California's Ability to Set Its Own Vehicle Emissions Standards Heads to Supreme Court

Can the federal government have a favorite when it comes to states? The Supreme Court said on Friday that it would hear a case that tests that assertion in the context of a state that imposes tougher clean air standards than the federal government.

In this case, the so-called “golden child” is California. Under a provision of the Clean Air Act that was enacted in 1967, California was explicitly allowed to set its own motor vehicle emissions standards because of the unique pollution problem in the state. The problems were unique in both character and intensity because the state then, as now, had more motor vehicles than any other state in the country, and California had already enacted new air pollution standards that were actually tougher than the ones in the federal law.

With auto manufacturers complaining that they couldn’t deal with 50 different state standards, the congressional compromise was to allow California’s existing and stricter standards to remain in place, and to require other states to either abide by federal air quality standards, or if they wished, to adopt air quality standards that would be “identical” to the existing California standards.

Technically, all this was accomplished through a system in which the Environmental Protection Agency set emission standards for new motor vehicles, and granted waivers for more demanding standards.

But in 2019 the Trump administration withdrew the waiver for California’s tougher standards on cars, and the state challenged that action in court. The case, however, was not resolved, and when President Biden took office, the EPA reinstated the waiver.

Now Ohio and 16 other Republican-dominated states have sued, asserting that the waiver violates the basic design of the U.S. Constitution, which they assert should treat states as equals. Environmental groups allege that the GOP states have no intention of adopting standards that are anything like California’s regulations; rather, they contend, this is an effort to gut the Clean Air Act itself.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the EPA, finding that the Constitution does not bar Congress from leaving states with different levels of sovereign authority. Now the Supreme Court will decide.