Biden Reverses Trump Crackdown on California Car Pollution Rules
Biden Puts California Back in Driver’s Seat on Car Emissions
(Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration is reinstating California’s authority to impose its own pollution limits on cars -- empowering the state to pursue progressive climate policies, including an eventual ban on gasoline-powered automobiles.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday issued a waiver that effectively reauthorizes California’s limits on greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes as well as its requirement that a share of in-state vehicle sales be zero-emission models. The agency also is withdrawing a Trump-era policy that blocked other states from adopting California’s requirements.
“Today we proudly reaffirm California’s longstanding authority to lead in addressing pollution from cars and trucks,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in an emailed statement. “With today’s action, we reinstate an approach that for years has helped advance clean technologies and cut air pollution for people not just in California, but for the U.S. as a whole.”
The action reverses a signature effort by former President Donald Trump to curtail the standard-setting power of California, long considered the vanguard of American environmentalism. And the shift comes at a critical time -- right as the Biden administration begins writing a new regulation cracking down on the tailpipe emissions of cars and light trucks beginning with model year 2027. That measure is seen as critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, a leading source of that planet-warming pollution.
The EPA’s move Wednesday revives California standards governing emissions from cars and light trucks through model year 2025 that are followed by at least 14 other states representing more than a third of the U.S. vehicle market. Environmental advocates say those requirements, which track an approach the state charted with the Obama administration roughly a decade ago, are tougher than federal standards.
Under the Clean Air Act, California has special treatment to set air pollution policies that are tougher than those of the federal government, and other states can choose to adhere to them.
California is currently writing new regulations to bar the sale of gasoline-fueled cars with internal combustion engines after 2035. That conventional car ban would need another waiver from the EPA to go into force.
President Joe Biden has said he wants 50% of new cars to be electric by 2030. Leaders of a dozen states last year asked Biden to adhere to the same timeline, by mandating that all new cars sold after 2035 be zero-emission models.
California has already used its special status under the Clean Air Act to establish more aggressive auto standards. It collaborated with Obama administration officials and carmakers to chart an emissions plan in 2012, in the shadow of the auto industry bailout.
Conservative Warnings
Conservatives are worried the state will wield its influence again -- this time to edge out conventional cars.
The reinstated waiver will result in more stringent fuel economy standards “as well as more widespread and aggressive zero-emission vehicle mandates,” the Competitive Enterprise Institute said in written comments to the EPA before the waiver was finalized. “Those more stringent policies will increase new car prices and further limit consumer choice by restricting the availability of larger, heavier cars and non-electric vehicles.”
Environmentalists are hoping California will once again use its leverage to prod the federal government to go further.
The onus is now on California to create “the strongest possible clean car standard and reclaim the state’s climate leadership,” said Scott Hochberg, a transportation attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “Stronger standards now and 100% zero-emission vehicle sales by 2030 will protect Californians’ health and their pocketbooks.“
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