Katelynn Richardson
Investigative Reporter
The Supreme Court sided Friday with oil companies seeking to challenge California’s electric vehicle regulations.
In a 7-2 ruling, the court allowed energy producers to continue their lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to approve California regulations that require manufacturing more electric vehicles.
“The government generally may not target a business or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits by claiming that the targets of its regulation should be locked out of court as unaffected bystanders,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion. “In light of this Court’s precedents and the evidence before the Court of Appeals, the fuel producers established Article III standing to challenge EPA’s approval of the California regulations.” (RELATED: Supreme Court Case Could Spell The End For California’s EV Mandate)
SAUSALITO, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 12: A view of an electric vehicle charging station on June 12, 2025 in Sausalito, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Kavanaugh noted that “EPA has repeatedly altered its legal position on whether the Clean Air Act authorizes California regulations targeting greenhouse-gas emissions from new motor vehicles” between Presidential administrations.
“This case involves California’s 2012 request for EPA approval of new California regulations,” he wrote. “As relevant here, those regulations generally require automakers (i) to limit average greenhouse-gas emissions across their fleets of new motor vehicles sold in the State and (ii) to manufacture a certain percentage of electric vehicles as part of their vehicle fleets.”
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals previously rejected the challenge, finding the producers lacked standing to sue.
“The Supreme Court put to rest any question about whether fuel manufacturers have a right to challenge unlawful electric vehicle mandates,” American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) President and CEO Chet Thompson said in a statement.
“California’s EV mandates are unlawful and bad for our country,” he said. “Congress did not give California special authority to regulate greenhouse gases, mandate electric vehicles or ban new gas car sales—all of which the state has attempted to do through its intentional misreading of statute.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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California conflates pollution with emissions.
Worse, CA conflates emissions with global catastrophe.
The verdict doesn’t sit well with all the justices.
The voiced dissent, from Justice Jackson laments too many businesses are receiving favorable rulings.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna214104
That said, the flip side of the coin, from my perspective is, too many rules have been put in as feel good measures with no concern for reality or tangible outcome.
Jackson is a DEI hire. Her vote cannot be ignored but her legal opinions certainly should be.
Amen!
This is not “about California’s EV Mandate“. It’s about California’s Most Recent EV Mandate. Few remember that California’s previous mandate required that at least 10 percent of all vehicles sold or leased in California must be EVs starting in the year 2000.
Only GM and Toyota even tired to produce an electric vehicle, and Toyota gave up before the deadline. GM was able, by spending a couple of billion $ in development costs to produce them by the deadline, the GM EV. The problem was, that virtually no one bought them. Even with a lease cost below $80 per month, few were leased.
California quietly ended the mandate after only a few months into 2000.
Gm proceeded to go bankrupt shortly thereafter. Many believe the bankruptcy might have been avoided without the billions wasted on the EV.
I’m lost. Didn’t Trump’s EPA and Congress recently do away with CA’s ability to set CO2 limits for tailpipe emissions?
He did but two things. One is the lawsuit in this article has been in the courts for a while and doing away with California’s ability to regulate the auto industry does not immediately stop the lawsuit. Second is I’m sure California will be suing the federal government over taking away their exemption so that has to work it’s way through the courts.
Yes and Governor Newsom then issued an EO reinstating the California rules.
I’m sure that the courts recognize that what one administration stops, another can restart. It makes sense to settle the legal question rather than wait for it to wend its way through the legal system again.
There is no work more important Han that of keeping government in check. They can and have been very destructive and dangerous.
Governments can require the manufacture of as many EVs as they want, but if these aren’t selling, what difference does it make?. Slumping sales will cause producers to scale back output because they’re losing money, and dealerships will balk at being forced to clutter up their lots with products that are habitually slow sellers. If EVs are to sell they have to lower their prices, increase their cruising ranges and reliability, improve their resale values and operating costs, and increase the number of charging stations among other things. Otherwise, consumers will continue to steer largely clear of them.
Why don’t we just cut to the chase.
EVs are inferior products and will never have wide acceptance in the market, no matter how many “mandates” the Eco-Nazi governments of “blue” states invoke.
And if California succeeded in forcing people into inferior EVs, all they would accomplish is to immobilize the citizens of their state, since they are simultaneously destroying their electric grid by mandating stupid electric generation infrastructure at the same time they are mandating stupid cars.