On Thursday, President Trump signed three resolutions that collectively revoke federal Clean Air Act waivers that had previously been granted to California.

The federal Clean Air Act gives California the unique ability to set its own air emissions standards, provided it receives a waiver of preemption from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In recent years, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) had received several waivers to allow its ambitious electric vehicle transition plans to move forward.

Earlier this year, Congress utilized the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn the waivers. H.J.Res 87, H.J.Res 88 and H.J.Res 89 target the Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) regulation, the Advanced Clean Cars II regulation and the Omnibus Low-NOx Emissions rule, respectively.

The ACT rule in particular set zero emission vehicle (ZEV) manufacturing and sales goals by 2045 and was expected to work in tandem with the Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule, which mandated the transition from diesel to ZEVs, including trucks. However, CARB withdrew its request for an ACF waiver earlier this year. As of this writing, ACF implementation is not moving forward, nor is the zero-emission forklift rule, for which a waiver request was never submitted. That said, CARB has issued guidance indicating its commitment to maintaining current operations.

It should be noted that the action taken by Congress continues to be debated – specifically whether federal waivers can actually be subjected to Congress oversight under the CRA. Litigation is therefore possible.

For more information, please email Tracey Chow, Federal Government Affairs Director, at [email protected] or Matthew Allen, VP of State Government Affairs, at [email protected].