Trump, Congress overturn California’s gas-car ban

President Trump today signed three Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions of disapproval to overturn Biden administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) waivers greenlighting California’s plans to ban sales of gas- and diesel-powered cars and trucks. This is wonderful news for motor vehicle consumers, the US auto industry, and all liberty-loving Americans.

Aided and abetted by the Obama and Biden administrations, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) was on its way to becoming the nation’s de facto Industrial Policy Czar for Climate and Cars. Moreover, California and its blue state allies were poised to exert cartel-like market power over the auto industry, increasing vehicle prices and decreasing consumer choices beyond their borders. By signing the CRA resolutions into law, President Trump ends an era of unlawful motor vehicle regulation, clearing the decks for a sea change in national policy.

Section 32919(a) of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) preempts state laws and regulations “related to” fuel economy standards. As the first Trump administration’s One National Program (SAFE 1) Rule explained in painstaking detail, California’s tailpipe carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission standards are “directly” (mathematically and physically) related to fuel economy standards, and the state’s zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandates are “substantially” related. Consequently, EPCA 32919(a) expressly prohibits both policies.

Moreover, EPCA impliedly preempts California’s tailpipe CO₂ standards because Congress authorized the Department of Transportation, not CARB, to regulate fuel economy. More pertinently, EPCA impliedly preempts California’s ZEV mandates because the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program by design protects automakers’ freedom to sell combustion engine vehicles.

Preemption statutes derive their authority from the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause (Maryland v. Louisiana, 1981). Such statutes also operate ab initio, voiding the prohibited or conflicting state policy from the moment it is adopted or enacted (Cabazon Band of Mission Indians v. Indio, 1982). EPCA turned California’s gas-car ban into a legal phantom, without force or effect, years before the Biden EPA agreed to grant a waiver for it under Section 209(b) of the Clean Air Act (CAA).

Biden EPA’s claim that it has no authority under the CAA to consider potential conflicts between California’s vehicle emissions program and EPCA is false. California requests EPA waivers precisely so that it and other states may incorporate CARB’s vehicle emission standards into their implementation plans (SIPs) for complying with national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). CAA Section 110(e) requires each SIP to “provide assurances” that nothing in it is “prohibited by any provision of Federal or State law.”

EPA is responsible for reviewing SIPs and approving or rejecting SIP elements. Therefore, when reviewing a waiver request under CAA 209(b), EPA may not lawfully ignore potential conflicts between CARB vehicle emission standards and other federal statutes. To repeat, EPCA expressly and impliedly prohibits California’s tailpipe CO₂ standards and ZEV mandates.

President Trump’s signing of the CRA resolutions terminates a long-running bureaucratic power grab that has threatened to price millions of Americans out of the market for new cars, undermine US automakers’ competitiveness by forcing them to discontinue many of their top-selling models, and rob Americans of their freedom to purchase the types of vehicles that best meet their needs.

Thanks to President Trump and Congress’s restoration of the rule of law, the road is now clear to achieving a more competitive auto industry, happier consumers, and a freer society.