President Trump signed a resolution on Thursday that targets California's unprecedented ban on gas-powered cars.
The move prompted an immediate legal challenge from Governor Gavin Newsom (D), who has maintained California's place as a trendsetter in far-left policymaking on issues like climate and immigration.
California's first-in-the-nation ban was approved in the more favorable regulatory climate of the Biden era. Trump has pledged to end Biden's "Green New Scam," putting California's climate regime on the chopping block.
The ban would require all gas-powered cars to be phased out in the nation's most populous state by 2035. Trump revoked a waiver that the Biden administration granted that allows California to set stricter emission standards than those set by the federal government.
Trump called California's EV mandate a "disaster" that "would effectively abolish the internal combustion engine, which most people prefer."
Republicans in Congress had approved the resolution that Trump signed in May, using a procedure under the Congressional Review Act.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents major carmakers, applauded Trump’s move.
“Everyone agreed these EV sales mandates were never achievable and wildly unrealistic,” John Bozzella, the group’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
While Democrats hold up electric vehicle mandates like Newsom's as pioneering moves to tackle a warming climate, opponents say they eliminate consumer choice and threaten a reliable technology - the internal combustion engine - prematurely.
Trump's move was swiftly challenged in court by Newsom and attorney general Rob Bonta (D), who accused Trump - who recently deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles without Newsom's approval of an "all-out assault on California" that will result in greater pollution.
"Trump’s all-out assault on California continues, and this time he’s destroying our clean air and America’s global competitiveness in the process,” Newsom said in a statement.
"And this time he’s destroying our clean air and America’s global competitiveness in the process,” Newsom said in a statement. “We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a president who is a wholly owned subsidiary of big polluters.”
Trump has taken similar efforts to target pioneering environmental policies like New York's congestion pricing, which is meant to discourage people from using passenger vehicles.
