CEI leads coalition letter supporting Senate CRA votes against EPA California waivers
Dear Senator:
The House recently passed, in a bipartisan manner, three Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions rescinding Biden EPA waivers allowing California to reshape the nation’s car and truck industry. This includes the EPA giving California the green light to ban the sale of new gas- powered cars by 2035.
The undersigned organizations strongly urge the Senate to follow the lead of the House and protect Americans from this radical Green New Deal agenda to kill off our cars. Americans, not state and federal bureaucrats, should be able to choose what kind of vehicles best meet their needs. This push for electrification will limit consumer choice, drive up prices, and make it more difficult for Americans to go to work, see their doctor, and visit family members, among other things.
There is no overstating the importance of these resolutions. While the waivers are for California rules, other states can and have adopted these standards. Further, since manufacturers want to avoid duplicative requirements, California could in effect be establishing a national standard.
The CRA gives the Senate a real chance to put a stop to these waivers because the statute allows for simple majority votes. This may explain why there have been arguments by some Democrats that the waivers are not “rules” under the CRA and therefore may not be the subject of resolutions.
The waivers are exactly the type of agency actions that Congress envisioned would be addressed under the CRA: generally applicable policies affecting the rights or obligations of non-agency parties. The waiver for the car ban, for example, will directly affect tens of millions of people and possibly the entire country. It is hard to imagine anything more generally applicable.
The House, by passing their CRA resolutions, has already made it clear they think the waivers are rules. This includes the 35 Democrats who supported the resolution on the gas car ban.
We also want to stress that Senators shouldn’t depend on the Trump EPA putting a stop to this radical anti-gas car agenda. The EPA may very well repeal the waivers, but the regulatory process itself will take time and there will inevitably be years of litigation. Even if the repeal of the waivers survives judicial scrutiny, consumers and car manufacturers will have to live with the California ban (and other rules) for years, barring an injunction. The damage in many ways will have been done.
To its credit, the Senate has passed CRA resolutions this year. None though come even close to the importance of these resolutions. In fact, these are some of the most important regulatory-related votes in recent memory, and likely ever.
Our organizations urge you to take advantage of this unique opportunity to protect individual freedom and consumer choice, and to put a stop to this shocking agency overreach.
Sincerely,
Daren Bakst
Director, Center for Energy and Environment
Competitive Enterprise Institute
James L. Martin
Founder/Chairman
60 Plus Association
Paul Teller
Executive Vice President
Advancing American Freedom
Lisa B. Nelson
CEO
ALEC Action
John Droz, Jr.
Founder and Physicist
Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED)
Amy Oliver Cooke
President and Chairman of the Board
Always On Energy Research
Carla Sands
Vice Chair, Energy and Environment
America First Policy Institute
US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark (ret.)
Saulius “Saul” Anuzis
President
American Association of Senior Citizens
Phil Kerpen
President
American Commitment
Kristen Walker
Energy Policy Analyst
American Consumer Institute
Thomas Pyle
President
American Energy Alliance
Hon. Jason Isaac
CEO
American Energy Institute
Myron Ebell
Chairman
American Lands Council
Tom DeWeese
President
American Policy Center
Margaret Byfield
Executive Director
American Stewards of Liberty
Robert Romano
Executive Director
Americans for Limited Government
Brent Gardner
Chief Government Affairs Officer
Americans for Prosperity
Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform
Rea S. Hederman Jr.
Vice President of Policy
The Buckeye Institute
David Stevenson
Center for Energy & Environmental Policy
Caesar Rodney Institute
Jessi L. Troyan, PhD
Director of Policy and Research
Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy
John A. Charles, Jr.
President & CEO
Cascade Policy Institute
Ryan Ellis
President
Center for a Free Economy
Daniel J. Mitchell
President
Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Jeffrey Mazzella
President
Center for Individual Freedom
John Hinderaker
President
Center of the American Experiment
Craig Rucker
President
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)
Maaneli Derakhshani (PhD)
Senior Science Advisor
CO2 Coalition
André Béliveau
Senior Manager of Energy Policy
Commonwealth Foundation
E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D.
President
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
Kristen A. Ullman
President
Eagle Forum
Craig Richardson
President
Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal)
George Landrith
President
Frontiers of Freedom Institute
Mark Krebs
Principal
Gas Analytics & Advocacy Services LLP
Cameron Sholty
Executive Director
Heartland Impact
James Taylor
President
The Heartland Institute
Ryan Walker
Executive Vice President
Heritage Action for America
Mario H. Lopez
President
Hispanic Leadership Fund
Tom Harris
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition
Annette Olson
Chief Executive Officer
The John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy, Inc.
Jon Sanders
Director of the Center for Food, Power, and Life
The John Locke Foundation
Seton Motley
President
Less Government
Jason Hayes
Director of Energy and Environmental Policy
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Paul Craney
Executive Director
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance
Mark Miller
Director of Environment & Natural Resources Litigation
Pacific Legal Foundation
Daniel Turner
Founder & Executive Director
Power the Future
Paul Gessing
President
Rio Grande Foundation
Bette Grande
CEO
Roughrider Institute
James E. Enstrom, PhD, MPH
President
Scientific Integrity Institute
David Williams
President
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Derrick Max
President and CEO
Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy
Frank Lasee
President
Truth in Energy and Climate
Todd Myers
Environmental Director
Washington Policy Center
Melissa Simpson
President
Western Energy Alliance
Lee Brown
COO/Executive Director
Western States Trucking Association
Carol Platt Liebau
President
Yankee Institute