Implode-o-Meter News - Trump to revoke California's authority over car emissions

President Trump is expected Wednesday to revoke a decades-old rule that empowers California to set tougher car emissions standards than those required by the federal government -- putting the state and the administration on a path to years of fighting in court.Hanging in the balance is whether California will continue to serve as a laboratory for tough new auto pollution rules and whether its regulations requiring automakers to sell more zero-emission vehicles and plug-in hybrids will survive. The state's goal is to have more than 1 million of these vehicles on the road by 2025.
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California's special authority to go further than the federal government in regulating auto pollution dates back to the 1960s, when Los Angeles was enveloped in a thick layer of smog that state officials came to see as a public health crisis. By the time the 1970 federal Clean Air Act took effect, the state had already enacted its own tailpipe emission controls.

Concerned that each state would pass different regulations, Congress decided that the EPA would set vehicle pollution standards for the nation. But it carved out an exception for California, saying that the EPA would be required to grant the state a waiver to set its own rules, provided they were at least as stringent as the federal ones. Other states could choose to follow either California's regulations or those set by the EPA.

The rule change to try to end that authority comes a few months after California spurned the White House by secretly negotiating a deal with four major automakers. As part of the pact, the car manufacturers -- Ford, Honda, Volkswagen and BMW -- agreed to voluntarily abide by California's rules and increase fuel efficiency and reduce emissions, essentially ignoring the Trump administration's plans to roll back tailpipe pollution standards.

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Dan Becker, director of the Washington-based Safe Climate Campaign, said, "Trump has married his administration-wide hostility to the environment to his personal vendetta against California."

Let's see if everyone rejoices that a state cannot set more ambitious pollution controls than the federal government. This issue pits states' rights and the "laboratories of democracy" principles against the supremacy clause and the commerce clause. (Ironic, though, how in most other contexts, the federal government and the Supreme Court no longer care much about the commerce clause, or its inverse).

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Trump to revoke California's authority over car emissions