Senate Will Try to Block California Vehicle Standards to Phase Out Gas-Powered Cars

The U.S. Senate will move this week to block California from enforcing a series of vehicle emissions standards that are tougher than the federal government’s, including first-in-the-nation rules phasing out the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.

Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Tuesday that the Senate will begin to consider three House-passed resolutions that would roll back the standards. Final votes could come as soon as this week.

His announcement came despite significant pushback from Democrats, questions from some Republicans and the advice of the Senate Parliamentarian, who has sided with the U.S. General Accountability Office in saying California’s policies are not subject to the review mechanism used by the House.

The resolutions would block California’s rules to phase out the gas-powered cars, along with standards to cut tailpipe emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and curb smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks. Like the House, Senate Republicans are using the Congressional Review Act, a law aimed at improving congressional oversight of actions by federal agencies, to try to block the rules. The Trump administration in 2019 revoked California’s ability to enforce its own emissions standards, but Biden later restored the state’s authority.

Republicans have argued that the rules effectively dictate standards for the whole country, imposing what would eventually be a nationwide electric vehicle mandate. More than a dozen states have followed California’s lead. Thune called it an “improper expansion” of the federal Clean Air Act that would “endanger consumers, our economy and our nation’s energy supply.”

California for decades has been given the authority to adopt vehicle emissions standards that are stricter than the federal government’s. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, announced plans in 2020 to ban the sale of all new gas-powered vehicles within 15 years as part of an aggressive effort to lower emissions from the transportation sector. Plug-in hybrids and used gas cars could still be sold.

The Biden administration approved the state’s waiver to implement the standards in December, a month before President Donald Trump returned to office. The California rules are stricter than a Biden-era rule that tightens emissions standards but does not require sales of electric vehicles.

Biden’s EPA said in announcing the decision that opponents of the California waivers did not meet their legal burden to show how either the EV rule or a separate measure on heavy-duty vehicles was inconsistent with the Clean Air Act.

Newsom said earlier this month that the effort is another signal of Republicans’ ideological shift over the decades from an era in which former presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan signed landmark environmental laws to one in which Trump is pushing for environmental rollbacks on everything from clean air to clean water and climate change.

“Clean air didn’t used to be political,” Newsom said in a statement. “Our vehicles program helps clean the air for all Californians, and we’ll continue defending it.”

Senate Democrats have strongly pushed back on the GOP effort. California Sen. Alex Padilla said Tuesday that he will place holds on four pending EPA nominations over the “reckless attempts” to roll back the rules. Democrats charge that the Trump administration skirted the law and submitted California’s waivers to Congress in a way that would allow majority Republicans could try and block them.

“If this attempt is successful, the consequences will be far-reaching, not only for our clean energy economy, the air our children breathe, and for our climate, but for the future of the CRA and for the Senate as an institution,” Padilla said.

Republicans only need a simple majority to block the rules and send them to the White House for Trump’s signature. But it remains unclear whether they will have unanimity in their own conference. A few Republicans, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins, have not yet said how they will vote, questioning the process even as they say they agree with the policy.

Thune said that any concerns over the process are misplaced.

“We are not talking about doing anything to erode the institutional character of the Senate,” Thune said. “In fact, we are talking about preserving the Senate’s prerogatives.”

Associated Press writer Sophie Austin contributed to this report from Sacramento.