Senate Clears Way to Overturn California Air Pollution Standards

The Senate on Wednesday cleared the way for Congress to block California’s plan to phase out gas-powered vehicles by 2035, after Republicans maneuvered around the chamber’s filibuster rules.

The move came over fierce objections from Democrats, who argued Republicans were undermining the filibuster to meddle in a state issue.

Engaging in a complicated procedural dance, Senate Republicans asserted the chamber’s power to set its own rules and declared they were within their rights to skirt a filibuster and muscle through measures to deny California the authority to set emissions requirements that exceed national standards on simple majority vote, rather than a 60-vote threshold.

They did so in defiance of assertions by an independent legislative agency and their own in-house enforcer of Senate rules that the Congressional Review Act, the law Republicans were invoking to undo California’s air quality standards, did not apply to the federal waivers that allowed the state to set its own policy.

“I believe that when the Senate is facing a novel situation like this one with disagreement among its members, it is appropriate for the Senate to speak as a body to the question,” Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican and majority leader, said as the chamber voted repeatedly to override Democratic protests.

The dispute arose out of a push by Republicans to use the review law, which allows Congress to strike down federal regulations, to overturn a series of waivers granted by the Environmental Protection Agency at the end of the Biden administration that allowed California to end the sale of new gasoline powered vehicles in a decade and set other emission limits.

Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.