Federal judge blocks EPA attempt to strip California’s clean air waivers

A federal judge blocked the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to strip California of four Clean Air Act waivers on Wednesday, ruling that the agency could not sidestep normal rulemaking by handing the repeal to Congress instead. Senior U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, of the District of Columbia, granted California a preliminary injunction and denied the EPA’s motion to dismiss the case.

The dispute began in June, when the EPA reclassified four Clean Air Act preemption waivers it had previously granted to California as “rules” subject to the Congressional Review Act. That law lets Congress repeal certain federal rules through an expedited process that bypasses the Senate filibuster. California, represented by Attorney General Rob Bonta, Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Air Resources Board, sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing the waivers were never rules subject to that process in the first place.

The four waivers cover greenhouse gas emission standards for passenger cars, light-duty trucks and medium-duty vehicles that automakers have complied with since 2009; smog-forming pollutant and greenhouse gas limits for light-duty vehicles under the Advanced Clean Cars I program, in place since 2015; the 2022 reinstatement of the 2013 Advanced Clean Cars I waiver after the EPA unlawfully withdrew it in 2019; and exhaust standards for small off-road engines used in lawn and garden equipment. CleanTechnica reported that Howell’s order requires the EPA to “restore the status quo” that existed before the agency announced the reclassification.

Katherine García, director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign, said in a statement reported by Common Dreams: “The EPA’s move to attack these waivers would benefit Big Oil at the expense of public health, and the court saw through it.” In a separate statement carried by CleanTechnica, García said: “This summer… Trump’s EPA and congressional Republicans chose to spend their time attacking states’ ability to protect residents from harmful pollution.”

California has held authority under the Clean Air Act since 1967 to set vehicle emissions standards stricter than the federal government’s, a power tied to the state’s early and severe smog problems, subject to an EPA waiver. More than a dozen other states have adopted California’s standards under a separate provision of the law, meaning the waivers at issue affect vehicle rules well beyond California’s borders.

The ruling does not resolve the case permanently. Howell’s order is a preliminary injunction, meaning the litigation continues, but it blocks the EPA from treating the waivers as repealable rules while the case proceeds. U.S. News reported that the ruling came after EPA had already submitted the reclassified waivers to Congress under the Congressional Review Act process, a step Howell’s order now unwinds.

The Congressional Review Act process the EPA invoked allows a simple majority in both chambers of Congress to repeal a rule within 60 legislative days of its submission, without the 60-vote threshold normally needed to overcome a Senate filibuster. Ninety-five organizations, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Sierra Club, had separately written to Congress urging lawmakers to reject four resolutions built on that process, arguing the underlying waivers were never rules that Congress could repeal that way.

The EPA has not said whether it will appeal Howell’s ruling. Congress has not withdrawn the four repeal resolutions built on the agency’s reclassification.