California’s regulations would have raised costs for consumers and threatened critical supply chains if they weren’t repealed, lawmakers said.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted on May 1 to block California’s plan to phase out the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035, although California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the vote was illegal.
The Republican-controlled House voted to repeal waivers granted by the Biden administration that allowed California to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035 and mandate the sale of zero-emission trucks.
“If not repealed, the California waivers would lead to higher prices for both new and used vehicles, increase our reliance on China, and strain our electric grid.”
Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.), who cosponsored the resolution, stated that California’s regulations would “raise costs for consumers, crush small businesses, and threaten critical supply chains across the country.”
“This defies decades of precedent of these waivers not being subject to the CRA, and contradicts the non-partisan Government Accountability Office and Senate Parliamentarian, who both ruled that the CRA’s short-circuited process does not apply to the waivers,” the statement reads.
Newsom said the state’s vehicle program is necessary to ensure clean air and maintain competitiveness with China, adding that he would continue defending the program despite the vote.
“Clean air didn’t used to be political,” the governor said. “Washington may want to cede our economy to China but California is standing by American innovation.”
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation—which represents General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, and other major automakers—had warned that car companies could be “forced to substantially reduce the number of overall vehicles for sale to inflate their proportion of electric vehicles sales.”
The group’s CEO, John Bozzella, has called the vote a “welcome—and targeted—action by the House to prevent the inevitable jobs and manufacturing fallout from these unachievable regulations.”
“This vote lets polluters run installed pollution control equipment less and increase dangerous pollution above levels they have achieved for decades,” John Walke, federal director for clean air at NRDC, stated.
California’s rules require 35 percent of light-duty vehicles in the 2026 model year to be zero-emission models. Automakers have said that it would be impossible for them to meet that figure due to current electric vehicle sales, which are 10 percent or lower in some states adopting the rules.
Reuters contributed to this report.
