The U.S. House of Representatives passed three Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions to overturn emissions waivers related to California’s zero emissions vehicles programs. The resolutions are now under consideration in the Senate, where passage faces procedural difficulties.
If approved by the Senate, the resolutions would overturn the following waivers:
H.J. Res. 87, passed on April 30, 2025, would overturn the waiver for the Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) regulation, which requires truck manufacturers to sell zero-emission trucks as an increasing percentage of their annual California sales from 2024 to 2035.
H.J. Res. 88, passed on May 1, 2025, would overturn the waiver for the Advanced Clean Cars II rule, which requires the phase-out of the sale of new gasoline-fueled or diesel-fueled passenger cars and trucks by 2035.
H.J. Res. 89, passed on April 30, 2025, would overturn the Heavy-Duty Omnibus rule, which establishes more stringent emissions standards for heavy-duty engines, including reducing NOx emissions by 90%.
California may request waivers from the Clean Air Act (CAA), allowing the state to set its own, higher emissions standards. President Donald Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office, stating his intention to review California’s emissions waivers under the CAA. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in February that Congress would review the Advanced Clean Cars II, Advanced Clean Trucks, and Omnibus NOx rules.
Under the CRA, Congress can overturn certain federal agency actions by issues a joint resolution of disapproval within 60 days of a continuous session that begins when the rule has been published in the Federal Register and been received by Congress. Congress can reverse these regulations with simple majorities in both chambers.
The Congressional Research Service, however, has stated that California’s CAA emissions waivers cannot be reviewed under the CRA because a waiver is not a rule as defined in the CRA. The GAO also issued an opinion stating that California’s emissions waiver is not a rule “for purposes of CRA and, thus, not subject to the requirement that it be submitted to Congress and the Comptroller General before it may take effect.”
In April 2025, the Senate Parliamentarian confirmed the GAO ruling that the waivers are not subject to the CRA. Nonetheless, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, introduced resolutions to repeal the rules in the Senate with a June 1, 2025 target date for passage. “I congratulate my House colleagues for taking this important step towards eliminating the radical California waivers and displaying the bipartisan support behind reversing the EV mandate,” Capito said in a statement. “I continue to work with my colleagues and Senate Republican leadership to address all options available in the Senate to repeal these rules.”
Governor Gavin Newsom, who in 2020 ordered a statewide transition to zero-emissions vehicles that resulted in the Advanced Clean Cars II rule, put the issue in the context of U.S.-China competition for the electric vehicle market. “Trump Republicans are hellbent on making California smoggy again. Clean air didn’t used to be political. In fact, we can thank Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon for our decades-old authority to clean our air,” Newsom said in a statement.
“Our vehicles program helps clean the air for all Californians, and we’ll continue defending it. Washington may want to cede our economy to China but California is standing by American innovation.”