The lawsuit challenges California’s authority to implement climate change–related vehicle emission standards and zero-emissions goals.
Seventeen states filed a lawsuit in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on May 12, 2022, contesting the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) decision to reinstate California’s Clean Air Act waiver (commonly known as the California Waiver).
As discussed in our prior LawFlash, the waiver grants California special standing to set stricter tailpipe emission standards for new vehicles than those established at the federal level (including California’s zero-emissions vehicle program) and has been a key driver of the steady reduction in US vehicle emissions since it was granted in the 1960s. The lawsuit is in reaction to the EPA’s announcement earlier this year that it would reverse a Trump-era decision to revoke the waiver, which itself was a reversal of a policy with decades of precedent.
The suit, initiated by the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia, is the latest in a line of administration and policy reversals and legal battles over the California Waiver. The plaintiff states argue that the waiver violates the doctrine of equal sovereignty guaranteed to all states by the Constitution, and challenge California’s authority to implement climate change–related vehicle emission standards and zero-emissions goals that, for all practical purposes, would apply nationwide.
The suit is the mirror image of a 2019 lawsuit filed by California and other states challenging the Trump administration’s decision to revoke the California Waiver. There, the plaintiff states argued, among other things, that Congress intended for California to design and implement its own emission-control program so that it could address California’s “extraordinary” air quality conditions, and that the EPA lacked authority to rescind a waiver granted under the Clean Air Act. That lawsuit was stayed in the early stages of litigation after President Joseph Biden directed the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to reconsider the recission of the California Waiver.
Now, with the tables turned, opposite-minded states are contesting the latest policy reversal—perhaps with an eye toward a hearing before a Supreme Court that may be receptive to the challenge.
The Biden-Harris administration and the State of California have both committed to ambitious goals intended to cut greenhouse gas emissions and incentivize a shift from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. Although California appears poised to continue to leverage its size and its historic leadership to fight for the ability to drive vehicle emission standards nationally, how the federal government responds to this lawsuit challenging its authority to delegate power to California under the Clean Air Act is a key development to monitor. Interested parties should stay apprised of this and any future legal disputes involving the California Waiver.
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