Steve Milloy
Contributor
Who runs the Senate? The democratically elected Majority Leader, Sen. John Thune? Or leftover partisan Harry Reid-appointee, Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough?
The answer to that question may very well determine whether the Republican-controlled Senate will able to vote this week on whether to repeal the Biden EPA decision to allow California to establish a national mandate for electric vehicles (EVs).
The Clean Air Act allows EPA to grant waivers to the state of California in order for the state to set more stringent air pollution regulations than EPA sets for other states. The basic rational for this rule is that California has special environmental conditions. The populous Los Angeles region, for example, is located essentially in a bowl that traps and concentrates air pollution when the wind isn’t blowing. (RELATED: STEVE MILLOY: ‘All Of the Above’ Is DEI For Energy)
In December 2024, the Biden EPA granted California a Clean Air Act waiver to mandate that only EVs can be sold in the state by 2035. Although California’s mandate technically only applies to the state, it is really a national problem.
California is a large part of the US new car market. Car makers don’t make one type of car for California and another type of car for the other 49 states. They make one type of car for all 50 states. There is genuine concern that California’s EV mandate would become a de facto national mandate.
Because the Biden EPA was late to issue the December 2024 waiver, it is now subject to the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Under the 1996 law, Congress may repeal regulations by a simple majority vote, no filibuster permitted, within 60 legislative days of a regulation’s issuance. The House voted on May 1 to repeal the California waiver and now it is the Senate’s turn to do so. The Senate has until the first week of June to do the same.
But there’s a problem.
Ahead of the House vote, the General Accounting Office tried to derail the CRA rule by characterizing the waiver as a permit versus a regulation, where permits are not eligible to be repealed by the filibuster-proof CRA. But while the EPA granted permission to California to regulate more stringently, the end result is more stringent regulation. The waiver, therefore, is a clearly a regulation and not some sort of permit.
Speaker Johnson rightly chose to ignore the weird General Accounting Office interpretation of the waiver. The House subsequently passed the repeal, 246 to 164, with 35 Democrats joining all 211 Republicans present.
But opponents of the CRA action still have hope because the Senate Parliamentarian, appointed to her post by Democrat and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2012, thinks the GAO was correct. She has some Republicans uncertain of their position.
According to Politico, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said has “some procedural issues” with the waiver. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is “discussing the issue with colleagues and not yet ready to make a decision.” “There is obviously apprehension if we go sideways on our own rules and so I’m having a lot of good conversations,” Murkowski said.
Even West Virginia’s Sen. Shelley Moore Capito told Politico, she wasn’t “100 percent decided” yet. This holdout behavior is outrageous and Leader Thune should not stand for it.
First, the Parliamentarian is plainly wrong. The waiver is a regulation not a mere permit.
Second, the Parliamentarian is plainly partisan. Beyond her Harry Reid-era provenance, she conveniently decided all the climate provisions and spending in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act were budget- versus policy-related and so could be voted on under the non-filibusterable reconciliation process. But for her decision, the IRA would never have been enacted and President Trump and congressional Republicans wouldn’t be burdened with repealing a trillion-plus dollars worth of Green New Scam spending.
Finally, the Parliamentarian’s opinion is just like the GAO’s – i.e., merely advisory in nature. Leader Thune is not bound by Senate rules or any law to accept it. It would be absurd for a Republican-controlled Senate to allow a leftover Democrat administrative appointee to dictate the measures upon which Senate Republicans may vote.
President Trump campaigned on ending the EV mandate. Leader Thune should bring the California waiver up for vote next week and have Vice President JD Vance on-hand, if necessary, for a tie-breaking vote. Then, after winning the vote, appoint a new Parliamentarian.
Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and lawyer, publishes JunkScience.com and is on X @JunkScience.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Wait, wait, wait, you mean there’s extended periods of contiguous days when the Wind Doesn’t Blow? How are Wind Turbines supposed to supply uninterrupted supplies of electricity for LA if the wind isn’t blowing for extended periods?
But the wind is blowing somewhere.
Generation isn’t the problem, it’s the standby reserves and the frequency stability that wind doesn’t provide
And baseload.
