By Ari Natter | Bloomberg
Republicans moved a step closer Thursday to repealing a federal waiver allowing California to ban gasoline-powered cars by 2035, a policy that had drawn opposition from automakers, fuel producers and President Donald Trump himself.
The US House voted 246-164 to roll back an Environmental Protection Agency authorization issued under former President Joe Biden, which let California enact emissions standards even stricter than the US government’s requirements to increase sales of electric and other zero-emission vehicles. Thirty-five Democrats joined with Republicans to vote in favor of the measure.
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The Senate now has until mid-May to vote on the California waivers, though that may require overriding a decision by the Senate parliamentarian — the legislative body’s chief rule-keeper — first.
On Wednesday, the House had approved measures repealing EPA waivers that allowed California to compel sales of zero-emission trucks and limit nitrogen oxide pollution from heavy-duty vehicles and engines.
The vote comes as the Trump administration has begun the process of undoing scores of Biden’s environmental and climate policies, while promoting fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal.
California’s requirements, which were also set to apply in New York, Washington and other states that agreed to follow along, were designed to slash planet-warming pollution, more than halving greenhouse gas emissions from light-duty vehicles in the state by 2040.
But opponents of California’s rules, which include automaker Toyota Motor Corp., the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers trade group and the US Chamber of Commerce, have said they are unachievable.
Allowing a ban on gas vehicles would increase car prices and reduce vehicle choices for US consumers “at precisely the same time they are adjusting to the marketplace shock of 25 percent tariffs on imported vehicles and auto parts,”the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents major auto manufacturers, wrote in a letter to House leadership.
The House vote comes despite a recent ruling by the Senate parliamentarian that the EPA waivers are not eligible for repeal using the Congressional Review Act, the special procedure Republicans are utilizing to undo the California standards. The act allows for lawmakers to rescind Biden-era measures that were finalized in the last few months of his presidency.
By moving forward with efforts to overturn the California requirements, “congressional Republicans are blatantly disregarding both the Senate parliamentarian’s clear guidance and rule of law,” environmental group Evergreen Action said in a statement. “This stunt is a baseless attempt to weapon a narrow legislative tool to prop up the fossil fuel industry.”
Senate Republicans would need a simple majority to override the parliamentarian’s decision, but the move could be politically fraught and may not appeal to moderate GOP senators. Republicans can only afford to lose three votes.
Failure to overturn the waiver in the Senate means the EPA would have to begin the process of undoing the rules administratively, a process that could leave California’s ever-increasing zero-emission standard in place for years.
“I continue to work with my colleagues and Senate Republican leadership to address all options available in the Senate to repeal these rules,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican leading the upper chamber’s efforts to repeal the California waivers, said in a statement Thursday.
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