President Donald Trump signed three bills into law Thursday that will terminate Biden-era rules that effectively allowed California to impose a national electric vehicle (EV) mandate.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under former President Joe Biden approved California’s “Advanced Clean Cars II” plan shortly before the Trump administration assumed power, which would have banned the sale of new gas-powered vehicles in California and numerous other states by 2035. After GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate passed resolutions last month to repeal the authorizations that enabled California to do so, Trump is officially taking a major step toward terminating Democrats’ de facto national EV mandate.
These “three pieces of legislation … will kill the California mandates forever,” Trump said on Thursday. “They’re never coming back.”
“We have a choice for education, and you have a choice for cars now,” Trump said, stating that his policies are “common sense.”
In addition to nullifying the EV mandate for passenger vehicles, Trump signed off on the elimination of regulations that would gradually ban the sale of medium- and heavy-duty diesel vehicles and impose significant tailpipe emissions reductions for trucks.
The action is a major win for congressional Republicans as they work to dismantle the Biden administration’s radical climate agenda. Under Biden’s tenure, he pushed for electric vehicles through the waivers and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) subsidies. Biden’s radical climate policies also included several other green energy policies and initiatives that would strain the oil, gas and coal industries and would eventually force Americans to use different appliances.
“President Trump’s actions delivered a decisive blow to California’s Electric Vehicle Mandate,” EPA administrator Lee Zeldin wrote in response, recognizing the action as moving the U.S. closer to fulfilling Trump’s January executive order aimed at boosting domestic energy production and allowing greater consumer freedom. “Thank you to all the members of Congress who did their part to get these resolutions on President Trump’s desk. The President campaigned on this, the American people voted for it, and this Administration is proudly delivering on this mandate. Today is a great day for consumer freedom.”
Trump championed this as a win for the auto industry, stating that manufacturers are “going to sell cars in America at levels that they’ve never even thought of before and they’re going to make more money than they’ve ever made before.”
“We appreciate the actions taken by President Trump to sign H.J. Res. 88 into law and help align emissions standards with today’s market realities,” a spokesperson for General Motors wrote in a statement. “We have long advocated for one national standard that will allow us to stay competitive, continue to invest in U.S. innovation, and offer customer choice across the broadest lineup of gas-powered and electric vehicles.”
The major automaker also recently announced a plan to invest about $4 billion in domestic manufacturing plants, which comes just a few weeks after the company’s announcement to invest $888 million in new V-8 engines at a plant that was initially to focus on EV production.
“Congress’s repeal of California’s Clean Air Act waiver is a long-overdue correction that restores federal authority and consumer freedom, and we applaud President Trump for signing it into law. California’s EV mandate, extended to other states via Section 177, effectively hijacked national transportation policy and undermined interstate commerce,” CEO of the American Energy Institute Jason Isaac told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This law ensures that no single state can dictate what Americans drive. It’s a major win for affordable energy, common sense, and constitutional governance.”
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