck one was issued more than two years ago,
outside the time limits of the review act.

The U.S. Senate’s Parliamentarian and the Government Accountability Office
said Congress cannot review Clean Air Act waivers. The Senate voted to
evade their Parliamentarian’s ruling in a 51-46 party-line, procedural
decision on Wednesday night.

UCLA law professor Ann Carlson said Congress is violating its longstanding practices. She called the decision “totally norm-busting.”

“We’re just in a completely new territory,” she said. Congress “seems to
be willing to use a statute that doesn’t apply, which is highly unusual.
We’ve never seen this before.”

Carlson said by using the Congressional Review Act, lawmakers are seeking
to move fast — bypassing the courts and a potential filibuster.

During the first Trump administration, California sued to reverse other
actions that blocked air pollution regulations for cars.

Combined, the three regulations are designed to eliminate tons of soot and gases from cars and diesel trucks that pollute California’s air by
requiring manufacturers to switch to cleaner vehicle technologies.

The stakes are high: The state still has some of the worst air pollution
in the country, and failure to meet federal health standards for smog and
soot could trigger economic penalties, including the loss of highway
funding. People in low-income communities of color are particularly
exposed to the unhealthiest air.

California is also considered a leader on climate policy, and zero-
emission trucks and cars are critical to meeting its targets to phase out nearly all fossil fuels to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2045, which are mandated by state law.

Congress’ repeal of the rules follows an earlier blow to California’s
efforts to clean the air. Days before Trump’s inauguration, the state Air Resources Board abandoned two of its groundbreaking standards because
Trump’s EPA was unlikely to grant waivers for them.

One of them would have amped up California’s earlier zero-emission truck
rule by ending the sale of new diesel trucks in 2036 and requiring large companies to convert their fleets to electric or hydrogen models by 2042.

The other abandoned rule would have required railroads in California to transition new diesel locomotives to ones powered by electricity. Under
that rule, only locomotives less than 23 years old could operate in
California after 2030 unless they were zero emissions.

https://lookout.co/u-s-senate-blocks-californias-electric-car-mandate-in- historic-vote/story

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