House Votes to Repeal California’s Clean Truck Policies

The Republicans of the House of Representatives, united by a few Democrats, voted on Wednesday to prevent California from demanding dealers who sell a growing percentage of medium -sized vehicles and heavy duty from zero over time and block an effort to reduce the smog.

The two votes were the first of several planned by the Republicans of the Congress that threaten the Long Data Authority of California to establish strict state pollution standards than the federals.

On Thursday, the Chamber will vote to block California of the implementation, which is considered widely considered the most ambitious climatic policy of the nation: a prohibition of the sale of cars with gasoline by 2035.

Other eleven states have adopted the prohibition of California, that meaans that if it comes into force, could change the entire automotive industry of the United States to electric vehicles and accelerate a global transition.

“California should not be allowed to dictate national policy,” representative John Joyce, Republican of Pennsylvania on Monday, arguing for the repeal of California policies.

The action on the measures now moves to the Senate.

According to the Clean Air Law of 1970, California can receive the growing to promulgate more difficult clean air standards than those established by the federal government because Historical It has had the most polluted air in the nation. Federal law also allows other states to adopt California standards as their own, under certain circumstances.

Wednesday’s votes were a victory for fossil fuel companies and the truck industry. They had argued against California’s requirement to limit nitrogen oxide of heavy -duty vehicles, saying that it would be too heavy. Nitrogen oxide is mixed in the atmosphere to produce ozone and smog at the ground level.

The camera voted from 231 to 191 to revoke the exemption of clean trucks, with 13 Democrats joining all Republicans. He voted from 225 to 196 to revoke the boundaries of nitrogen oxide, with 10 Democrats that bind to Republicans.

California rules were designed to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 90 percent, that state regulators estimated that they would produce public health benefits worth $ 23 billion.

Representative Morgan Griffith, Republican of Virginia, described the restrictions of nitrogen oxide “an effort to vilipendiar the diesel engines.”

Killing the aggressive policy of California electric vehicles is a priority for President Trump, who denies the established science of climate change and has tried to end the government’s support for EVs and other clean energy technologies.

“California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,” Trump said, the campaign. “I will end that.”

Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, accused the Republicans of leaning into the interests of fossil fuels and said that his actions threatened to damage the state’s ability to protect their residents from pollution.

“Trump Republicans are determined to make California Smoggy again Smoggy,” said Newsom in a statement.

The main car manufacturers have also asked Congress to stop the prohibition of California 2035 in cars that work with gasoline, saying that it is equivalent to a mandate of wireless vehicles to electricity that will make car prices increase and limit consumer choice.

Democrats and public health defenders say that California Waatvers are critical to reduce hazardous pollution and emissions for greenhouse gas and trucks to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

“The action of the unprecedented house to strip the clean air protections of the children of the United States is outrageous,” said Will Barrett, senior director of the American Lung Association.

If the Republicans manage to repeat the car and truck, “many more people will continue to get sick from exposure to extreme ozone pollution, and some of those people will really die,” said Bob Yuhny, an old environmental environmental environment.

The battle has been complicated by legal disputes about the legislative scheme that Republicans are using to block California policies.

The votes of the House of Representatives were carried out under the Congress Review Law, a legislator of the 1996 legislators to reverse the regulations of the agency recently adopted with a simple majority.

But earlier this month, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the exemption of California was not a regulation and, therefore, was not eligible for a vote under the Congress Review Law.

Republican leaders in the Senate must now decide whether to give the rare step of challenging the parliamentarian to call exemptions for a similar vote.

California legislators described the illegal votes and said they would challenge republican efforts.

“The authority and responsibility of California to regulate his own pollution is enshrined in federal law and has been repeatedly approved in a basic bipartisan and reaffirmed by years of independent review,” Senator Adam Schiff.

“We will fight with this last attack against the power of California to protect its own residents, and I will urge my colleagues in the Senate to recognize the severe implications of proceeding with this violation of the rights of the states, as well as the dangerous precedent that I would establish when mocating the unanimous opinion of the confidence arbitrators of the congress,” he said.

Governor Newsom described the votes “without law” and added: “Our vehicle program helps clean the air for all Californians, and we will continually defend it.”

Republicans had presented the case that, due to California’s economic influence, automatic exemption was establishing a de facto national policy that should be treated as a regulation. But two decisions of the Government’s responsibility office, the Congress’s surveillance arm, found the opposite.

California has received hundreds of Waatvers over the years, and none had presented Congress for a vote, so far.