Today, I enacted (1) H.J. Res. 87, a “Joint Resolution providing congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency concerning ‘California State Motor Vehicle and Engine Pollution Control Standards; Heavy-Duty Vehicle and Engine Emission Warranty and Maintenance Provisions; Advanced Clean Trucks; Zero Emission Airport Shuttle; Zero-Emission Power Train Certification; Waiver of Preemption; Notice of Decision’”; (2) H.J. Res. 88, which similarly disapproves the EPA’s rule on ‘California State Motor Vehicle and Engine Pollution Control Standards; Advanced Clean Cars II; Waiver of Preemption; Notice of Decision’; and (3) H.J. Res. 89, which addresses ‘California State Motor Vehicle and Engine and Nonroad Engine Pollution Control Standards; The ‘Omnibus’ Low NOX Regulation; Waiver of Preemption; Notice of Decision’.
These bipartisan resolutions aim to thwart California’s ambitions to enforce a nationwide electric vehicle mandate and to unilaterally dictate national fuel economy standards by regulating carbon emissions. Thanks to the resolutions I signed today, California’s Advanced Clean Cars II, Advanced Clean Trucks, and Omnibus Low NOX initiatives are now explicitly and unequivocally preempted by the Clean Air Act, rendering them inoperative.
This preemption is critical in safeguarding the constitutional distribution of power, both among states and between states and the federal government. The authority to establish vehicle emissions standards lies with the Federal Government—not individual states—due to the inherently interstate nature of air quality issues. A disjointed landscape of state regulations on vehicle emissions would be impractical. The Constitution does not permit any single state to wield the power to set standards that could restrict consumer choices or impose an electric vehicle mandate across the entire country.
The joint resolutions underscore that California’s efforts to impose an electric vehicle mandate and regulate national fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions do not qualify for waivers of preemption under section 209 of the Clean Air Act. This section permits the EPA to grant waivers to California only in response to pressing and extraordinary localized issues. It is a misuse of this provision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that are not confined to local effects, let alone to impose vehicle emissions regulations nationwide.
Under the Congressional Review Act, the EPA is barred from approving any future waivers that are “substantially the same” as those disapproved in these joint resolutions. The core concern here is that these waivers would authorize California to control greenhouse gas and NOX emissions from internal combustion engines, effectively enforcing an electric vehicle mandate across the nation. Consequently, the joint resolutions prevent the EPA from granting future waivers that would extend California’s policy goals nationwide, thereby upholding key constitutional principles of federalism and permanently ending the electric vehicle mandate.
DONALD J. TRUMP
THE WHITE HOUSE,
June 12, 2025.