This would then require EVERYWHERE to have sufficient Wind and Solar Installed Capacity to be able to provide generation coverage for EVERYWHERE ELSE
AND sufficient Transmission Capacity to get the power to where it’s required
You have properly scoped the problem.
On occasion. And sometimes not hard enough, or too hard.
Oh, and all the extra transmission and distribution lines to bring the power to LA from “somewhere (else)” will undoubtedly cause more fires – which they will promptly blame on “climate change (TM).”
No problem. Just install big electric motors to spin the turbines, and feed electricity to the grid. Save on maintenance too. When the blades need replacement, just throw them away. No need for them, if you use electricity to keep the turbines spinning.
You can do a similar thing with electric vehicles. Just mount a wind turbine on the roof to charge the batteries while you drive – creating your own wind. When the batteries are fully charged, just replace the wind turbine with an electric motor. Smaller, and better looking.
Politicians, journalists, and climate scientists might even believe me.
Excuse me, Michael, but on this website we obey the laws of Thermodynamics! <G>
(My apologies to Homer Simpson.)
Like the king of old who issued an edict to change pi to 3.0 due to its unacceptible complexity, those laws to not have to be enforced since they were not passed in legislation nor were the issued by executive order.
That was probably the 1897 Indiana Pi Bill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill
Some 50 years hence, I recall an episode of the Beverly Hillbillies in which they were going to use tunnels and giant fans to suck away the smog.
Do you remember Jethro’s anti-smog rig on the back of the truck.
Pardon me, but that won’t work unless you raise all the bridges over roads.
You have watched a satisfactory number of Looney Tunes and Wile E. Coyote.
“ Just mount a wind turbine on the roof to charge the batteries while you drive”
It’s not on the roof but …. https://electriccarsreport.com/2012/05/wind-powered-electric-car-build-by-chinese-farmer/
Excellent. I wonder if he realises that he can dispense with the motors driving his wheels, and just feed electricity to the turbine, using it as a propellor? Less maintenance and weight!
Lots of wind blowing in Sacramento. A lot of hot air, too.
The emission limits set by CARB are exceeded in the LA Basin by emissions from foliage.
Drats, foliaged again!
Don’t forget it’s not just an EPA ‘rule’, the clean air act allows California to have its own pollution regs.
It’s not the parliamentarian stopping the clean air act being changed, it’s the use of a procedural rule of the Senate specifically for budget reconciliation that’s being ignored
She’s also non partisan
“She nixed a Democratic push to add a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage increase to President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, dubbed the American Rescue Plan.”
Suck it up. Molloys claims are wrong
No argument that the California EV rule is misguided. Especially given that the Northern and Eastern parts of the state have areas that are given to climatic extremes and are very thinly populated. There used to be, and probably still is a road junction a mile or so East of the tiny town of Big Pine that had two signs. On the right fork which leads (eventually) to Death Valley the sign said “Next services 106 miles”. The other fork leads (eventually) to Tonapah, Nevada. The sign there said “Next services 103 miles” Want to tackle those in an EV in the depths of Winter or the heat of July? Did I mention mountain ranges between that junction and those Next Services? There are several.
Nonetheless, shouldn’t the decision be up to the folks in Sacramento, not those in Florida or Iowa?
It does not just affect Californians – CA’s air pollution regulations, which are automatically adopted by law in 11 other states, controls the freedoms of approx. 40% of the entire nation. Auto companies and their suppliers cannot afford to direct their products only at 40% of the country without affecting the other 60% in major ways. CA’s independent rules therefore serve as a massive restraint on interstate commerce. That part of the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 should have been overturned as un-Constitutional by SCOTUs – and perhaps it will yet be.
The business of allowing “waivers” of CAA requirements clearly violates the Constitution’s Article I powers that assign regulation of both interstate commerce and international commerce solely to Congress. It cannot be delegated to the states, or we effectively are no longer a United States of America.
Note that the only power Congress ever possessed to regulate air pollution in the first place, going back to 1970, was and remains the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. Indeed, the reason we have a Constitution is that the former Articles of Confederation failed to resolve trade conflicts between the original 13 states.
This is a fundamental matter of supreme interest to all 50 states and territories.
