The Senate just voted to block California’s gas car ban
Legal experts say Congress misused a federal law to do so, potentially “opening up a Pandora’s box it cannot close.”
... and the Civil War wasn't about slavery! It was about "states' rights". Yup!
Liars...
There are links in the seed.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
For nearly 60 years, California has enjoyed the ability to set its own standards governing air pollution from automobiles, as long as they’re more stringent than the federal government’s. This rule, written into the Clean Air Act, was meant to recognize the state’s long-standing leadership in regulating air emissions.
The U.S. Senate undermined that authority on Thursday when it voted 51 to 44 to revoke a waiver the Environmental Protection Agency approved allowing the Golden State to implement and enforce a de facto ban on the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035. The Senate also rescinded waivers allowing California to set stricter emissions standards for new diesel trucks and mandating the adoption of zero-emission trucks.
Environmental groups quickly decried the votes, saying that California’s standards are essential to protecting public health and achieving nationwide emissions reduction targets. The rules are seen as a sort of national benchmark since automakers don’t create separate product lines: one for California and another for everyone else. A provision in the Clean Air Act also allows other states to adopt the Golden State’s standards; 16 states and the District of Columbia have adopted many of the rules established by the California Air Resources Board.
“These standards are vital in protecting people from the vehicle pollution which causes asthma attacks and other serious health problems,” said Dan Lashof, a senior fellow at the nonprofit World Resources Institute, in a statement.
On a wonkier level, however, legal and policy experts objected to the way senators rescinded California’s waiver: They used the 1996 Congressional Review Act , or CRA, a law enacted to allow Congress to overturn some federal actions with a simple majority rather than the usual 60 votes. Two government watchdogs said the act did not apply to the state’s waiver.
“Republicans twisted the Senate’s own rules,” Joanna Slaney, vice president for political and government affairs at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. UCLA law professor Ann Carlson warned in a blog post ahead of the vote that Congress “may be opening up a Pandora’s box it can’t close” and that “there will be no limit on using the CRA to overturn all kinds of actions that the act doesn’t cover.”
At the heart of the controversy is whether the air pollution waiver that the EPA granted to California last year qualifies as a “rule” under the CRA. Both the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan oversight agency, and the Senate parliamentarian, a nonpartisan appointee tasked with interpreting congressional rules and procedures, issued advisory opinions earlier this year saying that it doesn’t . Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah appeared to agree with this interpretation: A one-pager on a bill he proposed to repeal California’s waiver said that the exemptions “cannot be reviewed under the Congressional Review Act because the waiver granted by EPA is not a rule as that term is defined in the CRA.”
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Party leaders don’t usually contravene the parliamentarian’s guidance. If they do, they run the risk of their opponents doing the same when they are in power. “Republicans should tread carefully today,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, told NPR on Thursday. California Senator Alex Padilla said in a statement that “radical Republicans” had “gone nuclear on the Senate rule book.”
“It won’t be long before Democrats are back in the driver’s seat again,” Padilla added. “When that happens, all bets will be off. Every agency action that Democrats don’t like — whether it’s a rule or not — will be fair game, from mining permits and fossil fuel projects to foreign affairs and tax policies.”
Dan Farber, a professor at UC Berkeley Law, told Grist that the Senate’s capricious interpretation of the CRA means it could be used to rescind waivers from the Department of Health and Human Services allowing states to modify Medicaid requirements or broadcasting licenses issued by the Federal Communications Commission. The act could also be used to revoke pollution permits that the EPA grants to states.
He clarified, however, that the Senate only nullified specific waivers in California affecting the sale of gasoline-powered cars. It did not repeal provisions in the Clean Air Act that allow the EPA to issue new waivers, as long as they’re not “substantially the same” as the rescinded ones. “I think that California still has the power to put forward, and EPA has the power to approve, different emissions regulations in the future,” Farber said. “Changing the deadlines by a few years could be enough.”
California’s current standards require 35 percent of new cars sold within the state to be zero-emissions by 2026, ratcheting up to 100 percent of new sales by 2035. President Donald Trump revoked California’s waiver allowing such regulations in 2019 during his first term, but that move was challenged in court and the waiver was restored by Joe Biden’s administration.
