Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other senior Senate Republicans asked a United States appeals court on Wednesday, November 4, to overturn a lower-court ruling that found the Environmental Protection Agency acted improperly when it sent California's landmark vehicle emissions rules to Congress for potential repeal, Reuters reported.
Source: Reuters
The filing is the latest move in a legal fight that will help decide whether California can keep setting its own, tougher clean-air standards for cars and trucks — rules that shape what trucks are built and bought across the United States, because other states are allowed to follow California's standards and manufacturers rarely build two separate fleets.
Source: Reuters
What the senators are asking the court to do
At the centre of the dispute are waivers the EPA granted California under the Clean Air Act, which let the state set its own emission standards for cars and trucks as well as for lawn-and-garden equipment. In June, the EPA sent those waivers to Congress for potential repeal, announcing on June 12 that it had determined each waiver was a “rule” under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), according to Inside EPA's account of the case carried by the San Francisco Inquirer.
Source: Inside EPA via San Francisco Inquirer
California sued on June 22 to block the move, arguing it was illegal to send the waivers to the Senate under the CRA because they are waivers, not regulations. The American Petroleum Institute and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, two oil-industry trade groups, intervened on the government's side.
Source: Inside EPA via San Francisco Inquirer
The judge's ruling the Republicans want overturned
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled for California. On September 2 she issued a preliminary injunction holding that a waiver is an adjudicatory order, not a rule, and a second injunction on September 12 extended the same protection to two port waivers, bringing the total protected to six, according to Inside EPA. Her order directed the EPA to restore the position as it stood before the June 12 announcement and to withdraw or correct the reclassifications.
Source: Inside EPA via San Francisco Inquirer
In her ruling, Howell accused the EPA of urging the court to “engage in Orwellian doublethink” and wrote that “such gamesmanship may seem like a clever policy move, but undermines honest compliance with the law,” Reuters reported.
Source: Reuters
In their filing, Thune and Senators John Barrasso, Tom Cotton and Shelley Moore Capito argued Judge Howell “did not merely usurp Congress's authority to administer its internal rules – the court brazenly did so in the face of an express statutory restriction.” (Reuters)
Why the fight is really about 51 votes
Consideration under the Congressional Review Act allows Congress to repeal a rule by a simple majority vote, rather than the 60 votes needed for most legislation. Republican lawmakers introduced measures in August to repeal the California rules under the CRA after the EPA referrals. The Senate had been expected to vote on some of the four California rules in September but did not, and has effectively run out of time under parliamentary rules, officials told Reuters — which is why the court case, rather than a Senate vote, has become the main battleground.
Source: Reuters
The appeals court in Washington, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has already agreed to move quickly: on October 19 it granted expedited briefing in the consolidated appeals, numbered 26-5330 and 26-5336, brought by the EPA and the two oil-industry groups, according to Inside EPA.
Source: Inside EPA via San Francisco Inquirer
What it means for truckers and California drivers
California's waivers cover tailpipe and evaporative emissions from vehicles, small off-road engines such as lawn equipment, and diesel pollution from ships at California ports and from tugboats, ferries and other harbour craft. For the trucking industry — including the many Punjabi owner-operators and fleet owners based in California's Central Valley and Southern California — the outcome affects which trucks can be sold and registered, what new trucks cost, and whether rules written in Sacramento effectively set the standard for the whole country.
A separate legal challenge to the EPA's action is also pending, Reuters noted. What happens next is a decision from the D.C. Circuit on its expedited track: if the appeals court overturns Judge Howell, the EPA's reclassification stands and Congress could again try to kill the waivers with a simple majority; if it upholds her, California's standards remain protected from the CRA route and the fight returns to ordinary legislation and rulemaking.