‘The business of allowing “waivers” of CAA requirements clearly violates the Constitution’s Article I powers that assign regulation of both interstate commerce and international commerce solely to Congress.’
Yes, and very clearly stated. Unfortunately, the Constitution can’t protect itself from the machinations of a bunch of appointed Marxists with law degrees and black robes when our elected ‘leaders’ are complicit in its usurpation.
‘Auto companies and their suppliers cannot afford to direct their products only at 40% of the country without affecting the other 60% in major ways.’
This is also true, but I’m tired of hearing it. If regulatory relief remains blocked by the aforementioned ‘jurists’, and the automakers and their politically powerful labor forces don’t have the stones to fight back, ‘Plan B’ should include a highly publicized outreach to developing world auto makers to sell their perfectly acceptable wares to the 60% of the US public that isn’t brain dead.
In other words, if ‘progressive’ blue-state voters want to pay up for, or simply go without, new vehicles, that should be their problem.
The Clean Air Act specifically mentions California having its own ‘ clean air’ regulation in regard to cars.
Congress had already decided an exemption for California under CAA Section 209.
Your claims dont match the facts , its in the legislation, not judges or rule makers
of course the CAA already regulates vehicle emissions. If California only wants new electric cars theres plenty of those on sale along side both hybrid and fuel only for other states. Theres not a binary choice for other states
No – you are completely wrong. The 1990 CAA amendments S 209 do NOT specifically call out CA for any relief. The law prohibits ALL states from enacting more stringent air quality unless EPA grants a waiver for more stringent regs. And like all regulations – which is what the waivers are – they are subject to being revoked by Congress.
Yes
The Senate will get it done. At the end of the day, it takes just 51 Senators to make the rules that govern the Senate. And as Mr. Milloy pointed out, the parliamentarian has no vote in the Senate – it is strictly an advisory position.
It just takes having the vote when the Democrat Senators are away to save deported MS13 gang members in Venezuela or Tren De Aragua members in Columbia or being prosecuted for assaulting ICE officers in the performance of their duties
John Thune Slams CA’s ‘Green New Deal’ Rule, Rebuffs Dems For Accusing GOP Of Bypassing Senate Rules
The real issue is that California doesn’t have the electricity to supply all of those EVs.
I suspect that that is by design.
At least most will not have to worry about freezing to death when trapped in a blizzard while driving an EV. Unlike Vermont.
12 dead in monstrous blizzards in California, March 2023.
California today imports fully 33% of its electricity from other states.
Its a grid , thats how its supposed to work.
Early on LA imported much of its electricity down from hydro stations in Sierra Nevadas owned by Socal Edison.
Until it doesn’t. Then the lights go out.
It’s done – Majority Leader Thune announced today he’s bringing the CRA motion to revoke CA’s EV mandate to the Senate floor this week, overriding the Senate parliamentarian. The House already voted to revoke CA’s delegation of authority for their EV mandate, so once the Senate vows to do so the delegation is dead and buried and cannot be brought up again by any subsequent administration. It’s not subject to a Presidential veto either, though of course Trump would never do that anyway.
So its part of the Federal Budget reconciliation to avoid the filibuster ?? This will break the Senates filibuster rule
What the majority leaders say one day doesnt always come to pass the next week.
Im wrong on the reconciliation part. The Parliamentarian has agreed with Thune on the process.
Still hasnt got the ‘swing’ votes yet.
Absolutely wrong.
The parliamentarian ridiculously claimed that the EPA waiver was a “permit” and not a “regulation” and thus not subject to CRA. That’s an obvious partisan dodge since the waiver waives authorizes tougher regulations, not any site specific “permit”. Also it is not the job of the parliamentarian to issue guidance on the meaning and interpretation of any LAW. That is strictly the job of the judicial branch. Her job is only to advise on application of Senate RULES. Completely different roles, night and day.
Thune said “no” and a majority vote of the Senate rules. End of story.
It’s the rules of the Senate to allow budget reconciliation twice a year. No rule is being violated. In any event, the Senate parliamentarian is a strictly advisory role … it has no vote over veto. The Senate’s rules are determined by majority vote of the Senate, period. Ditto with the House. Per Article I of the Constitution.
Very good Steve, why is she still the parliamentarian?