Thirty-five Democrats in the U.S. House joined Republicans last week to repeal California Governor Gavin Newsom’s attempt to ban sales of gas-powered cars in his state in favor of electric vehicles (EVs) by 2035.
The House used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) last week to repeal Newsom’s rules. The CRA, which was signed by President Bill Clinton, allows Congress to repeal regulations not submitted to it for approval within a set time frame. It was largely unused until 2017, when Republicans took Democrats by surprise and used the CRA to overturn rules that President Barack Obama had rushed to promulgate before leaving office.
Newsom announced the ban on gas-powered cars in 2020, just weeks after admitting that green energy had fallen short of the state’s power needs and telling Californians to “sober up” about alternatives to fossil fuels.
Regulations to implement Newsom’s rules were finalized in 2022, though EV sales in the state have been far short, even in California, of what is necessary to fulfill Newsom’s design of an all-electric passenger fleet.
When Republicans brought up Newsom’s regulations for repeal, 35 Democrats joined the House GOP to vote overwhelmingly against the rules — even though Newsom, and the House parliamentarian, argued that state regulations are not subject to the CRA. (The counterargument: Congress was voting to repeal a waiver of federal regulations, granted by the outgoing Biden administration.)
The Wall Street Journal explained:
The vote was 246-164 for a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to repeal the waiver that the Environmental Protection Agency granted California for its EV mandate. The waiver provision was written to let California address smog. But Sacramento Democrats lobbied the Biden EPA to let it apply to carbon emissions.
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The House vote is especially striking because of the 35 Democratic ayes. That included three of six Democrats from Michigan, three of five from Ohio, four of 12 from Texas, and even two from the High Climate Church of California (Luis Correa and George Whitesides). Let’s hope they’re not excommunicated by Pope Gavin (Newsom) I.
Newsom called the repeal effort “illegal,” but as the New York Times noted Wednesday, “unity” on climate change “is starting to fray” among Democrats as voters face the real-world costs of environmental utopia.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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