President Donald Trump's administration is taking a procedural step to enable the Republican-led US Congress to block a California program requiring 100pc of in-state sales of new cars and trucks to be electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen models by 2035.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it plans to subject its previous approval of the program to "disapproval" under the Congressional Review Act, which could allow a vote to halt the standards without a potential filibuster. Oil groups backed such an approach, hoping to kill off a state program that threatened long-term demand for gasoline and diesel in California and nearly a dozen other states that are following its lead.
California's program, called Advanced Clean Cars II, requires 35pc of new vehicles sold in the state in model year 2026 to be zero emission vehicles, rising to 100pc of vehicles by 2035. Under former president Joe Biden, EPA granted federal waivers that authorized the program and a separate California plan for limiting emissions from heavy-duty trucks.
The Biden administration said its approval of the waivers were not subject to the Congressional Review Act, which aligned with a formal opinion by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO). But EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, on 14 February, said he would reverse course and "submit" all the waivers for potential disapproval. The prior administration attempted to prevent Congress from having input on an "extremely consequential action", Zeldin said, "and the Trump administration is "transparently correcting this wrong".
It remains unclear the pathway for a vote to disapprove the EPA waivers, given the conflicting opinion by GAO, which for years has served as an independent arbiter of what actions Congress could disapprove. But some outside attorneys have argued that once an agency action is made subject to the Congressional Review Act, federal courts would not have jurisdiction to "second-guess" a decision to hold a vote.
The US Supreme Court separately plans to hold oral arguments in the coming months on a lawsuit by refiners and biofuel producers that want the ability to sue EPA over its approval of an earlier version of the tailpipe program that runs through model year 2025. A federal appeals court last year said the case could not proceed.