Although automakers have previously backed California’s air pollution standards, industry groups cheered the vote on Thursday. John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group, said in a statement that the Senate deserved “enormous credit.”
“The fact is these EV sales mandates were never achievable,” he said. “Automakers warned federal and state policymakers that reaching these EV sales targets would take a miracle, especially in the coming years when the mandates get exponentially tougher.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta objected to the Senate vote and vowed to challenge it in court. “Reducing emissions is essential to the prosperity, health, and well-being of California and its families,” he said in a statement. Governor Gavin Newsom said undoing his state’s air pollution rules risked “ ced[ing] American car-industry dominance to China .”
Whatever
Tags
Who is online
84 visitors
Why do the fascists want to make Americans' lives worse?
They want every one to fall in lock step. MAGA does not like individuals
Misery loves company, or in this case Missouri loves company...
It's actually a devious plot to put the glut of lawyers to work defending, appealing and losing these stupid federal cases.
this too will be overturned.
Were the deadlines set achievable?
I think a transition to renewable energy is definitely coming, but having put it off for so long I think we should expect that there will be resistance to unachievable deadlines from people who aren't fascists?
Would you agree?
I see no intention to move forward on renewables. I see the fascists determinedly going backward.
This is nuts! America is voluntarily trashing its own technology. Since the world is moving very fast on renewables... the ground lost now will never be recovered.
It's nut!
I don't know.
What I DO know is that manufacturers have screamed "impossible" every time a new health requirement - that's what these are - has been promulgated.
Then, when CARB didn't give in, the manufacturers put their engineers to work... and met the new standard.
Automobile manufacturers are crooks, like ALL big corporations. They will do ANYTHING to increase profits. They'll spend to defeat an upcoming standard, and then they'll pay engineers to avoid fines when the standard goes into effect.
And they'll lie about everything along the way. That's how big corporations behave.
A report was published this morning about "dieselgate", the scandal a decade ago when manufacturers used special engine programming to allow their diesel engines to pass emissions standards that those same engines could not meet in real-world conditions. The report estimates that 7000 French were among 200 000 Europeans to die prematurely because of particulates.
Not that auto manufacturers are worse than others. They're ALL the same: they'll do whatever, to make more money. Including KILL.
There is definitely a backlash against anything Biden. It's not really about Biden, though. It's more about whoever was actually running things in his place and the militant left stance taken by people nobody ever voted for.
That said, we have definitely gone overboard and we are definitely in a "throwing the baby out with the bath water" situation.
I wouldn't underestimate us. This will pass and we'll get back on track.
[✘]
Well if we (the American People) are not convinced that the goals are achievable as set then they are not goals, but rather dreams.
Dreams need to be set aside and real goals for environment, infrastructure, health care etc etc need to be set with defined steps in getting there.
Not a statement that "as of this date" there will be no gas cars, or no gas stoves, etc
PERFECT is the enemy of BETTER
[✘]
I find that many generalizations such as this are false (I realize the irony of my broad generalization here)
Are you convinced that ALL big corporations operate contrary to the common good? A lot of corporations contribute to charities and other community focused activities. Sure they get good publicity but that is a small price (in my view) for the good they do.
It looks like executives involved in Dieselgate have been or will be punished for their misdeeds
Ten Years Later, VW’s Biggest Scandal Still Isn’t Over
You really must pay closer attention. I didn't say that. I said that all big corporations will do anything to improve their profits. If that requires operating against the common good, they'll do so. They aren't evil - they're amoral.
Big charity, from corporations and from ultra-rich people is more about tax avoidance than serving the community.
Do you think justice will be done for the 200 000 premature dieselgate deaths in Europe? And the additional unknown number of others all around the world? Is life so cheap?
They never are and they have moved the goal posts religiously, usually one step back during conservative administrations and one or two steps forward during the other administrations.
No surprise to the industry; CAAA goals have been changed with every new administration, one side always favoring a bit of wealth for a few over the overall health of the rest of us.
