The Senate on Thursday blocked California’s landmark plan to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles, setting up a legal battle that could shape the electric car market in the United States.
The 51-44 vote was a victory for the oil and gas industry and for Republicans who muscled through the vote by deploying an unusual legislative tactic that Democrats denounced as a “nuclear” option that would affect the way the Senate operates way beyond climate policy.
The repeal deals a blow to California’s ambition of accelerating the nation’s transition to electric vehicles. But the consequences will ripple across the country. That’s because 11 other states intended to follow California’s plan and stop selling new gas-powered cars by 2035. Together, they account for about 40 percent of the U.S. auto market.
The resolution, which had already been approved by the House, now goes to President Trump’s desk. Mr. Trump, who opposes clean energy and has taken particular umbrage at California’s efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels, is expected to sign it into law.
California leaders have promised to challenge the Senate vote and try to restore the ban.
“This Senate vote is illegal,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California. “Republicans went around their own parliamentarian to defy decades of precedent. We won’t stand by as Trump Republicans make America smoggy again — undoing work that goes back to the days of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — all while ceding our economic future to China.“
California’s auto policy was allowed under permission granted by the Biden administration. The 1970 Clean Air Act specifies that California can receive waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency to enact clean air standards that are tougher than federal limits because the state has historically had the most polluted air in the nation. Federal law also allows other states to adopt California’s standards under certain circumstances.
The state has won scores of such waivers over decades; this was the first time that Congress has struck one down.
Republican leaders did so by using a little-known tool called the Congressional Review Act, despite a ruling from the nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian and an independent watchdog that Congress lacked the legal authority to revoke the waivers.
The C.R.A. allows Congress to overturn a recently-passed federal regulation with a simple majority vote instead of a 60-vote threshold. But the Government Accountability Office has issued two legal findings that the California waivers, which apply to only a single state, are not akin to national regulations.
Republicans argued that California would effectively be setting national policy, making it a federal issue since many states would follow suit and auto companies would have to comply with the state’s requirements.
“Over the past two decades, California has used its waiver authority to push its extreme climate policies on the rest of the country, which was never the intent of the Clean Air Act,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, said.
Democrats managed to stall, but shortly before midnight on Wednesday, Republicans squeaked through a procedural vote that allowed them to fast-track the California repeal.
Democrats accused Republicans of illegally using the statute, and vowed payback.
“Republicans today cross a point of no return for the Senate, expanding what a party can do with a majority threshold,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader.
“Republicans should tread very carefully today,” he said. “What goes around comes around.”
Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, has already placed a hold on four E.P.A. nominees awaiting Senate confirmation in retaliation for the Republican vote. This week he warned that since Republicans are expanding the definition of what can be subject to a quick repeal, “all bets will be off” the next time Democrats hold a majority.
“Think mining permits,” Mr. Padilla warned. “Think fossil fuel project approvals. Think LNG export licenses or offshore leases, I.R.S. tax policies, foreign policy, every Project 2025 or DOGE disruption. Every agency action that Democrats don’t like, whether it is a rule or not and no matter how much time has passed, would be fair game.”
Senator Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, said the vote would drag the state back to the era when it was perpetually choked by smog.
“California acted to protect its own citizens,” he said. “Do we really want this body with a simple majority vote to eviscerate what the states are doing to protect their own citizens?”
Some automakers, including Ford and Honda, had signed agreements with California, recognizing the state’s authority to set tailpipe emission standards. But companies have not committed to complying with the 2035 mandate, and the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents major automakers, has lobbied for months against the waivers.
“The fact is, these EV sales mandates were never achievable,” John Bozzella, president and chief executive of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said in a statement. “There’s a significant gap between the marketplace and these EV sales requirements.”
He said the California requirement would “create a domino effect leading to job and manufacturing losses, higher auto prices and fewer vehicle choices.”
The repeal of California’s policy comes at a precarious time for the electric vehicle industry and for broader efforts to tackle climate change.
Under Mr. Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency intends to weaken federal limits on emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks, while the Interior Department is making it easier and cheaper to mine and drill for coal, gas and oil.
Mr. Trump’s 2026 budget plan strips money for virtually all federal climate programs. And in the early hours on Thursday, House Republicans shredded most of the federal support for wind, solar, electric vehicles and other technologies designed to fight global warming.
“It’s really bad,” said Ann Carlson, who helped write the Biden administration’s policies to cut tailpipe emissions and now teaches law at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Pretty soon you’ve wiped out anything that is incentivizing the transition to zero-emission vehicles.”
California’s policy required that 35 percent of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the state be either zero-emission, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen-powered models by 2026. Those requirements would climb to 68 percent in 2030, and by 2035 no new gas-powered vehicles could be sold in the state. The policy would not affect used vehicles.
As the fourth-biggest economy in the world, California makes up about 11 percent of the U.S. auto market and exerts significant influence on national purchasing trends. New York and New Jersey were among the states that planned to follow California’s plan.
Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, called the California policy “punishing” to consumers and said voters rejected the “liberal agenda” when they elected Mr. Trump in November.
He noted that when the House voted to repeal California’s mandate, 35 Democrats joined in and called it a bipartisan recognition that the policy was costly and impractical.
While Governor Newsom has insisted the state would still meet its climate goals, it’s hard to see how.
“We have a legal responsibility under the federal Clean Air Act to protect our community and reduce criteria pollutants to the levels required by federal law,” said Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board, the state’s powerful pollution regulator. “And so we’re going to roll up our sleeves and look into the toolbox and figure out every option that we can think of that would meet that legal obligation.”
The state may consider stricter emissions limits on factories and oil refineries to make up for the pollution reductions it hoped to attain from clean vehicles, said Mary Nichols, former chair of the California air board and a law professor with the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles. But that could have an economic cost, she said.
“California is already an expensive place to do business and to build new things, so it’s a serious problem,” Ms. Nichols said.
The state could also try to encourage people to use mass transit, or to purchase electric cars by offering preferential parking spaces or other benefits. On the flip side, it could also create penalties for driving a gas-powered car, such as a higher vehicle registration fee or new taxes.
“There’s potential for differentiation based on emissions, and that’s completely legal,” she said. “There’s no question that the state could do that.”
Dean Florez, a member of the California Air Resources Board, noted a provision of the Congressional Review Act that prohibits passing rules that are “substantially the same” as those that have been overturned by Congress. That could severely hamper California’s options for reducing smog-causing pollution.
“I just don’t see a way around this kind of poison pill,” he said, adding that he believed the courts need to define the scope of how the phrase should be interpreted.
Mr. Florez said he expected California to consider additional incentives to encourage people to buy clean cars, such as rebates or waiving some state fees.
“We’re going to have to think pretty innovatively about anything other than, ‘There’s a rule that says electric cars by 2035,’” he said. “But there will still be a massive hole. I’m not sugarcoating it. It’s a big change for the state.”
Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.
Laurel Rosenhall is a Sacramento-based reporter covering California politics and government for The Times.
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