WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate voted on Thursday to block California’s first-in-the nation rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, moving to kill the country’s most aggressive effort to transition toward electric vehicles as President Donald Trump’s administration has doubled down on fossil fuels.
The measure overturning the rule now goes to the White House, where Trump is expected to sign it, along with a second one to block rules curbing tailpipe emissions from medium and heavy-duty vehicles. The Senate was also poised to pass a third measure later Thursday to overturn rules on smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks. All three were approved by the House earlier this month.
The GOP effort, which comes after Senate Republicans established a new exception to the filibuster, could have a profound impact on California’s longtime efforts to curb air pollution. California makes up roughly 11% of the U.S. Car market, giving it significant power to shape purchasing trends, especially because about a dozen states follow California’s lead. Vehicles are one of the largest sources of planet-warming emissions.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and state air regulators say that what Congress is doing is illegal and they will likely sue to keep the rules in place. Senate Democrats charged that Republicans are acting at the behest of the oil and gas industry and they say California should be able to set its own standards after obtaining waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the votes should “send a chill down the spine of legislators in every state.”
“What we have at stake is also a state’s ability, it’s right to make its own laws and to protect its own citizens, without having this body overturn that right,” Schiff said.
Republicans say the phaseout of gas-powered cars, along with other waivers that California has obtained from the EPA, is costly for consumers and manufacturers, puts pressure on the nation’s energy grid and has become a de facto nationwide electric vehicle mandate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said ahead of the votes that the waivers would “end up not just affecting the state of California, but the whole country,” especially as around a dozen states have already followed California’s lead.
Newsom, a Democrat, announced plans in 2020 to ban the sale of all new gas-powered vehicles within 15 years as part of an aggressive effort to lower emissions from the transportation sector. Plug-in hybrids and used gas cars could still be sold.
The Biden administration approved the state’s waiver to implement the standards in December, a month before Trump returned to office. The California rules are stricter than a Biden-era rule that tightens emissions standards but does not require sales of electric vehicles.
Biden’s EPA said in announcing the decision that opponents of the California waivers did not meet their legal burden to show how either the EV rule or a separate measure on heavy-duty vehicles was inconsistent with the Clean Air Act.
Republicans have long criticized California’s waivers and have worked to find a way to overturn them. The Government Accountability Office said earlier this year that California’s policies are not subject to the Congressional Review Act, a law that allows Congress to reject federal regulations under certain circumstances with a simple majority vote not subject to the filibuster. The Senate parliamentarian agreed with that ruling, but Republicans created a procedural workaround through a series of votes on Wednesday that established a new Senate precedent and cleared the way for the vote.
Democrats fought the changes, which were the latest attempt to chip away at the Senate filibuster after both parties have used their majorities in the past two decades to lower the threshold for nominations. Democrats tried in 2022 to roll back the filibuster for legislation, as well, but were thwarted by members of their own caucus who disagreed with the effort.
Republicans have insisted that they would not try a similar move after regaining the majority this year. But Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the move to block California’s laws were a “point of no return” and called the Republicans “fair weather institutionalists.”
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan was the only Democrat to support the measure to block the phaseout of gas-powered vehicles. She said in a statement after the vote that she has a “special responsibility to stand up for the more than one million Michiganders whose livelihoods depend on the U.S. Auto industry.”
John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an auto industry association and lobby group, said there is a gap between the vehicles that car buyers are purchasing and the rules that would force a transition to electric vehicles.
“The fact is these EV sales mandates were never achievable,” Bozzella said.
