Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Ban on Gas Powered Cars is Dead – California Globe

By Katy Grimes
California Globe

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin just sent California’s vehicle emissions waiver request to Congress for review. This is big and kills California Governor Gavin Newsom’s ban on gas-powered vehicles.

In December, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on orders from the Biden administration, announced that they approved California’s mandate to ban the sale of all gas-powered vehicles by 2035, attempting to make it more difficult for President Donald Trump to federally stop the mandate once he took office, the Globe reported.

California’s strictest-in-the-nation vehicle regulations require manufacturers to comply with the state’s much more stringent emissions standards, and to produce more zero-emission vehicles for the state. However, this is usually sent to Congress prior to authorization.

Enter EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin who lifted the order and sent California’s waiver request to Congress for review:

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in the Oval Office, alongside President Donald Trump and the newly created National Energy Dominance Council, that the EPA will be transmitting to Congress the Biden Administration’s rules granting waivers that allowed California to preempt federal car and truck standards promulgated by EPA and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“The Biden Administration failed to send rules on California’s waivers to Congress, preventing Members of Congress from deciding on extremely consequential actions that have massive impacts and costs across the entire United States. The Trump EPA is transparently correcting this wrong and rightly following the rule of law,” said EPA Administrator Zeldin. “The American people are struggling to make ends meet while dealing with rules that take away their ability to choose a safe and affordable vehicle for their families. As an agency, we are accountable to Congress, but most importantly we must be accountable to the American people.”

The EPA rules granting California waivers transmitted to Congress include California’s Advanced Clean Cars II, Advanced Clean Trucks, and Omnibus NO_x rules.  The two waivers regarding trucks not only increased the cost of those vehicles but also increased the costs of goods and the cost of living for American families across the country.

As the Globe reported, it was only in January that the benevolent California Air Resources Board had the good sense to withdraw the federal waiver to enact emissions limits that exceed federal standards, and would require California truck drivers to transition from diesel to electric trucks.

This was about to go into effect, but in anticipation of the upcoming Trump administration the CARB actually read the room.

Gov. Newsom hasn’t done that yet.

There was nothing “groundbreaking” about California’s or the EPA’s Advanced Clean Fleets rule. CARB aimed to achieve a total zero-emissions truck and bus fleet by 2045, as well as have at least 1.6 million zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks operating in the state by 2048.

“State officials have long considered the rules essential to cleaning up California’s severe air pollution and combating climate change,” CalMatters reported, obviously upset about the federal waiver forcing big rigs to go all-electric being dropped.

Where is California’s severe air pollution? Who in California is experiencing climate change?

It’s probably more important to listen to those in the trucking industry than a reporter paid to write “about the impacts of climate change and air pollution and California’s policies to tackle them.”

The Commercial Carrier Journal reported:

“The state of California has withdrawn its remaining outstanding request for waivers that would have allowed the state to enact emissions limits that exceed federal standards as the sun sets on President Joe Biden’s administration, which had been an ally in the state’s fight for some of the world’s most stringent air quality regulations.”

Biden EPA Approves Waiver For California’s 2035 Gas-Powered Vehicle Ban

In August, 21 Republican Lawmakers from the California Senate and Assembly increased pressure on Governor Gavin Newsom to change up his Advanced Clean Fleets mandate because of multiple electric vehicle fires caused by lithium-ion batteries that occurred in the past month, the Globe reported.

Administrator Zeldin announced his “Powering the Great American Comeback” initiative to guide EPA’s work to protect human health and the environment while restoring the greatness of the American economy for the first 100 days and beyond. Today’s action advances two of the five pillars of this initiative: Permitting Reform, Cooperative Federalism, and Cross-Agency Partnership, and Protecting and Bringing Back American Auto Jobs.

---