So that is why the Democrats have been scrambling to cover their asses since November. They know what they have set precedents that can be used against them.
The GOP, aka, the G rabbed O veruled P ussies have certainly shown how neutered they are when it comes to Trump and his behavior bazaar. "How high do we go, how low will we blow, what bitches we R".
Is about what they have shown US with veery few exceptions, asz their frightened of getting primaried in the next elections, and all due to the one with the obvious brain infections
This country needs a Test. It's time to cull the herds. As lobbyist bought to represent Corporations, cause they're apparetly scum bag people (Corporations) as well seem to have been given the ability to own the ignorant masses just by backing the scum that will do their bidding, and it is a fckd up scene.
As big money will be our downfall, for there is not a future in fossil fuels, and we weere leading the world in Green Technologies. Trump couldn't have that. The Republican Party brings US the downfall we were warned about, coming from within.
The democrats are angry elected officials are creating policy and not bureaucrats. Their threat that this means Legislators will actually legislate shows how undemocratic are system is really is. They don’t want lawmakers actually making choices they can be held responsible for.
None of these goals are achievable or practical. Most trucks are not adaptable to battery operation and maintenance. EV's are still too costly and unreliable. The biggest problem is the existing grid would not be able to support the charging stations that would be required. The Republicans are using the Senate rules to their advantage, and it is legal and Constitutional.
Idiotic statements about fascists undermines the whole argument
Setting aside all the legal shenanigans, why do Republicans from other states care about what cars are sold in California? How is that any of your business?
Because eventually California could ban ICE vehicles even entering the state forcing the EV's onto others.
This is what California did to the Screaming Jimmies otherwise known as the road oilers (the 2-cycle diesels), California's ban spread across the nation.
So, California should have no say in the quality of our air? Others should be allowed to force their pollution on us?
Apparently, he's pissed off that California sets trends and then rational people see the benefits and adopt similar statutes which pisses off conservatives who are bitter and angry at all the change that is too hard for their tiny brains to deal with. I mean, smoking bans, drunk driving laws, seatbelt laws, helmet laws, water and air pollution laws, all this shit that's trying to prevent conservatives from drinking, smoking and drunk driving themselves into heaven as fast as possible as they are so clearly desperate to do.
California has 52 representatives in the House. They have a huge say in the quality of "your" air, as well as everyone else's air.
Though I have to say for a party that supports the government being able to regulate people who grow wheat solely for their own consumption, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out that a state setting its own rules for types of cars that can be sold will have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. California doesn't get special treatment.
Not huge enough, it would seem.
Are you suggesting that California’s attempts to clean up its air could somehow be bad for the air of other states?
Sure, and that may be why Congress generally forbade states from imposing their own regulations in the Clean Air Act of 1970. Thus:
However,
California does get special treatment, and for good reasons.
If you’re unfamiliar, California has about 12% of the country’s population and over 16% of its cars. We put out a lot of emissions. But that’s not the end of the story.
California is characterized by tall mountains mixed with deep, densely populated valleys. This topography traps the pollution. Our weather creates caps on these valleys which further traps the pollution and alters the chemistry of that pollution, making it even more toxic. It’s a serious public health hazard.
So, 50-plus years ago, intelligent people recognized that California might have to take stricter measures than the rest of the country to meet federal clean air standards. The push to zero emissions cars is part of that. Another is that we actually burn special gasoline in our cars. We even have different blends for summer and winter.
... it's not owning the libs that way.
I wonder how much it is going to cost the morons in California to truck all their goods in using Cyber trucks when diesels start leaving everything at the Arizona border,
that is not likely to be a problem , they will simply work on the trucking companies that come into the state currently to have EV units that comply , and since ca is such a large market share of shipping , some will gladly go along , even if they have to change procedure to drop and hook at the border, which will end up costing more for in bound , but not so much outbound .
California has to be able to do something to meet clean air regulations. We’re open to alternative suggestions. Got any?
Also, something like a dozen other states have adopted California’s new rules.
short of the whiners sucking on every exhaust pipe in that state, no ...