17 states push EPA to revoke California's ability to set its own vehicle emission standards
They may be too late. So far GM, Ford, BMW, Honda, Tesla, Volkswagen and Volvo have agreed to meeting the standards. Toyota and Nissan are expected to join soon.The states of Missouri, Ohio, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and West Virginia joined in a petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. They claim the EPA's decision would require all states to adopt California's strict vehicle emission standards for all new cars under the authority of the Clean Air Act.
"The act simply leaves California with a slice of its sovereign authority that Congress withdraws from every other state,” West Virginia Atty. Gen. Patrick Morrisey of Virginia said in a statement.
Missouri Atty. Gen. Eric Schmitt said in a statement that if California is allowed to set nationwide standards, then manufacturing would become "astronomically expensive, and those additional costs are passed onto consumers." He added that the Golden State's standards are "oppressive."
California first negotiated its own set of tougher emission standards with Congress during the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970. The state has a carve-out agreement in the Clean Air Act but each year requires a waiver from the EPA. The 2009 update reinstated a 40-year interpretation of the act that was rescinded by the Bush administration and reinstated under the Obama administration.
In 2019, the EPA threatened to cut federal transportation funds to California for not submitting timely pollution-control plans. The open feud between the state and the Trump administration seemed to come to a head after California secretly negotiated a deal with four major automakers to voluntarily follow the state's emission rules and increase fuel efficiency.
At the time, the EPA rescinded a decades-old rule that allowed California to set tougher-than-required car emissions standards than those required by federal regulators. After the waiver was rescinded, California sued the federal government, arguing the tougher standards were necessary to improve air quality in the state.
Three years later, under the Biden administration in 2022, the EPA reversed its hostile stance toward California's vehicle emission standards and reinstated the waiver under the Clean Air Act. Multiple attorneys general called California's special treatment unconstitutional, including many of the states that joined the recent petition.
In March, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, Republican leader of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said, “President Biden’s strict auto emissions regulations are yet another example of this administration putting a radical rush-to-green regulatory regime ahead of restoring America’s energy dominance and leadership.”