California State Governor Gavin Newsom before a meeting in Sacramento, CA, May 31, 2020. (Photo: Matt Gush/Shutterstock)
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Ban on Gas Powered Cars is Dead
EPA Chief Zeldin moves to kill off California regulation waivers
By Katy Grimes, February 16, 2025 5:35 pm
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin just sent California’s vehicle emissions waiver request to Congress for review. This is big and kills California Governor Gavin Newsom’s ban on gas-powered vehicles.
In December, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on orders from the Biden administration, announced that they approved California’s mandate to ban the sale of all gas-powered vehicles by 2035, attempting to make it more difficult for President Donald Trump to federally stop the mandate once he took office, the Globe reported.
California’s strictest-in-the-nation vehicle regulations require manufacturers to comply with the state’s much more stringent emissions standards, and to produce more zero-emission vehicles for the state. However, this is usually sent to Congress prior to authorization.
Enter EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin who on Friday lifted the order and sent California’s waiver request to Congress for review:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in the Oval Office, alongside President Donald Trump and the newly created National Energy Dominance Council, that the EPA will be transmitting to Congress the Biden Administration’s rules granting waivers that allowed California to preempt federal car and truck standards promulgated by EPA and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“The Biden Administration failed to send rules on California’s waivers to Congress, preventing Members of Congress from deciding on extremely consequential actions that have massive impacts and costs across the entire United States. The Trump EPA is transparently correcting this wrong and rightly following the rule of law,” said EPA Administrator Zeldin. “The American people are struggling to make ends meet while dealing with rules that take away their ability to choose a safe and affordable vehicle for their families. As an agency, we are accountable to Congress, but most importantly we must be accountable to the American people.”
The EPA rules granting California waivers transmitted to Congress include California’s Advanced Clean Cars II, Advanced Clean Trucks, and Omnibus NOx rules. The two waivers regarding trucks not only increased the cost of those vehicles but also increased the costs of goods and the cost of living for American families across the country.
As the Globe reported, it was only in January that the benevolent California Air Resources Board had the good sense to withdraw the federal waiver to enact emissions limits that exceed federal standards, and would require California truck drivers to transition from diesel to electric trucks.
This was about to go into effect, but in anticipation of the upcoming Trump administration the CARB actually read the room.
Gov. Newsom hasn’t done that yet.
There was nothing “groundbreaking” about California’s or the EPA’s Advanced Clean Fleets rule. CARB aimed to achieve a total zero-emissions truck and bus fleet by 2045, as well as have at least 1.6 million zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks operating in the state by 2048.
“State officials have long considered the rules essential to cleaning up California’s severe air pollution and combating climate change,” CalMatters reported, obviously upset about the federal waiver forcing big rigs to go all-electric being dropped.
Where is California’s severe air pollution? Who in California is experiencing climate change?
It’s probably more important to listen to those in the trucking industry than a reporter paid to write “about the impacts of climate change and air pollution and California’s policies to tackle them.”
The Commercial Carrier Journal reported:
“The state of California has withdrawn its remaining outstanding request for waivers that would have allowed the state to enact emissions limits that exceed federal standards as the sun sets on President Joe Biden’s administration, which had been an ally in the state’s fight for some of the world’s most stringent air quality regulations.”
Biden EPA Approves Waiver For California’s 2035 Gas-Powered Vehicle Ban
In August, 21 Republican Lawmakers from the California Senate and Assembly increased pressure on Governor Gavin Newsom to change up his Advanced Clean Fleets mandate because of multiple electric vehicle fires caused by lithium-ion batteries that occurred in the past month, the Globe reported.
Administrator Zeldin announced his “Powering the Great American Comeback” initiative to guide EPA’s work to protect human health and the environment while restoring the greatness of the American economy for the first 100 days and beyond. Today’s action advances two of the five pillars of this initiative: Permitting Reform, Cooperative Federalism, and Cross-Agency Partnership, and Protecting and Bringing Back American Auto Jobs.
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This is so GREAT. Newsom’s INSANE ban on gas-powered vehicles will be gone, THROWN OUT!
As it should be.
What needs to be stopped in Newsome’s and his CARB’s recent requirement on gasoline formulations. These people have just raised the price of gasoline by 50 cents a gallon. This reformulated gasoline will reduce your cars engines performance, gut the gas mileage you get now and will harm your engine. Recall Newsome and fire CARB’s unelected board and remove all of CARB’s ridiculous mandates.
I don’t think it’s reformulation that has raised the price of fuel (seventy cents over four days in my area.). I think CARB has imposed their first Low Carbon Fuel Standard fee and I can find less than zero information on the subject of this recent price hike.
Bad enough that they have to tax us into poverty to try to get us out of our cars. What’s even worse is that they can’t be open and honest about what they’re doing. But with the Left, honesty isn’t what they’re about.
Yes, I had heard from knowledgeable people that the gasoline reformulation requirement could damage your engine, because it makes fuel stickier, and of course plain common sense tells us that a stickier formulation would NOT be good for an engine. CARB either doesn’t know what the hell they are doing, and has no intention of actually finding out by talking to people who DO know what the hell they are doing, or perhaps this is being done on purpose in their endless ignorant fantasy quest to get everyone out of their cars and hurt and impoverish Californians even more than they have already?
Good News!!
Drive a stake through the heart of the California administrative dictatorship! One state can Never be allowed to lord it over the other 49 .
