The Trump administration is appealing a federal court ruling that blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from sending several California emissions waivers to Congress for possible repeal under a fast-track procedure.
The Justice Department filed the appeal Tuesday after U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled earlier this month that the EPA improperly attempted to treat four California Clean Air Act waivers as federal rules subject to the Congressional Review Act. The disputed waivers give California authority to enforce emissions standards for cars, trucks and lawn-and-garden equipment that are stricter than federal requirements.
The legal fight is part of a broader dispute over California’s unusual authority under the Clean Air Act to establish some of its own vehicle pollution standards. California generally must obtain a waiver from the EPA before enforcing standards that differ from federal requirements. Other states are then permitted in certain circumstances to adopt California’s standards.
In June, the EPA sent four previously granted waivers to Congress after determining they qualified as “rules” under the Congressional Review Act, or CRA. The law allows Congress to overturn recently submitted federal regulations through expedited procedures requiring only simple majorities in the House and Senate. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said at the time that previous administrations had improperly failed to submit the waivers to Congress and maintained that the agency was fulfilling a statutory obligation by doing so.
The four waivers involve California’s Advanced Clean Cars I program, the reinstatement of that program, greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles and emissions requirements covering small off-road engines such as lawn-and-garden equipment. California sued, arguing that Clean Air Act waivers are agency adjudications rather than federal regulations and therefore are not eligible for repeal under the Congressional Review Act.
Howell sided with California at the preliminary stage of the case. In her Sept. 2 ruling, Howell ordered the EPA to withdraw its decision reclassifying the four waivers as rules and restore the situation that existed before the agency’s June action. She concluded that California was likely to succeed in showing that the EPA’s change in position was unlawful.
The administration is now seeking to overturn that ruling. The dispute carries potentially significant consequences for California’s ability to maintain emissions regulations that go beyond federal standards. The Trump administration has pursued several policies aimed at reducing federal and state requirements that encourage the sale of electric vehicles while expanding regulatory flexibility for gasoline-powered cars and trucks.
Congress previously used the Congressional Review Act in 2025 to overturn three California vehicle emissions waivers that had been approved during the Biden administration, including one allowing the state’s Advanced Clean Cars II program. That program called for increasingly stringent zero-emission vehicle requirements and ultimately sought to require all new passenger vehicles sold in California to meet zero-emission standards beginning with the 2035 model year.
President Trump signed the congressional resolutions repealing those waivers in June 2025. California has separately challenged those actions in court. The current case concerns a different set of four California waivers that EPA transmitted to Congress in June 2026. The EPA has argued that the waivers have broad effects beyond California because other states can adopt California’s standards and automakers frequently design vehicles for a national market.
