California officials announced their intentions on Thursday to file their 23rd lawsuit against the Trump administration — this time, over an attempt to upend the state’s stricter-than-federal emissions rules.
“We want to make sure our future generations have clean air to breathe, and a livable planet,” state Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a Thursday press conference.
“Meanwhile, the president’s focus on red team versus blue team is threatening California’s lives, our economy and our environment. It’s undoubtedly shortsighted, and it’s also illegal,” Bonta added.
The Thursday announcement followed a 51-44 vote in the Senate that morning, in which lawmakers passed a measure to repeal California’s phaseout of gas-powered cars. The legislation, which already earned the House’s approval, is heading to President Trump’s desk for its expected signing into law.
Rather than directly overturning California’s rule, the bill would revoke the Biden administration’s authorization of the Golden State’s policy. Both chambers advanced the legislation via the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which enables the repeal of recently approved regulations with a simple majority.
Yet in advancing the bill, lawmakers circumvented a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian, who concluded that the act didn’t apply to the Biden administration’s decision, due to its status as a waiver, rather than a regulation.
Nonetheless, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) conducted several procedural votes on Wednesday night that he deemed sufficient to enable such a vote.
The waiver in question, which received the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) approval in December, enabled the implementation of California’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulations.
These stricter-than-federal emissions standards sought to require that 35 percent of cars sold in California in 2026 be zero-emissions, followed by 68 percent in 2030 and 100 percent in 2035.
California can set such standards through a 1970 Clean Air Act clause, written amid historic smog conditions in the Los Angeles area. But to do so, the Golden State must first apply to the EPA for a waiver for each rule it wants to set — and only then can other states follow suit.
At the press conference announcing the lawsuit on Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said that while he and his colleagues “anticipated being back here,” they “didn’t expect the path” that the administration elected to take with the CRA.
“They decided to change the rules that have been established in the United States Senate, protocols that have been well established for centuries, in order to attack California, in order to pollute more,” Newsom said.
Bonta slammed the Trump administration for its “unlawful and unprecedented CRA resolutions,” stressing that the law has been in place for 30 years and “has never, ever, not once, been used to apply to a waiver.”
“This is a workaround for Trump to punish California for defying his efforts to bring us backward,” Bonta said. “The federal government’s overreach is illogical. It’s politically motivated, and it comes at the expense of Californians’ lives and livelihoods.”
Revoking these waivers, Bonta contended, would hamper the state’s abilities to advance the use of electric vehicles, fight climate change, decrease pollution and build a greener economy.
Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board, noted that the EPA has granted California more than 100 waivers across administrations on both sides of the aisle, and has demonstrated that these policies are both feasible and successful.
Newsom, meanwhile, invoked the legacy of former President Reagan, a Republican who advanced California clean air policies as governor and whose portrait hangs above Trump’s desk.
The current governor recalled telling the president a few weeks ago that Reagan would “be looking down in shame” if he signs legislation “authorizing the degradation of his legacy.”
Newsom characterized this moment as a “big day for big oil, big day for GM and Toyota, big day for China” — and as a “terrible day for your kids, terrible day for air quality, terrible day for innovation and entrepreneurship.”
“We are ceding our leadership, and we are going backwards, a half a century, with yesterday’s technology,” he said, accusing the administration of “doubling down on stupid.”
“They want to recreate the 19th century, and we want to dominate the 21st century,” the governor added.