Topline:
President Donald Trump revoked California’s nation-leading electric vehicle sales rules in a White House ceremony last week, following through on his Day 1 executive order to roll back EV mandates. California officials are now scrambling to find alternatives to clean the state’s air — and avoid federal sanctions.
State of play: California has for decades relied on a unique carveout under the federal Clean Air Act to set stricter emissions and pollution rules, in an attempt to reach lofty climate goals and reduce the country’s worst smog in the Los Angeles area and the Central Valley. But Republicans, car manufacturers and oil companies have more recently opposed that authority, arguing that California — and the dozen or so blue states that follow its lead — are essentially creating nationwide regulations.
Why it matters: The three rules Trump revoked would have phased out new gas cars by 2035, restricted heavy-duty truck sales and required cleaner diesel truck engines. An American Lung Association report earlier this year found that the now-dormant rules could have reduced 75 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides a day.
Federal threats: The Trump administration has all but assured that California will not meet federal NOx standards, but that likely won’t stop them from threatening to withhold billions in highway funding from the state. The EPA threatened sanctions against the state in 2019, during Trump’s first term, just days after it revoked an earlier version of its electric vehicle rules.
To the courts: California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced immediately after Trump signed the resolutions that he and 10 other state attorneys general had sued to preserve the emissions standards, calling Republicans’ move an “unprecedented and illegal use of the CRA.” An outcome in that case could take years and the state’s regulations, in the meantime, will be on hold.
Read on ... the full story is in POLITICO's California Climate newsletter.
This story is published in partnership with POLITICO.