Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is teeing up a contentious vote to overturn California’s electric vehicle mandate, defying a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian.
“This week, we’re going to be moving to take up Congressional Review Act resolutions to overturn Clean Air Act preemption waivers the Environmental Protection Agency granted to California that allow California to dictate emission standards for the whole country, effectively imposing a nationwide electric vehicle mandate,” Thune said in a Tuesday floor speech.
In December, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Biden administration approved a California state rule requiring all new cars sold in the state to be electric or otherwise nonemitting by 2035.
More than 10 percent of the U.S. population lives in California, giving it a significant share of the auto market on its own. But other states can also adopt California’s rules — and 11 other states and Washington, D.C., have adopted the gas-car phaseout — making the shift even more impactful.
The Senate plans to use a tool known as the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to reverse the EPA approval of the California mandate.
The CRA allows Congress to revoke recently passed federal rules with a simple majority vote, bypassing the filibuster. It’s often used at the start of a new administration to undo rules passed by the last president.
However, both the Senate parliamentarian and the House’s Government Accountability Office (GAO) have determined that the waiver is not a rule and therefore is not subject to the CRA.
Nevertheless, the Senate is barreling ahead. The House has already passed the CRA resolution in defiance of the GAO.
Democrats have accused their Republican counterparts of using the “nuclear option” — and have said moving ahead despite the Senate arbiter’s ruling creates a slippery slope.
“The import of overruling the parliamentarian extends far beyond CRA resolutions. Once you overrule the parliamentarian on a legislative matter, all bets are off. Any future majority would have precedent to overrule the parliamentarian on legislative matters. There is no cabining such a decision. It is tantamount to eliminating the filibuster,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in a recent floor speech.
Republicans, meanwhile, have said the Senate parliamentarian’s decision deferred to the GAO, arguing a GAO determination should have no authority in the upper chamber.
“We need to act to ensure that this intrusion into the Congressional Review Act process doesn’t become a habit, and if the Senate doesn’t end up transferring its decisionmaking power on CRA resolutions to the Government Accountability Office,” Thune said in his remarks.
Thune added that this week he will also “bring the question of GAO’s unprecedented interference to the floor,” adding that Democrats’ procedural concerns were “misplaced.”
“We are not talking about doing anything to erode the institutional character of the Senate. In fact, we are talking about preserving the Senate’s prerogatives, and I would like to see Senators from both parties vote to uphold the Senate’s rights under the Congressional Review Act, even if Democrats support the California Green New Deal rule,” he added.
Updated at 11:33 a.m. EDT
