Gavin Newsom Fumes as Congress Repeals California’s EV Mandate

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was fuming Thursday as Congress passed a repeal of California’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate, which relied on a special waiver from the outgoing Biden administration in December.

“Make America Smoggy Again,” he announced, sarcastically. The Senate voted 51-44 to repeal the waiver, after a bipartisan majority in the House had done the same, as Breitbart News reported earlier this month.

The repeal relies on the Congressional Review Act, a Bill Clinton-era law that allows Congress to repeal regulations that are not presented to it for timely approval. Newsom says the waiver is exempt from review.

In a press statement, he vowed to sue:

Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced today the state will file a lawsuit as Republicans in the U.S. Senate target California’s clean vehicles program – a move that will “Make America Smoggy Again.”

The Republican-controlled Senate is illegally using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to attempt to revoke California’s Clean Air Act waivers, which authorize California’s clean cars and trucks program. This defies decades of precedent of these waivers not being subject to the CRA, and contradicts the non-partisan Government Accountability Office and Senate Parliamentarian, who both ruled that the CRA’s short-circuited process does not apply to the waivers.

However, as Ashley Zavala of Sacramento-era NBC affiliate KCRA reported, neither California voters nor American voters generally have ever voted to approve Newsom’s EV mandate.

Newsom’s mandate bans the sales of gas-powered cars by 2035, though EV sales are falling short of targets.