Editorial Board
The Senate voted 51-44 on Thursday to free Americans from California’s onerous electric-vehicle mandate. This is a real Liberation Day, and the voters who re-elected President Trump won’t fail to notice when he signs the resolution. Feel free to rev your engines in approval. If Gov. Gavin Newsom hears it loud enough, maybe he won’t sue.
The Senate’s move follows similar action in the House, which this month voted 246-164 for a resolution to rescind a federal waiver that gave a green light to California’s EV mandate. The 1996 Congressional Review Act (CRA) lets lawmakers overturn recent regulations. The President also must sign off, so it typically happens only after a change in power.
Under California’s EV regime, 35 percent of auto maker sales next year are required to be “zero-emission vehicles,” rising to 68% in 2030 and 100 percent by 2035. The Clean Air Act lets California set its own vehicle emissions standards, which was meant to address its historically smoggier air. CO2 emissions from gas cars don’t contribute to pollution, but the Environmental Protection Agency under President Biden granted a waiver to bless the policy.
A dozen or so other states have also adopted California’s rules. But auto makers aren’t anywhere close to meeting the quotas. In 2023 EVs made up a mere 13 percent of sales for traditional car makers in California, 8% in Massachusetts and 6 percent in New York.
Auto makers warn the quotas would force them to produce fewer gas cars. Prices would almost certainly rise to offset their EV losses. The mandate would harm workers, too. Auto makers have shed jobs as they ratchet up EV production. Michigan has lost 11,600 motor vehicle and parts jobs in the past two years.
This explains why Michigan’s Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin joined Republicans in killing the California quotas. “I have a special responsibility to stand up for the more than one million Michiganders whose livelihoods depend on the U.S. auto industry,” she said. Credit to the Senator for keeping her pledge from last year’s campaign to oppose EV mandates.
Mr. Newsom plans to go to court to defend California’s power to dictate what kinds of cars people can buy. He’s unlikely to prevail, since the CRA prohibits judicial review of any “determination, finding, action, or omission under” the law. Yet the California Governor has recently gone in reverse on some of his politically unpopular positions. If Mr. Newsom wants to run for President in 2028, and doesn’t want to crash and burn in Michigan, here’s another place he might consider a U-turn.