Senate Will Attempt to Overturn California Vehicle Emissions Waivers, Thune Says

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Lawmakers will move forward this week with resolutions that use the Congressional Review Act to overturn the waivers.

Senators seeking to block California from enforcing new zero-emission vehicle standards and strict emissions regulations are set to vote on the matter this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said on May 20.

Speaking from the Senate floor, Thune said lawmakers will be moving forward this week with three House-passed resolutions that use the Congressional Review Act (CRA)โ€”a tool that can be used by Congress to overturn rules issued by federal agencies with a simple majority voteโ€”to reverse waivers granted to the state by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

California for decades has been given the authority to adopt vehicle emissions standards that are stricter than the federal governmentโ€™s.

In December 2024, the EPA, then operating under the Biden administration, approved Californiaโ€™s request for a waiver from Clean Air Act requirements; a move that effectively allowed it to set its own emission standards.

Under the waiver, the state was able to move forward with a ban on the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035, curb smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks, and mandate that 35 percent of on-road light- and medium-duty engines and vehicles in the 2026 model year be zero-emission models.

In issuing the waiver, the EPA said opponents did not meet their legal burden to show how the stateโ€™s measures were inconsistent with the Clean Air Act.

Since then, dozens of states, including New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Vermont, have adopted Californiaโ€™s zero-emission vehicle rules or similar regulations, although the latter recently put the requirements on hold.

Thune said the waivers granted to California allowed the state โ€œto dictate emissions standards for the whole countryโ€”effectively imposing a nationwide electric vehicle mandate,โ€ pointing to the stateโ€™s size and the number of other states that have signed onto the mandate.

โ€œThe Clean Air Act allowed for waivers to address specific pollution problems, and over the decades a number of them have been granted,โ€ the lawmaker said. โ€œBut the waivers the Biden EPA handed to California on the Biden administrationโ€™s way out the door go far beyond the scope Congress contemplated in the Clean Air Act.โ€

Byย Katabella Roberts

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