Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

13. Environmental Protection Agency · Major

Restrict California's Clean Air Act waiver to California-specific issues

Partially done

426 13. Environmental Protection Agency

“Restore the position that California’s waiver applies only to California-specific issues like ground-level ozone, not global climate issues.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    EPA transmitted four older waivers to Congress as CRA rules, including the 2009-and-later greenhouse-gas standards waiver — the original climate waiver the Mandate's position targets — and Advanced Clean Cars I. Disapproval resolutions are introduced but not passed.

  2. Partially done

    Public Laws 119-15, 119-16 and 119-17 nullified the three waivers. The climate-driven ACC II waiver is gone, as the Mandate wanted, but so is the Omnibus Low-NOx waiver — an ozone-type, California-specific standard the Mandate would have left alone — and no EPA position limiting future waivers to non-climate issues was adopted.

  3. Attempted

    EPA announced it would send the Biden-era California waivers (Advanced Clean Cars II, Advanced Clean Trucks, Omnibus NOx) to Congress as rules under the Congressional Review Act; nothing had changed yet.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Evidence shared with Chapter 19 #1720 (revoke the waiver), which is done. This item’s ask is narrower and different in kind — a position that waivers cover only California-specific pollution — and the record shows Congress nullifying climate and non-climate waivers alike, with EPA issuing no waiver-scope determination. Hence partial. The 2026-02-18 endangerment rescission rule may address section 209 waivers for greenhouse gases; its full text redirected every automated request and was not read.
  • Litigation leads are on #1720 (N.D. Cal. 4:25-cv-04966; D.D.C. 1:26-cv-02185).
Action
restore
Object
California Clean Air Act preemption waiver
ID
1085