The Republican-controlled Senate voted Thursday to block a California regulation banning the sale of new gas-powered cars and pickups by 2035 and pull back two other rules on sales requirements for zero-emission trucks and reducing nitrogen oxide emissions from trucks and buses.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., angered Democrats by even holding the votes. It required using procedures to sidestep opinions by the Government Accountability Office and Senate parliamentarian that the Congressional Review Act couldn’t be used to overturn the Biden administration decision allowing California to impose the regulations.

The House voted earlier, with the support of 35 Democrats, to nullify the Biden administration’s granting of a federal waiver for the California Air Resources Board's Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) regulation. The Senate voted 51-44 to approve the CRA resolution. One Democrat, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, supported the move. 

States need waivers from Clean Air Act requirements in order to exceed federal emissions standards. President Donald Trump is expected to sign all three resolutions revoking the waivers provided by the Environmental Protection Agency under then-President Joe Biden. 

While the state pulled back on its controversial sales ban on diesel trucks ahead of President Donald Trump returning to the White House, California had gained the EPA waiver for its Advanced Clean Trucks Rule, which requires manufacturers to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks through 2045. The state had received separate approval for reducing nitrogen oxide emissions in trucks, buses and off-road vehicles as well.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said the Advanced Clean Cars II rule was essentially an electric vehicle mandate that would apply not only to California but to the District of Columbia and 11 other states that link their standards to California.

She said the requirements were “unobtainable” and would “replace the will of the consumer with the will of the government.”

“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, she said.

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Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., expressed outrage that Thune used the CRA to block the California rule.

“By overriding the parliamentarian … and in order to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry, Republicans have eroded away at the Senate foundation and undermined this institution they claim to care about,” Schumer said. “Make no mistake, Republicans have set a new precedent that will come back to haunt them and haunt this chamber. What goes around comes around.”

Thune said the GAO had improperly decided that the EPA waivers weren’t rules for purposes of the CRA, which enables Congress to kill regulations through a fast-track process.

The EPA waivers “are clearly rules in substance given their nationwide impact and scope,” said Thune.

The biofuels industry complained that rule was not making space for low-carbon alternatives in trying to meet its clean energy goals, and California farm interests raised concerns about the cost implications, with the state’s rising energy rates and an overexerted grid.

The vote angered California Democrats, with Senator Adam Schiff warning it would "leave millions of Californians with dirtier air for generations" and that "going nuclear" on the Senate rules sets a precedent for every state "to have their own policies targeted in the years to come." California Attorney General Rob Bonta pledged to file a lawsuit — his 23rd against the Trump administration — challenging the use of the CRA. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed regulations like these have fostered a green economy that led to the development of Tesla, "an iconic American company," and that rescinding them will incentivize China to take over the EV market. He noted that then-Gov. Ronald Reagan established the California Air Resources Board and the Nixon administration issued California its first clean air waivers.

"We are going backwards half a century, with yesterday's technology," said Newsom at a press conference in Sacramento Thursday. "This is like blockbuster for Standard Oil — doubling down on stupid." 

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