Sacramento, California – The United States Chamber controlled by Republicans voted on Thursday to prevent California from enforcing first rules in the nation eliminating the sale of new cars with gasoline by 2035.
The movement occurs a day after the camera voted to stop California standards to cut the escape tube emissions of medium and heavy service vehicles, as well as the contamination of nitrogen oxide that form Smog of trucks.
“The approval of these resolutions is a victory for the Americans who will not be forced to buy Costa Due to the unfeasible mandates of California,” the Republicans of the Brett Guthrie representatives of Kentucky and Morgan Griffith of Virginia said in a statement. “If it is not repealed, California exemptions would lead to higher prices for new and used vehicles, they would increase our dependence on China and colan in our electricity grid.”
California for decades has been given the authority to adopt vehicle emission standards that are stricter than those of the federal government. Democratic governor Gavin Newsom in 2020 announced plans to prohibit the sale of all new vehicles with gasoline in the state by 2035as part of an aggressive effort to reduce the emissions of the transport sector. Plug -in hybrids and used gasoline cars can still be sold.
Then, state regulators formalized the rules, some other states announced plans to follow them, and the Biden administration approved the exemption of the State to implement them In DecemberA month before President Donald Trump returned to office.
The votes of the House of Representatives of this week fell largely in the lines of the party, although some Democrats joined the Republicans to advance. That would be against the Council of the Senate parliamentarian, which is placed in the United States General Responsibility Office in saying that California’s policies are not subject to the review mechanism used by the Chamber.
Republicans used the Congress Review Law, a law aimed at improving the supervision of the Congress of federal agencies, to try to block the rules. The Trump administration in 2019 revoked California to enforce its own emission standards, but later drill restored the authority of the State.
But California standards cannot be legally blocked using the Congress Review Law, the United States Government Responsibility Office, a non -partisan Congress guardian, wrote in a letter to Congress in March.
Newsom said the effort is another sign of the ideological change of Republicans during the decades of an era in which former presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan signed a point of reference Environmental laws to one in which Trump is pressing for environmental reversals in everything, from clean air to clean water and climate change.
“Clean air did not used to be political,” said Newsom in a statement. “Our vehicle program helps clean the air for all Californians, and we will continue to defend it.”
A spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, who approved vehicle issuance standards, said the agency “will continue its mission to protect the public health of Californians affected by the pollution of the harmful air.”
It is not clear what will happen in the Senate. The Senate parliamentarian in April reaffirmed the findings of the GAO that the exemptions of the Clean Air Law of California are not subject to the Congress Review Law, according to the office of the Senator of California, Adam Schiff.
“We will fight with this last attack against the power of California to protect its own residents, and I will urge my colleagues in the Senate to recognize the severe implications of proceeding with this violation of the rights of the states, as well as the dangerous precedent that I would establish when mocking the unanimous opinion of the confidence arbitrators of the congress,” said the Democrat in a statement.
Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Center for Biological Diversity Climate Transportation campaign, described the use of Congress’ review law as a “rear door movement” that “shows how recklessly the Republicans behave.”
“Republicans can regret having opened this pandora box, inviting attacks on many other rules in the future when they are no longer in charge,” Becker said in a statement.
But the American Petroleum Institute and the American Fuel and the Petrochemical manufacturers applauded Thursday’s vote, describing it as a “great victory for US consumers.”
“The illegal prohibition of California should never have been authorized, and Governor Newsom should never have taken this great control over the American vehicle market,” said Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the Institute, and Chet Thompson, president and CEO of the group of manufacturers, in a joint statement.
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Associated Press Lisa Mascaro writers in Washington and Trân Nguyễn in Sacramento contributed to this report.
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Austin is a member of Associated Press’s body/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America It is a non -profit national service program that places journalists in local writing rooms to inform about undercover issues. Follow Austin in X: @Sophieadanna
