President Donald Trump signs a Congressional Review Act resolution Thursday, with congressional Republicans looking on. Left to right are Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Rep. John Joyce of Pennsylvania, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Rep. John James of Michigan, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. (Screeenshot from White House webcast)

President Donald Trump signed a Congressional Review Act resolution Thursday that revokes California’s authority to set tailpipe emissions standards, upending policy in California and 17 other states that tie their standards to that of the Golden State.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Democratic attorneys general in 10 other states immediately sued to block enforcement of the law. Through a process that allows Congress to undo recent executive branch rules, the law repeals a U.S. Environmental Protection Act waiver allowing California to set a schedule for emissions standards for cars and trucks.

Trump signed two other resolutions that repeal the state’s authority to ban sales of new gas-powered vehicles in the state by 2035 and to regulate emissions on heavy trucks.

At a White House signing ceremony, Trump said the law would allow greater consumer choice and lead to less expensive vehicles.

“Your cars are going to cost you $3,000, $4,000 less and you’re going to have what you want,” he said. “Again, you can get any car you want.”

Simple majority vote

The procedure used to pass the law was controversial because of the use of the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, which allows a simple majority vote in the U.S. Senate instead of the chamber’s usual 60-vote threshold.

Both the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the EPA waiver was not a rule and that the CRA could not be used. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune used the procedure anyway, and the measure passed 51-46.

The states suing over the law argued that process was illegal, saying that the CRA was “deemed inapplicable by every nonpartisan arbiter and expert who analyzed the question.”

“While all fifty States consented—through their Senators—to these expedited procedures for congressional disapproval of federal rules, no State consented to the CRA as a means for Congress to negate state rules,” the Democratic attorneys general wrote. “Nor would any State have done so.”

The states joining California in the lawsuit are Colorado, Delaware, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Vermont and Washington.

Clean Air Act

The federal Clean Air Act of 1970 generally prohibits states from setting their own air quality standards. But a section of the bedrock environmental law allows California, which had stringent environmental standards at the time the federal law was passed, to set its own standards.

While the other 49 states may not set their own standards, any state can adopt California’s standards as its own.

That means the law Trump signed Thursday has effects far beyond California’s borders, which the president noted.

“The federal government gave left-wing radicals in California dictatorial powers to control the future of the entire car industry, all over the country, all over the world, actually,” he said.

The law, which both chambers of Congress passed last month, applies to 17 states that follow California standards. In addition to those suing, those states are Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia.