WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Senate will move this week to block California from enforcing a series of vehicle emissions standards that are tougher than the federal government’s, including first-in-the-nation rules phasing out the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.
Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Tuesday that the Senate will begin to consider three House-passed resolutions that would roll back the standards. Final votes could come as soon as this week.
His announcement came despite significant pushback from Democrats, questions from some Republicans and the advice of the Senate Parliamentarian, who has sided with the U.S. General Accountability Office in saying California’s policies are not subject to the review mechanism used by the House.
CA should just do it any way. Not like the law matters any more.
“states rights”
But muh states’ rights!
“Republicans have argued that the rules effectively dictate standards for the whole country, imposing what would eventually be a nationwide electric vehicle mandate.”
They always get so close to understanding how awful they are themselves. Makes you think they aren’t arguing in good faith.
That is hardly a sensical argument theyre making, outside of the general mantra of “so California goes, so goes the nation”. Their market share may dictate quite a bit, but even then in a hypothetical scenario where only they do this, then the ICE vehicle market would cover the other 87% of the population in the country. And if California isnt the only state to do it, then thats the choice of those other states just like California. If a state can decide if abortion is legal or not or weed (federally illegal mind you) is legal or not, then they certainly can regulate mf car powertrains
It seems like the American car companies know full well they already lost their good opportunity to make quality affordable electric vehicles. We may not have allowed the foreign competition in yet, but the idea of Americans having access to a decent quality car for $20k must have them freaking out. American car companies cant make half as good a car at a $20k price point just because of our labor costs alone (although there is that startup making trucks in Indiana, though they are pretty basic in comparison to a BYD).
Even though this ban in California is 10 years out, they already know they have no solution to find here
It seems like the American car companies know full well they already lost their good opportunity to make quality affordable electric vehicles. We may not have allowed the foreign competition in yet
There are only 3 US automakers (GM, Ford, Tesla) and one of them is 100% electric. The entire rest of the market is foreign competition.
California could easily override this by charging prohibitively high vehicle registration fees on newer ICE vehicles.
That would just affect California, though, while their emissions standards can affect the entire US market like they do now. Similar to how Texas dictates what goes into all of our textbooks.
I guess states rights not to do that…
