Jun 12, 2018; Oakland, CA, USA; Lieutenant Governor of California and gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom salutes during the championship parade in downtown Oakland. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Sacramento, California – California officials announced plans Thursday to file their 23rd lawsuit against the Trump administration, this time over a new federal effort to revoke the state’s authority to enforce stricter-than-federal vehicle emissions standards.
“We want to make sure our future generations have clean air to breathe and a livable planet,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta at a press conference alongside Governor Gavin Newsom. “Meanwhile, the president’s focus on red team versus blue team is threatening California’s lives, our economy, and our environment. It’s undoubtedly shortsighted — and it’s also illegal.”
The announcement came just hours after the U.S. Senate voted 51-44 to approve a measure repealing the Biden administration’s waiver that allowed California to implement its Advanced Clean Cars II program. That policy aims for 35 percent of new cars sold in the state to be zero-emissions by 2026, scaling to 100 percent by 2035.
The legislation — already passed by the House — now heads to President Trump’s desk, where it is expected to be signed into law.
Rather than directly striking down California’s policy, the bill uses the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to nullify the Environmental Protection Agency’s December 2024 waiver approval. The CRA allows Congress to overturn recent federal regulations with a simple majority. Still, the Senate parliamentarian had ruled the act didn’t apply to the EPA waiver, classifying it as a waiver rather than a regulation. Still, Senate Republicans moved forward with procedural votes, led by Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), to bypass that interpretation.
Governor Newsom criticized the move as a procedural stunt to undermine California’s decades-old clean air authority. “They decided to change the rules that have been established in the United States Senate for centuries, in order to attack California, in order to pollute more,” he said.
Attorney General Bonta called the CRA effort “unlawful and unprecedented,” noting that the law has never been used to reverse an EPA waiver. “This is a workaround for Trump to punish California for defying his efforts to bring us backward,” he said.
Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board, emphasized the state’s long-standing leadership in clean air policy, backed by over 100 federal waivers issued by administrations of both parties.
Newsom invoked former California Governor Ronald Reagan, whose portrait reportedly hangs in Trump’s office. “Reagan would be looking down in shame,” Newsom said. “This is a terrible day for your kids, for air quality, for innovation. We are ceding our leadership and going backward — doubling down on stupid.”
