President Trump signed joint resolutions of Congress on Thursday that block California’s effort to phase out gasoline-powered vehicles, his latest attempt to reduce the power of the nation’s most populous state.
The Republican-led Congress passed the resolutions in May to reverse the Biden administration’s approval of California’s electric vehicle efforts. When signed by the president, joint resolutions revoking federal rules carry the force of law and are not subject to judicial review.
Even so, the move is expected to draw an immediate legal challenge from California, as well as an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom directing state officials to find another path that would move the state’s drivers toward electric vehicles and encourage companies to make them.
Mr. Trump signed the resolutions at a time when he was battling California on several fronts, most notably in a dispute over immigration enforcement, in which the president has sent National Guard and Marine troops to Southern California in an extraordinary use of military force.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump took aim at California’s longstanding authority under the federal Clean Air Act of 1970 to set pollution standards for the state that are more strict than federal limits, and at Governor Newsom’s ambition to fight climate change with an aggressive transition to electric vehicles. Repealing California’s automobile policy is central to Mr. Trump’s agenda of bolstering the production and use of fossil fuels in the United States, while eliminating policies that promote renewable energy and reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr. Trump’s action reversed a Biden administration decision that allowed the state to require that electric vehicles make up a progressively larger share of new vehicles sold in California until 2035, when the state would ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars entirely.
Speaking in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Trump called the California plan a “disaster” and said it “would effectively abolish the internal combustion engine, which most people prefer.”
Republican lawmakers, automobile and trucking industry leaders and oil industry executives including John B. Hess, chief executive of the Hess Corporation, were in attendance. California’s policy promoting electric vehicles would have been a major blow to the oil and gas industry.
Anticipating the president’s action, California leaders plan a two-part response later on Thursday, state officials said. Rob Bonta, the state attorney general, has said he would file a lawsuit asking a federal judge to overturn the resolutions. And Mr. Newsom intends to direct his administration to develop new rules that encourage the use of electric vehicles and reward car manufacturers who agree to follow California’s plan to phase out gasoline-powered vehicles.
“Trump’s all-out assault on California continues, and this time he’s destroying our clean air and America’s global competitiveness in the process,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement.
Republican lawmakers, automakers and the fossil fuel industry applauded Mr. Trump’s action.
“Everyone agreed these E.V. sales mandates were never achievable and wildly unrealistic,” said John Bozzella, chief executive of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents major automakers. “Customers don’t want the government telling them what kind of car to buy,” he said.
For more than 50 years, the Clean Air Act has allowed California to set pollution standards that are stricter than federal rules, as long as the state obtains waivers for them from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The resolutions Mr. Trump signed on Thursday also revoke waivers for two other California clean-air policies. One blocks California from requiring that half of all new trucks sold in the state be electric by 2035. Another stops the state from putting limits on allowable emissions of nitrogen oxide from cars and trucks. Those emissions can form smog and contribute to respiratory problems like asthma.
Chris Spear, the president of the American Trucking Association, said that ending California’s electric truck policy was “common sense,” because the policy would have forced long-haul trucks and others to transition away from diesel power far faster than the existing infrastructure for electric vehicles could support.
“We looked at this as a mad dash to zero,” Mr. Spear said.
California’s lawsuit is expected to challenge the legality of all three resolutions, which were the first ever passed by Congress to revoke California’s Clean Air Act waivers.
The state, with nearly 40 million residents, has enormous market power on its own, and 11 other states had intended to follow California’s electric vehicles plan. Together, they account for about 40 percent of the U.S. auto market. Manufacturers do not want to create two separate fleets, one for those states and one for states that still allow unlimited sales of gasoline-powered vehicles, so California’s policy would have had an impact nationwide.
Republicans have come to resent California’s market influence, and they have long hoped to repeal California’s ability to shape how consumer products are made and sold.
The lawsuit being prepared by California is expected to argue that the federal revocation of California’s waivers will harm public health and reduce economic benefits created by the state’s clean-car plan. Pollution from gasoline-powered cars has been linked to respiratory illness, cardiovascular problems and cancer, Mr. Bonta said, and the plan to phase them out has spurred technological innovations that have boosted California’s economy.
“We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a president who is a wholly owned subsidiary of big polluters,” Mr. Newsom said.
The crux of the lawsuit is expected to be an allegation that Congress illegally used the Congressional Review Act to pass the resolutions that Mr. Trump signed. The 1996 act allows lawmakers to overturn rules that have been recently approved by the executive branch with a simple majority vote. Republicans asserted that the act also allowed Congress to overturn the E.P.A. waivers.
The Senate passed the resolutions over the objections of the nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian and an independent watchdog, which both had ruled that lawmakers lacked the legal authority to revoke the waivers.
“This is a completely improper use of the Congressional Review Act,” Mr. Bonta said in an interview. “The Congressional Review Act applies to rules, not to waivers. It’s never been applied to any waiver, ever.”
But the act includes a provision that could stymie California’s lawsuit, because it prohibits judicial review of actions passed under the act.
California’s ability to set tough emissions standards dates back to 1970, when heavy smog clouded the skies of Los Angeles. Since then, the state has received dozens of waivers allowing a range of policies to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Air quality has improved, but remains poor in some regions, particularly in the Central Valley. State leaders see the transition to electric cars as a tool to improve it.
California’s ban on the sale of new gasoline-powered cars did not apply to used vehicles, so it would not have completely eliminated them from the roads. But voter concerns about the state’s high cost of living gave Republicans and some Democrats reason to object to California’s plan, because electric vehicles tend to cost more than comparable gasoline-powered models.
The executive order that Mr. Newsom plans to sign today will direct the California Air Resources Board to come up with new ways to encourage electric vehicle use and reduce emissions, according to the governor’s office. Under it, the state would prioritize funding for E.V. rebates and will seek to develop new incentive programs. And it would steer state agencies to purchase fleet vehicles from manufacturers who agree to phase out new gasoline-powered cars.
“I’m signing an executive order to keep California on track with our world-leading transition to cleaner cars,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement.
Laurel Rosenhall is a Sacramento-based reporter covering California politics and government for The Times.
Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.
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