Key facts
- A federal judge blocked the Trump Administration's attempt to deny California's Clean Air Act waivers.
- The EPA had reclassified California's waiver requests as rules to subject them to the Congressional Review Act.
- The judge found the EPA's actions constituted purposeful agency action to mislead Congress.
- California uses Clean Air Act waivers to set vehicle emission standards higher than federal law.
- Seventeen states and Washington D.C. have adopted California's emissions standards.
A federal judge has halted the Trump Administration's efforts to overturn California's stricter vehicle emissions standards. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unlawfully reclassified California's requests for Clean Air Act waivers as rules, thereby attempting to subject them to the Congressional Review Act (CRA) and bypass normal congressional review.
In her decision, Judge Howell stated that the EPA's actions involved a "purposeful agency action to tell Congress one thing while operating differently elsewhere." The judge highlighted the dilemma for the EPA, which had previously stated that these waivers were not rules of general applicability, yet sought to use a mechanism (the CRA) that applies only to such rules. This created a situation where the agency could be seen as having submitted misleading reports to Congress.
Section 209 of the Clean Air Act permits states like California to seek waivers from federal preemption to implement their own, potentially more stringent, vehicle emission standards. California has historically received over 100 such waivers, and its standards have been adopted by 17 states and Washington D.C. as of 2025. The EPA's attempt to deny these waivers through a reclassification strategy aimed to make them subject to a lower, 51-vote threshold for rejection in the Senate, rather than the standard 60-vote threshold under the CRA.