The US government is ready to approve California’s emissions rules which would end gas-only car sales within the state by 2035, according to a report by the Washington Post.
The Post spoke with anonymous sources stating that California’s “Advanced Clean Cars 2” light-duty emissions rules, which were finalized in 2022, are going to be approved by the federal government in the coming days.
California has requested waivers for several other emissions rules – and has received some of them in recent years – but the sources did not comment on whether any other pending rules, like those for heavy duty trucks, would be approved at the same time.
WaPo reached out to the EPA by email, and a spokesman declined to comment on the rumor. WaPo quoted spokesman Nick Conger as saying “EPA continues to review California’s waiver requests closely to make sure its decisions are durable and grounded in the law.”
The history of California’s emissions rules
For decades now, California has had a special “waiver” given by the federal government, allowing it to set its own emissions rules as long as they are stricter than the rules for the US overall.
This is due to heavy smog problems in California – especially in the areas around Los Angeles, its largest city and home to the nation’s largest container port; and in the central valley, which is the most agriculturally productive land in the country. Both of these places have geography that traps smog from the millions of cars driving on their roads every day and results in particularly bad air quality.
And so, since the 1960s when the California Air Resources Board was created (by then-Governor Ronald Reagan), California has generally exercised its state’s right to set its own emissions rules. Other states are allowed to follow these rules, but only if they copy them exactly.
The new set of rules has been in the works since 2020, and will have the effect of ensuring that there are no new gas-only vehicles sold in the state by 2035 (though there can be 20% plug-in hybrids, but those hybrids have to fit certain requirements to ensure they actually get used properly).
California intentionally chose this less-ambitious 2035 timeline because it thought it would make it easier for other states to follow along. And as a result, 11 other states have signaled that they will adopt the standards.
The new emissions rules are expected to save Californians $13 billion in health costs, avoid thousands of deaths, cut auto emissions by half, and result in almost a billion fewer barrels of petroleum being burned. Other states will see similar improvements in health and money savings.
EPA grants new California waiver – with another clean air fight looming
All of this is contingent on the EPA signing off on the regulation, which it reportedly is ready to do in the coming days.
The approval isn’t unexpected, but comes quite late during President Biden’s term, which has been marked by significant improvements in emissions rules and EV policy, leading to a boom in domestic manufacturing jobs and investment.
While a procedural step like this normally would not be particularly notable, there are some complicating factors here.
First, since it is late in the current Congressional term, the incoming Congress could attempt to reverse it through use of the Congressional Review Act, which republicans have made use of often in recent years to try to stop regulations that might improve Americans’ health. However, since the waiver is not actually a federal regulation, the Congressional Review Act doesn’t apply.
The larger threat is that, unfortunately for America, the next occupant of the White House is convicted felon Donald Trump, who finally received more votes than his opponent on his third attempt (despite committing treason in 2021, for which there is a clear legal remedy). Mr. Trump has stated quite forcefully that he wants to reverse President Biden’s clean air policies, thus saddling Americans with dirtier air, higher costs and poorer health, and sending EV jobs to China to ensure that this new boom in American manufacturing is unable to flourish.
Mr. Trump previously squatted in the White House between 2017-2021, after having attained the 2nd most votes in the 2016 election. During that period, he attempted to poison Americans by worsening California’s emissions rules – but in keeping with his pattern of incompetence, he failed to do so.
The primary actual outcome of the last fight with California was to de-harmonize federal and California standards. While California has mostly gone it alone since the 60s, there was a brief period in the 2010s where California and federal rules were harmonized – but industry lobbying resulted in a shattering of that harmony, giving companies a more difficult regulatory environment.
Industry learned their lesson, but republicans still aiming for dirty air
As a result, this time around, industry has decided to lobby against shattering emissions standards, recognizing the chaos that was caused the last time an ignoramus got involved in setting auto regulations.
Despite the desires of the industry in question, Mr. Trump has signaled that he wants to “rip up” California’s waiver again – even though the law does not specify a method to revoke a waiver once it is granted, as EPA will reportedly do in the coming days.
So it is yet to be seen if he will take the more reasonable approach desired by big auto, doctors, nurses, scientists, environmental groups, other businesses, people who have lungs, and so on; or if he will instead do what big oil, the industry he asked for a $1 billion bribe from and which kills millions of people around the world every year wants him to do. Make your bets now.
Further complicating the issue is that this time, Mr. Trump has a corrupt kangaroo court at his backing, who just today said that it will consider a challenge against California’s emissions rules by big oil. This illegitimate court has routinely ignored the law to legislate from the bench, so it’s entirely possible that it will try to say that California, which has been legally allowed to set its own emissions rules for 60 years, shouldn’t be allowed to do the thing that the law explicitly says it can do.
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