California v. Trump – State Sues Over Move Blocking Clean Vehicle Rules
“Trump’s all-out assault on California continues – and this time he’s destroying our clean air,” says California’s governor.
Credit: Ken Lund via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0
Amidst the ongoing armed occupation of Los Angeles by nearly 5,000 National Guard and Marines deployed by President Trump against the consent of local and state leaders, on Thursday the president launched what California Governor Gavin Newsom described as another “assault on California” with an action blocking the state from implementing several policies addressing vehicle tailpipe pollution. Fossil fueled-transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California and the US, and it is a significant contributor to air pollution that can cause respiratory, cardiovascular, and other diseases and premature deaths. For more than 50 years, California has had authority under the Clean Air Act to establish tailpipe regulations that go beyond federal requirements, pending permission – called waivers – from the Environmental Protection Agency. Most recently the state received waivers for three rules intended to encourage more zero-emission cars and trucks on the roads and to help slash smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions from heavy-duty vehicles.
But now those waivers have been revoked. On June 12, Trump signed resolutions passed by the Republican-controlled Congress to axe California’s clean vehicle rules by rescinding the waivers. One of the rules called Advanced Clean Cars II was especially loathed by the oil industry and its political allies because it would have required all new car sales be zero-emission by 2035. Critics referred to it as a ban on gasoline-powered cars or an electric vehicle mandate. “Today we are terminating the California electric vehicle mandate once and for all,” Trump said during a White House signing ceremony on Thursday.
What Trump signed, resolutions passed by Congress under the Congressional Review Act, might be unlawful. That is because the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to rescind recent administrative rules, does not actually apply to waivers since they are not themselves rules. This determination was made by both the Government Accountability Office and the Senate Parliamentarian. But Congress ignored their position and went ahead in voting to revoke, following the unprecedented move from EPA head Lee Zeldin to submit the waivers to Congress in the first place.
For more details and context on this maneuver to use Congress to repeal California’s waivers, see this article I wrote for Sierra that published this week. The point is that the Trump administration and Republican Congress applied an expedited and potentially illegal process to kill California’s authority to mitigate air pollution and climate change by ensuring the vehicles on its roads gradually get cleaner.
“These rules are critical for improving air quality and slashing emissions driving climate change. Blocking these standards will result in approximately 2,000 air pollution-related deaths through 2040 in California,” Don Anair, deputy director of the Clean Transportation program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement.
Katherine Garcia, Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All director, argued that Trump is selling out Americans to pay back his Big Oil friends and donors. “The Trump administration’s attack on clean air and clean vehicles only benefits the fossil fuel industry, leaving Americans to foot the bill with higher fueling costs, limited vehicle choices, and more pollution,” she said.
It’s worth noting that the CEO of a big oil company, John Hess, was not only in the room for Trump’s signing ceremony on Thursday, but was invited by Trump up to the podium to give a few remarks on the action blocking California’s clean vehicle rules.
John Hess, CEO of Hess Corp., speaks during a signing ceremony at the White House on June 12, 2025.
California has already hit back, filing a lawsuit challenging the revocation of its waivers. “We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a President who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big polluters,” Newsom said in a statement. It’s the second lawsuit California has filed against Trump this week. On Monday the state sued over Trump’s move to send National Guard troops into Los Angeles over the objections of the governor and local law enforcement.
“The President’s reckless, politically motivated, and illegal attacks on California continue, this time with his attempt to trample on our longstanding authority to maintain more stringent clean vehicle standards,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in announcing the lawsuit challenging the repeal of the state’s waivers. “The President is busy playing partisan games with lives on the line and yanking away good jobs that would bolster the economy – ignoring that these actions have life or death consequences for California communities breathing dirty, toxic air. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: California will not back down. We will continue to fiercely defend ourselves from this lawless federal overreach.”
Ten other states have joined California as plaintiffs in its lawsuit against Trump and Zeldin, including Colorado, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. These states have chosen to adopt California’s clean cars rule requiring 100 percent of new car sales be zero-emission by 2035, as the Clean Air Act does allow other states to follow California’s vehicle emissions standards.
“These standards gave states the ability to protect their people – but the Trump administration just ripped that away from us,” said Emily Green, director of clean mobility at Conservation Law Foundation, a New England environmental advocacy organization. “As a parent, I think about my daughter and all the children across the country who will suffer from worse toxic tailpipe fumes because of this decision. Fumes that cause asthma, heart disease, and overheat the planet. Gutting the standards only helps Big Oil and Gas. It’s a slap in the face for almost everyone else wanting a safer and healthier future.”