Senate will try to block California vehicle standards that would phase out gas-powered cars

WASHINGTON (AP) — 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. Government 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. Around a dozen states have already 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 has evoked Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, who signed landmark environmental laws, as he has fought congressional Republicans and the Trump administration on the issue.

“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,” he said in a statement after Thune’s announcement.

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 “reckless attempts” to roll back the rules.

Padilla, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats also spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon in protest. Schumer, D-N.Y., said that taking the vote under the Congressional Review Act — meaning Republicans only need a simple majority and no Democratic votes — against the parliamentarian’s wishes is akin to “going nuclear,” a term both parties used when Democrats voted to lower the vote threshold for executive and lower court judicial nominations in 2013 and when Republicans voted to lower the threshold for Supreme Court confirmations in 2017.

“Legislation to repeal these waivers should be subject to a 60-vote threshold,” Schumer said.

Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said he’s concerned about precedent. “We are opening up a Pandora’s Box of multiple abuses,” Whitehouse said.

Thune said that any concerns over the process are misplaced, and noted that Democrats tried and failed to eliminate the Senate filibuster when Biden was president.

“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 in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.