The Republican-controlled US Senate ignored Congressional norms and voted Thursday to cancel California’s progressive vehicle emissions standards.
With a vote of 51-44, the Senate overturned the Biden-era exemption that enabled the conditions for California and democratically-led states, enforcing the zero-emissions requirement for the sale of new passenger cars. After hours of discussion and testimony, legislators chose to cut groundbreaking regulations aimed at dramatically accelerated sales of electric vehicles in California and almost 12 states that chose to follow its lead, and cut air pollution and planet-warming carbon emissions from the tailpipes.
The Advanced Clean Cars II rules, enacted by the California Air Resources Commission in 2022 and granted federal exemptions by the Biden Bureau’s Environmental Protection Agency in December 2024, required automakers to sell zero-emission or plug-in hybrid vehicles to California dealers at the next decade. Starting next year, the rules required that 35% of all new vehicles supplied to California dealers be zero-emission vehicles or plug-in hybrids. By 2035, it had banned the sale of new gas-only vehicles throughout the state.
By overriding the rules, Republican senators pushed out one of California’s most ambitious environmental policies and challenged the state’s authority to establish vehicle standards to combat the broader, infamous, unhealthy air quality. If the measure is signed into law by President Trump and endures pressing legal challenges, the vote will serve as a boon for the state’s decades of efforts to adhere to Southern California’s federal smog standards and meet California’s own ambitious climate targets.
The zero emissions requirement is expected to eliminate approximately 70,000 tons of smog formation emissions and 4,500 tons of soot across the state by 2040, preventing deaths from more than 1,200 premature births and providing $13 billion in public health benefits, according to the California Air Resources Commission. It was also expected to prevent the release of 395 million tonnes of carbon emissions. This is roughly the amount released by 100 coal plants a year.
Prior to the vote, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) warned that overturning the rule and stripping California of regulatory power would have serious health effects across the state.
“We are sowing poison seeds for the future,” Schiff said. “The species grows into more asthma and illness, more hospitalizations and more deaths.
However, Republicans argued that California’s zero emissions requirements could cripple the American auto industry and significantly limit the options for car buyers.
“Democrats have this paranoid dream of eliminating gas-powered vehicles in America,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Tuesday from a lecturer on the floor of the Capitol. “They want to force electric vehicles on every man and woman driving in this country. Well, Republicans are ready to use Congressional Review Act to end this Democratic electric vehicle fantasy.”
In separate votes, Republicans rolled back additional California clean air rules that required the state’s robust truck fleet to adopt clean engines and increased zero-emission vehicles.
Republicans went ahead with the vote despite warnings from the Government’s Accountability Office and the Senators, but the Congressional Review Act could not overturn the exemption.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif), a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Senate Rules and Management, said the vote was a serious abuse of the Congressional Review Act. He threatened to block or delay the process of confirming four Trump candidates with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency if Senate Republicans vote to overturn California’s vehicle emissions standards.
“It appears Republicans want to overturn half-century precedents by revoking California’s exemption, which can use Congressional Review Act to set California emission standards, to undermine the ability to protect the health of California residents,” Padilla said. “It appears that Republicans are adding the wealth of the massive oil industry to the health of our members.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Atty. General Rob Bonta vowed to abide by California rules by filing a lawsuit alleging that Thursday’s vote was an inappropriate use of the Congressional Review Act.
“These votes have made Senate Republicans bend their knees to President Trump again,” Bonta said. “The weaponization of the Congressional Review Act to attack California’s exemptions is just another part of California’s ongoing partisan campaign to protect the public and the planet from harmful pollution. As I said before, this reckless misuse of this Congressal Review Act is illegal and California does not need to pay tribute to California. Exemptions.”
Newsom said California’s clean air regulations are not always considered a politically divisive issue, and said the attack on the state’s auto emissions standards is a new product from Trump’s Republicans.
These federal exemptions are “granted to California more than 100 times to reduce pollution,” Newsom said at a press conference at the California Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Sacramento.
“People literally lived in gas masks,” he added, hinting at the infamous outbreak of smog that Los Angeles endured throughout much of the 20th century. “You want America to be smog again? I think that’s what Trump is promoting. It’s hell!”
Environmental advocates, who have spent years supporting California emissions standards, expressed disappointment at the vote.
