US Supreme Court Rules Against Red States In California Emissions Waiver Case – CleanTechnica

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

---

On December 16, 2024, the US Supreme Court denied a petition filed by a number of states dominated by conservative extremists that asked the court to review constitutional challenges to California’s authority to enforce its own emissions limits for new cars and light trucks. The Court’s order denying a petition submitted by Ohio and other states came after the court declined on December 13 to consider the merits of oil and gas interests’ separate challenges to the lawfulness of EPA’s decision granting California a waiver of Clean Air Act preemption for its clean vehicle standards. The only issue the Court said it will consider related to the challenges by the fossil fuel companies is a very narrow preliminary question about whether they have standing to bring their claims. The court granted review on that issue in its order last Friday.

“California’s clean car standards have successfully helped reduce the dangerous soot, smog, and climate pollution that put all people at risk, while also turbocharging clean technologies and job creation,” said Alice Henderson, director and lead counsel for Transportation and Clean Air Policy at the Environmental Defense Fund. “EPA’s decision to grant California this preemption waiver is based on a rock-solid legal foundation and decades of precedent, and it ensures vital clean air protections for millions of people. EDF is committed to continuing to help defend California’s Clean Air Act authority and these life-saving clean car standards,” said Henderson.

California Emissions Leadership

California’s emissions standards have played a central role in many advancements in vehicle emission technology, from catalytic converters to zero emission vehicles. Congress has long recognized California’s leadership in addressing the harmful pollution from new vehicles and adopted Clean Air Act provisions specifically excluding California’s standards from preemption. The Clean Air Act was passed at the behest of that rabid, foaming at the mouth liberal, Richard Nixon.

According to Heather Cox Richardson, in February 1970, Nixon sent “a special message “to Congress on “environmental quality.” It said, “[W]e…have too long abused our natural environment. The time has come when we can wait no longer to repair the damage already done, and to establish new criteria to guide us in the future.” He called for “fundamentally new philosophies of land, air and water use, for stricter regulation, for expanded government action, for greater citizen involvement, and for new programs to ensure that government, industry and individuals all are called on to do their share of the job and to pay their share of the cost.” His message would not get a single vote from the  Republicans in Congress today.

Since 1967, federal law has contained a preemption waiver for California’s emission standards for new motor vehicles, so long as those standards are at least as protective as national standards. In that time EPA has granted California more than 75 waivers. The California Clean Cars program at issue in this case has been delivering life-saving pollution reductions to communities since 2017 and has been adopted by 17 other states across the country, the EDF says.

In 2023, the oil and gas industry, as well as the attorneys general of Ohio and other states, challenged this waiver. The state challengers were not seeking their own right to set standards; they just wanted to disrupt California’s longstanding clean cars program, the EDF says. In April 2024, a panel of judges on the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against the challengers and upheld the EPA’s decision to grant the waiver to California, unanimously rejecting the challengers’ constitutional argument. EDF was part of a coalition of environmental and health groups that helped defend the waiver as parties in that case. California, joined by 17 other states and the District of Columbia, and a group of major auto manufacturers including Ford, Honda, Volkswagen, BMW, and Volvo, also intervened to defend the EPA’s decision. The challengers then filed petitions with the Supreme Court asking it to review the D.C. Circuit’s decision. On December 16, the Court denied Ohio’s constitutional challenges to California’s authority, though Justice Thomas did indicate he would have granted review.

It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

Before liberals break out the brie and Sauvignon blanc to celebrate, a little self reflection is in order. CNN cautions that what remains of the legal dispute could be upended anyway after you know who resumes the occupancy of the Offal Office next month. In 2019, the first Trump administration rolled back California’s longstanding waiver that allowed it to set its own air pollution standards. The Biden administration reinstated the waiver in 2022.

California has moved faster than the EPA toward an all-electric vehicle future. The state’s air regulators voted in 2022 to set stringent rules banning the sale of new gasoline cars by 2035 and put interim targets in place to phase the cars out. Since then, 11 other states and the District of Columbia have agreed to follow California’s lead on exhaust emissions, which effectively gives California control over about 40% of the new car market in the US.

In contrast to California, the Biden EPA has put in more forgiving vehicle emissions standards which allow plug-in hybrids to play a significant role in the transition to electric cars and trucks. The EPA engaged in extensive negotiations with automakers and other stakeholders before softening its proposed regulations. The thinking was that by allowing more flexibility in the early stages of the new regulations, the EV revolution would more forward on its own. In the end, the EPA calculated that the percentage of EV sales in 2035 would be approximately the same under the less strict framework as they would be indeed the more stringent rules.

But compromise is not something MAGAlomaniacs can tolerate. They have to have everything 100% their own way or else they will stomp their feet and hold their breath until they turn blue like a reactive two-year-old. The battle will be rejoined as soon as the new administration takes office. The Tangerine Tyrant told the fossil fuel companies what he needed to grant all their wished — one billion dollars in cash. They delivered for him, so now he intends to deliver for them. If you think that sounds like bribery, you aren’t wrong. It is corruption writ large and smacks of the kind of shakedown the Mafia specializes in.

Yet it is the new paradigm in America. Pay Tramp the money he demands and all your prayers will be answered. Things don’t get much greater than that. It is comforting to know we have elected someone who will subvert any and all pollution rules so his friends with money can get even richer while Americans experience more health-related issues than most developed countries. If that doesn’t make you proud, we don’t know what will.