Senate clears way to block clean air standards in California, including vehicle emission rules

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to reporters at the Capitol, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in Washington. Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta /AP

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans on Wednesday voted to establish a new precedent that will allow them to roll back vehicle emission standards in California, including a rule phasing out the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.

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The winding series of Senate procedural votes that went late into the evening could have profound implications for California’s longstanding efforts to reduce air pollution. It also established a new, narrow exception to the Senate filibuster even as Republicans have insisted that they won’t try to change Senate rules.

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Democrats strongly objected to the move, delaying the votes for hours as Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., cleared the way procedurally for Republicans to bring up three House-passed resolutions that would block the rules. The Senate could pass the resolutions later this week.

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At issue are the three California rules — phasing out gas-powered cars, cutting tailpipe emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and curbing smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks.

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Republicans say the phase out of gas-powered cars, along with the other rules, is costly for consumers and manufacturers, puts pressure on the nation’s energy grid and has become a de facto nationwide electric vehicle mandate. Democrats charge that Republicans are acting at the behest of the oil and gas industry and say that California should be able to set its own standards after obtaining waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Thune said this week that the waivers “go far beyond the scope Congress contemplated in the Clean Air Act” and said they “endanger consumers, our economy and our nation’s energy supply.”

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Also at issue is the Senate as an institution, and longstanding filibuster rules that both parties have rolled back over the last two decades. While the Republicans’ effort is narrow, it is one of several increasingly partisan efforts to push legislation through the Senate on party-line votes.

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Through the series of votes Wednesday, Republicans set precedent for the Senate to reject the state EPA waivers with a simple majority vote. They made that move even after the Senate parliamentarian agreed with the Government Accountability Office that California’s policies are not subject to the Congressional Review Act, a law that allows Congress to reject federal regulations under certain circumstances.

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“Republicans tonight cross a point of no return for the Senate, expanding what this chamber can do at a majority threshold,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor as he moved to delay the votes. He called the Republicans “fair-weather institutionalists.”

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Both parties have made major moves to roll back the filibuster — which requires a 60-vote threshold — in recent years.