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Appeals Court Upholds EPA Decision To Let California Implement Its Own Emissions Standards

The state of California is once again free to phase out sales of new ICE vehicles and impose its own tailpipe emissions standards as its legislators wish, after an EPA ruling to that effect was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The decision, as reported by Reuters, ends a lawsuit by 17 other states with Republican-led legislatures that claimed the California standards – known as the Advanced Clean Car Standard II or ACC II – exceed the regulatory authority granted to individual states by the Constitution.

Heavy traffic the EPA waiver aimed to help electrify.

Almost exactly a year ago in early March 2023, the EPA announced that California was allowed to mandate the amount of required zero-emissions vehicle sales and to set greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards as it sees fit. That ruling also removed the Trump-era SAFE-1 ruling on the Clean Air Act, which forced other states to use federal emissions standards rather than adopting California’s standards.

Following this victory, the Golden State finalized its plans to outlaw sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. ACC II includes more detail than previous plans, mandating a stepped phase-out of ICE vehicle sales. Automakers doing business in the state will need to sell 35 percent zero-emissions vehicles – BEVs or hydrogen-powered fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) – by 2026. Such vehicles will need to comprise 68 percent of sales by 2030 and 100 percent by 2035.

Tailpipe emissions of the type regulated by California with EPA approval.

Subsequently, 17 states announced they were considering adoption of California’s 2035 ban on new ICE vehicle sales. Most of these states are on the East or West Coast, but Minnesota was on the list as well. Following the court decision, these states are now also able to use the EPA’s Clean Air Act waiver again if they want to follow Cali’s lead.

The court rejected the lawsuit against the EPA waiver because it said the states failed to demonstrate ACC II would cause injury by reducing ICE vehicle prices or EV sales.

Donald Trump has said he will once again remove California’s ability to set its own emission standards if re-elected as president. However, the Golden State is already working on an end run around any such effort by making agreements with automakers to meet the Advanced Clean Car Standard II goals even if they lack the force of law.

The GM EV lineup.

As a reminder, the California mandates greenlit by the EPA and now upheld by the appeals court do not prevent private individuals from owning and driving ICE vehicles in California or other states adopting the standards, nor do they forbid selling used ICE vehicles.

Despite reference to zero-emissions vehicles, automakers will also be allowed to sell plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) in California provided these sales do not exceed 20 percent of their total.

GM aims to achieve an all-electric portfolio by 2035, though it says it has the technology to reintroduce PHEVs to the North American market in the meantime.

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Comments

  1. California is a S-Hole

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  2. California is 60 billion in the hole. They aren’t going to ban ICE vehicles by 2035. This is what happens when you have college educated drug addicts run a state.

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    1. The state is run by a CCP bootlicker that promotes an adversarial Chinese EV brand over home grown American brands like Lucid while visiting China (which is not at all part of his job description as a state governor). He is a threat to national security as much as TikTok is and is turning California from a US state to a remote Chinese province.

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  3. Wow it’s sad to see California going so off the rails and down the tubes. Apparently that’s what its people want as they keep electing the same party back into power.

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  4. It’s only an appeals court, can still end up in US supreme court. There are also law suits in several states from groups claiming legislators and regulators failed to follow state laws in regards to impact studies for social and disadvantaged effect.

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  5. And it is also a LIBERAL appeals court.

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  6. This is much worse than you realize.

    California is regulated by CARB laws for car emissions. Up to 14 other states are using the same rules. This means over 40% plus of the market will be under California regulations.

    This means if California sticks to EV mandates it will force the automakers to make the change as it will be difficult to do both for most mfgs.

    The left has this set up to screw us either way. This is why GM tries to keep ICE alive but continues to invest in EV.

    Hybrids will not pass ICE bans either. .

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  7. I don’t see how these states don’t have the right to make these mandates, just like red states make their own laws – Wyoming nearly passed a bill outlawing the sale of BEVs – no doubt that would be celebrated on this site without any acknowledgement of the hypocrisy. There will be consequences for states that follow California and that is their problem, but the impact on GM will be minimal as GM lost the coasts decades ago. Toyota already easily outsells GM + Ford in Cali with the northeast about the same. Unlike Toyota, GM actually has BEVs in those markets and may actually gain market share. Why is everyone so concerned what Cali does when they hate it so much – its okay that California and Texas are different and people are free to move.

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    1. Because it costs the automakers billions to try and meet two different standards. These billions that are spent on virtue signalling mandates by left wing wackjobs ultimately costs each customer thousands and limits customer choice.

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      1. Then they can choose if it is viable to be in the California market – this will impact Japanese automakers much more than the big 3 and its not even close. GM sold 2.6M vehicles in the US in 2023, but only 6.5% (169,888) of those were sold in California (the US’ largest car market). GM also sold 75k BEVs in the US in 2023, ~1/3 of which were sold in California, therefore GM only needs to ramp BEV production by 12% annually until 2035 to maintain their current 9.6% market share with BEVs. GM already has the battery capacity in place to achieve this – the CapEx for this has already been invested. Toyota on the other hand has a 18.9% market share with only 3k in BEV sales and minimal investment in battery production. 21.4% of all new cars sold in California are already BEVs, hence Toyota’s steady drop from 25% market share just a few years ago. This is an opportunity for GM to recover market share from Toyota in California. I was just at a conference in San Diego for the past week and besides Tesla, spotting more than 5 ‘American’ cars to or from the airport is nearly impossible.

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  8. Not to worry, if Trump gets in office this asinine mandate will be eliminated on day one.

    Reply

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