Attorney General James Sues Trump Administration for Unlawfully Stripping New York of Clean Vehicle Protections 

NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James and 10 other attorneys general today filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s unprecedented and illegal attempt to dismantle clean vehicle standards. With this lawsuit, Attorney General James and the coalition seek to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) attempt to rescind three key Clean Air Act waivers that New York relies on to enforce its clean vehicle programs. The attorneys general argue the administration is misusing the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a federal law designed to allow Congress to review agency rules, to revoke EPA waivers previously granted to California. New York then adopted these same standards under federal law, which allows states to follow California’s more protective emission rules. Attorney General James is asking the court to protect these critical waivers, which safeguard public health and combat dangerous pollution.

“Every New Yorker deserves to breathe clean air and live in a healthy environment,” said Attorney General James. “This administration is using a sneaky backdoor to gut clean air standards that have been in place for decades, threatening our ability to fight pollution, protect families from toxic emissions, and build a safer future. We are suing to keep our communities healthy and defend our state’s lifesaving clean air protections.”

In the lawsuit, Attorney General James and the coalition write that when Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1963, it gave California the unique right to set its own, stricter standards for EPA approval because the state had already been regulating emissions for around a decade. This approval is granted via “preemption waiver,” and once EPA grants California a waiver, New York may adopt California’s standards and does not need a waiver of its own. Since passage of the Clean Air Act, EPA has granted more than 75 of these waivers under both Democratic and Republican administrations. In recent years, EPA granted three waivers allowing standards that are instrumental for New York’s climate goals, including:

• Advanced Clean Cars II regulations, requiring automakers to sell an increasing number of zero-emission vehicles in New York, as they have been for decades;
• Advanced Clean Trucks regulations, which aim to accelerate the widespread adoption of zero-emission vehicles for medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and are critical for New York’s efforts to address climate change and protect public health; and
• Omnibus regulations, which require heavy-duty trucks sold in New York to meet strict standards for oxides of nitrogen emissions, which are major contributors to smog. 

Last month, the administration transmitted these three waivers to Congress as “rules” subject to CRA procedures, even though all three waivers state EPA’s consistent and longstanding position under both Republican and Democratic administrations that waiver decisions are not “rules.” Until now, no administration has ever tried to use the CRA to block state environmental regulations. Both the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the Senate Parliamentarian have confirmed that these types of EPA decisions are not subject to the CRA. Nonetheless, the administration elected to push forward with this effort, and last month, Congress – overriding its own procedural rules – passed resolutions disapproving the waivers. Today, the president signed the resolutions of disapproval into law, officially revoking the waivers.

Attorney General James and the coalition argue the EPA’s decision to transmit the California, and therefore, New York waivers to Congress for disapproval under the CRA is unprecedented and unlawful. The attorneys general assert waiver decisions are not federal “rules,” they are formal judgment orders granting states permission to enforce their own standards, a distinction recognized for decades by both EPA and Congress’ own legal experts under multiple administrations. Attorney General James and the coalition argue that these actions violate several federal laws, including the Clean Air Act, which grants California, and by extension, states like New York, the authority to adopt stricter emission rules than the federal baseline.

Joining Attorney General James in the lawsuit are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.