The Trump administration’s effort to revoke waivers that let California set stricter tailpipe emissions standards has been blocked by a judge who suggested in her order that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin may have misled Congress during the process.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in D.C. issued a preliminary injunction in California’s favor on Wednesday night blocking the rescission effort after finding California is likely to succeed in the case.
She said the EPA had engaged in “mind-numbing word calisthenics” in court filings defending its decision to reclassify the waivers as “rules” instead of adjudicatory orders. The Congressional Review Act generally allows lawmakers to nullify rules, but not orders.
The EPA has for decades said that California’s waivers do not count as rules. But Trump’s EPA has reversed course to argue that they do.
Howell said the EPA’s past statements that California’s waivers are not rules is “irreconcilable” with the EPA’s latest position. Either the decision to reclassify them was a separate “agency action” that the court can review, or the EPA administrator mislabeled the waivers as rules in reports to Congress, Howell wrote.
She said that the latter option raises “the obvious specter of the current EPA Administrator having submitted misleading reports to Congress,” adding that the agency and fossil fuel trade groups “invite this court to engage in Orwellian doublethink” to explain contradictions.
The lawsuit, filed by California in June, challenges the EPA’s reclassification of four waivers granted by the EPA between 2009 and 2024 that allowed California to set zero emission and low emission standards for vehicles sold in the state, including cars and even lawnmowers. Reclassifying the waivers as rules is a first step towards disapproval by Congress.
Republicans in Congress have voted to rescind similar waivers during Trump’s second term as well.
The Clean Air Act normally preempts state-level regulations, but includes provisions that expressly give the EPA the power to issue waivers to California, due to the state’s particularly bad air quality when that law was first enacted and its head start on regulating emissions.
California, which has big-picture plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions 85% by 2045, has received the approval numerous times in recent decades. The CAA also allows other states to adopt California’s standards, and 17 states have done so.