Newsom and company were attempting to rule the world through fake science and administrative fiat.
Next victim needs to be CARB! Eliminate it entirely.
Exactly! I own classic cats but Dear Arnold, our former goober stopped the Rolling 25 Year smog exemptions around 2006 . Right now a car built in 1999 should be smog exempt. On top of that, Kommiefornia CARB made the OEM emissions standards as to loose. My 70’s and 80’s cars starve for air if I stay with their numbers. Besides, the four of them don’t get 1,000 miles driven among them per year.
Remember the first consumer rip-off started in the 60s with those little items under the hoods?
Them M85? The poisonous brew that reduces 30 mpg cars to 18? (In the 80s)
Then they promised to clean up air with this, except it put formaldehyde out of the tailpipe, and poisoned you if you spilled any on your skin?
After that, MTBE which is now in all your drinking water..
A science agency that does no testing I can see, or any reasonable measure of success, except the empire they have built. They also measure the amount of brake dust and tire rubber that makes electric cars pollute more that gas, because they are heavier and destroy the roads like a semi..
Otherwise we would all have hydrogen fuel cells cars by now, and maybe even not need roads?
What a record!
Newscum, Shiff and CARB ,Bass , all of them deserve to be recalled!!!!!!!
Newsom should thank Zeldin, because it would’ve been crippling to California’s economy to implement this change.
Good. The DOJ and/or Congress needs to investigate Newsom’s creepy friendship with Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD. I don’t think Newsom ever sufficiently explained why he gave them $1.5 billion in 2020 to manufacture surgical masks when that was a product they had never made before.
Good points.
Now if we could just take the teeth out C.A.R.B. Oh, and revoke or reverse anything put into law during the Biden administration. The man was descending into dementia almost from day one of his 2020 jaundiced victory. There’s no telling who was authoring and advising Biden. They just propped him up with pen in hand and the WhiteHouse became the theater of the absurd.
At least, for now, our tax dollars will not be raided to purchase electric cars for “underprivileged, mostly peaceful non-citizens”.
And, we hope, cities’ ridiculous idea of replacing normal autos with ultra-expensive and impractical Tesla police vehicles will fall out of favor.
A city and police force whose No. 1 priority is bogus “climate change,” especially in light of years of Gavin & Co-caused firenados all over CA, which took away DECADES of any so-called “gains” in the “clean-air” realm, are probably not that interested in catching and prosecuting violent and other criminals, seeing their citizens protected from becoming victims, and making sure justice is done. Gee, ya think?
“South Pasadena Launches Nation’s First All-Electric Police Fleet”
https://www.southpasadenaca.gov/News-articles/South-Pasadena-Launches-Nations-First-All-Electric-Police-Fleet
In addition to completely eliminating the California Air Resources Board the California Coastal Commission should immediately get the ax. As just rewards for all the harm these two monstrosities have done to the people of California their victims should allowed to throw rotten fruits and vegetables at them.
Don’t forget about the California Public Utilities Commision. None five of the politically-appointed commissioners have any background or college degrees in engineering or science. Four of the five commissioners are lawyers. “The best public utility commission money can buy.”
CARB may very well have “read the room” & pulled back. However, don’t think for a second they won’t reissue a repackaged effort, maybe in smaller steps, interwoven in bundled regulation.
Looking forward to the Trump administration with help from the White Hats to put an permanent end to the antics of “Hair-gel Hitler” Newsom, CARB and the rest of the deep-state globalist cabal.
CARB has destroyed so many small businesses it’s criminal. I have a 1999 Ford diesel dump truck in great condition. I can only drive it 1000 miles a year. It’s $750 a year to register. I have to navigate the stupid clean truck site which is purposely confusing. Carb takes 3 to 4 days to call you back. I now have to get a clean air smog check twice a year at $140 a for each check. Cheapest insurance is $900 a year. All to drive a well built truck 1000 miles a year. This is all completely arbitrary. My small business is done. I can’t make any money. These people are criminals. My assemblyman and senator are zero help and have zero answers or solutions on how to get these criminals to heel. It’s happening to so many other people as well.
CARB has destroyed so many small businesses it’s criminal. I have a 1999 Ford diesel dump truck in great condition. I can only drive it 1000 miles a year. It’s $750 a year to register. I have to navigate the stupid clean truck site which is purposely confusing. Carb takes 3 to 4 days to call you back. I now have to get a clean air smog check twice a year at $140 a for each check. Cheapest insurance is $900 a year. All to drive a well built truck 1000 miles a year. This is all completely arbitrary. My small business is done. I can’t make any money. These people are criminals. My assemblyman and senator are zero help and have zero answers or solutions on how to get these criminals to heel. It’s happening to so many other people as well
I have a 2008 F450 diesel pickup carb wants me to change the engine to a 2011 or newer engine, my mechanic says that will cost about 25,000. These carb people are out of control
What about the BAR “Bureau of Automotive Repair” ? It started with good intentions to regulate emission testing facilities. However, in recent years they expanded their authority into handling customer complaints regarding auto repairs. Sounds like a good idea, except they spend most of their time targeting small mom and pop businesses, specifically diesel shops and forcing them to provide refunds and free repairs to customers that overspent on upgrades, then to avoid getting yelled at by their wives, they file a complaint with the BAR and end up getting the repairs for free. They are slowing driving small companies out of business. The BAR has turned into a sleezy far left bureaucrat, strong arming small businesses with the goal of running them all out of the state.