“This is a major blow to decades of public health protection offered under the Clean Air Act,” said Will Barrett, senior director of national clean air advocacy at U.S. Lung Assn. “It is more important than ever that California and all other states that rely on clean air act exemptions will continue to reduce tailpipe pollution through their homemade health protection policies.”
Due to its historically low air quality, California was an innovator in its clean car policy, which established the country’s first tailpipe emissions standard in 1966. California was later granted special authority to adopt vehicle emission standards stricter than the federal government under the Clean Air Act. However, states must seek federal exemptions from the US EPA so that certain rules are enforceable.
Over the next 50 years, the state has enacted dozens of rules to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases that warm the planet. Padilla emphasized that these rules are intended to relieve smog, which is primarily in accordance with the lungs. This was a permanent threat he grew up in Los Angeles.
“We are sent home from elementary school quite regularly due to the strength and dangers of smog settling in the San Fernando Valley,” Padilla said. “That’s when there are still so many Californians to this day. But that’s why decades ago, Congress recognized both California’s unique air quality challenges and its technical ingenuity, and recognized California’s special authority to do something about it.”
Due to its vast economy and population, automakers are compliant with California regulations. Additionally, many Democratic-led states have chosen to adhere to California’s car emissions rules, putting more pressure on car companies first, producing cleaner engines and later producing more electric vehicles.
California leads the country with the sale of zero-emission vehicles. According to the California Energy Commission, in 2023 and 2024, about 25% of new cars sold in California were zero-emission or plug-in hybrids. This year, the share of zero-emission vehicle sales has dropped slightly, accounting for only 23% of lightweight vehicle sales.
However, the Advanced Clean Cars II rules require a surge in manufacturer sales next year, with at least 35% of the vehicle being fed into the vehicle lot to become zero emissions or plug-in hybrids.
National Automobile Dealers Assn. Mike Stanton, president of the company, argued that consumer demand for electric vehicles is far below California’s requirements due to unreliable charging infrastructure.
“The ban on gas and hybrid vehicles is a national issue that should be decided by Congress, not by unelected state agencies,” Stanton wrote in a letter to the Senator, referring to the California Air Resources Committee.
The Environmental Group vehemently opposed, claiming that zero emissions requirements are of paramount importance to solving California’s unique air quality disaster. They stressed that there are no requirements for other states to adopt these standards, but that electric vehicles could help drive domestic production and save drivers’ money by eliminating the need for gas.
“This vote is an unprecedented and reckless attack on the state’s legal authority to address pollution that causes asthma, lung disease and heart conditions,” said Manish Bapna, Council of Natural Resources Defense. “After a multi-million-dollar lobbying campaign from Big Oil, Republicans have easily abandoned the longstanding view that states can best enact measures that reflect the values and interests of their residents.”
In February, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin brought Biden-era exemptions to Congress, suggesting that they are unreviewed federal rules. However, California’s exemptions for the state’s vehicle emissions standards were not filed for review before Congress.
The House of Representatives voted to advance its resolution to the Senate this month. 35 Democrats have joined the Republican majority, including California Rep. George Whiteside (D-Agua-dulce) and Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana).
In the Senate, 51-44 votes were split primarily in line with party lines, but Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) voted for Republicans, home to the state’s three big car makers.
Conservative lawmakers turned their attention to the vote to remove California’s advanced clean truck rules. This would have required a significant proportion of medium and heavy-duty truck sales to be zero emissions by 2035.
Experts say Senate votes could have lasting impact on Congressional procedures.
To overthrow California’s car emissions standards, Senate Republicans have controversially evoked Congressional review laws. This is a 1996 law that retracts major federal rules approved near the end of the previous presidential administration. This process allows federal lawmakers to bypass the filibuster, and only requires a simple majority to repeal federal regulations rather than the typical 60 votes.
However, the Government’s Accountability Office, a non-partisan watchdog, said federal exemptions from California’s emission standards are not subject to Congressional Review Act. That’s an order. The senator, a nonpartisan advisor to a congressional organization, supported that interpretation and determined that the Senate could not use the Congressional Review Act to repeal the California exemption.
The Senate vote went against Congressional rulings, marking a spectacular responsibilities against Congressional norms.
The decision by the Republican senators amounted to a “nuclear choice” setting a dangerous precedent, Padilla said.
“The old saying goes, ‘What happens” comes,’ he said. “It won’t take long for Democrats to be in the driver’s seat again, the majority, and when that happens, all bets will be off.”
Political reporter Sandra McDonald contributed to this report.
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