{"id":481910,"date":"2026-10-01T19:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T19:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481910\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T19:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T19:44:08","slug":"under-trump-californias-clean-car-rules-are-essential-and-vulnerable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481910\/","title":{"rendered":"Under Trump, California’s clean car rules are essential \u2014 and vulnerable"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration came close to fully dismantling the federal government\u2019s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from cars Monday, announcing a final plan to ease fuel-efficiency requirements<\/a>. The move was largely symbolic: Congress had already eliminated the penalties<\/a> automakers face for violating those standards. Those steps, along with a range of other reductions<\/a> in federal climate authority, have now left the federal government with virtually no meaningful policy governing carbon pollution from cars, which account for roughly 16 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But one entity still has enough sway, and just enough regulatory authority, to keep pressing car companies toward greater fuel efficiency: California. The state\u2019s vehicle emissions rules are still in effect, effectively setting a baseline for fuel efficiency that automakers cannot fall below without potentially incurring penalties. The Trump administration has been busy attacking California\u2019s ability to make its own emissions rules, but it hasn\u2019t claimed full victory \u2014 yet. For now, the Golden State\u2019s wounded but not defeated regulations are the most important government policy on vehicle emissions in the country.<\/p>\n

Because of a half-century-old special exemption, California is allowed to go further than the federal government when regulating tailpipe emissions. Southern California was so smoggy in the 1950s that California created its own vehicle emissions<\/a> standards before Congress established national standards through the Clean Air Act. Acknowledging California\u2019s air pollution struggles, Congress gave it unique authority to keep making its own car emissions rules.<\/p>\n

California cannot use its special authority to directly mandate fuel efficiency in vehicles. But because reducing fuel consumption is essentially the only way to reduce a gasoline-powered car\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions, its emissions standards can have much the same effect as federal fuel-efficiency standards, and vice versa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California\u2019s rules have vast impacts beyond its borders. Other states can choose to adopt its regulations, and 19 have done so (including the District of Columbia). Rather than produce different vehicles for different states, many car companies have been willing<\/a> to make all their vehicles comply with California\u2019s standards, even when those standards go further than Washington\u2019s. The states using California\u2019s current vehicle emissions standards made up 40 percent<\/a> of new car sales in the U.S. in 2022.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has been working to strip California\u2019s special emissions regulations. Last year, both houses of Congress voted to block<\/a> California\u2019s effort to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035<\/a>, after President Donald Trump\u2019s EPA asked lawmakers to do so. That phase-out effort was only possible because of California\u2019s special emissions regulation power. In response, California sued the Trump administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is a thinly veiled attempt by the president to retaliate against California for choosing progress over regression,\u201d said California Attorney General Rob Bonta<\/a> after his office filed the suit.<\/p>\n

With its ambitious vehicle transition plan undone for now, California aims to continue enforcing its previous set of emissions standards, which would have otherwise expired in 2026. While those standards won\u2019t force car companies to continue reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, they might keep car companies from backtracking on gains they\u2019ve already made. The Trump administration has asked Congress to overturn these standards also, but a federal judge blocked that effort<\/a> in early September.<\/p>\n

Car companies have been mostly silent on how they\u2019ll respond to the regulatory uncertainty, including whether they\u2019ll stay on track to meet California\u2019s rescinded requirements if courts allow the state to put them back in place. Automakers at this point are used to the whiplash of policies changing between administrations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"PresidentPresident Donald Trump announces the rollback of the 2009 Endangerment Finding in February 2026. The scientific finding allowed the EPA to regulate climate-warming emissions.
Anna Moneymaker \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

In addition to fluctuating regulations, car manufacturers are also facing changes in what customers want. Automakers have said aggressive fuel efficiency standards from the Biden administration \u2014 the ones Trump undid this week \u2014\u00a0ran up against Americans\u2019 preferences<\/a>. Companies were building more electric vehicles, partly to help them meet the Biden standards, but customers weren\u2019t buying enough<\/a> of them. (That problem became much worse after the Trump administration rolled back policies<\/a> promoting their growth.)<\/p>\n

But customers might also push car companies toward greater fuel efficiency even when Washington doesn\u2019t require it \u2014\u00a0especially at a time when gasoline prices have spiked<\/a> in the wake of Trump\u2019s war on Iran. Hybrid vehicles are gaining popularity, making up a record 16 percent<\/a> of passenger vehicle sales by the summer of 2026. And some car companies aren\u2019t giving up on their electric vehicle efforts. Zero-emission cars have become more popular abroad, and some executives think they\u2019ll pick up steam in the United States eventually.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in for the long haul, and we\u2019re maybe a little slower on EVs, for instance,\u201d said General Motors president Mark Reuss at a conference this week<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s OK, but the whole world is moving that way, and so we invested in the platforms that are EV platforms.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But market dynamics alone aren\u2019t expected to be enough to spur the rapid emissions reductions needed to address climate change. California\u2019s remaining regulations provide an important baseline, but the state\u2019s now-blocked rules for phasing out gasoline-powered cars would push automakers much further.<\/p>\n

The fate of California\u2019s stricter emissions rules will likely be decided in court, and some analysts say the state has a strong legal case for restoring them. Republicans in Congress used an unusual, potentially unprecedented maneuver to revoke the permission that made the rules possible, and both the Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian declared at the time that the maneuver was illegal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are multiple levels of shenanigans, depending on your viewpoint, that are being litigated,\u201d said Rebecca Higgins, vice president of Policy at the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit transportation research institution. \u201cThat creates tremendous uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n

A judge could ultimately decide that the congressional and Trump administration actions were unlawful. In any case, California\u2019s phaseout plan might be reinstated if Democrats take the White House in 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But another Republican effort could leave a more lasting mark on California\u2019s authority, Higgins said. In a separate lawsuit, the Trump administration is trying to undo California\u2019s underlying authority<\/a> to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, arguing it is illegal for the state to regulate fuel efficiency, even if it does so indirectly through emissions regulations. Federal judges have ruled in California\u2019s favor<\/a> on this point before, Higgins said. The case is still in lower federal courts for now, but if it reaches the Supreme Court, its fate is uncertain. The Supreme Court has never ruled on this subject, and the current bench of conservative justices has frequently sided with the Trump administration<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one feels like it could have the potential to sort of reset the authorities going forward,\u201d Higgins said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration came close to fully dismantling the federal government\u2019s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from cars…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,10555,6774,67103,13,1301,1967,19031],"class_list":["post-481910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-cities","tag-energy","tag-news-analysis","tag-politics","tag-regulation","tag-transportation","tag-yahoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}