California seeks injunction to block EPA move on emissions waivers

California pressed a federal judge on Thursday to block the Environmental Protection Agency from sending four long-standing emissions waivers to Congress. Attorney General Rob Bonta, Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Air Resources Board asked for a preliminary injunction after the EPA moved to put the waivers under the Congressional Review Act.

The immediate target is a June 12 EPA action that transmitted four California waiver rules to lawmakers. The waivers gave California authority over standards for cars, trucks, lawn mowers and other equipment. California calls the EPA’s reclassification unlawful, opening the door to repeal of a framework the state has used for decades.

California says its emissions program has been copied by about a dozen other states. The state says it has received roughly 75 waivers over the last 60 years, and that the current fight follows the first Trump administration’s effort to weaken its two-track pollution-control regime. The state says the Trump administration is now trying to dismantle it outright.

The challenged waivers include the 2008 greenhouse-gas standards for cars, the 2012 Advanced Clean Cars I waiver, the 2022 Biden-era reinstatement of parts of that waiver and the 2022 Small Off-Road Engine waiver amendments. Advanced Clean Cars II would require 100% of new passenger vehicles sold in California to meet zero-emission standards by the 2035 model year.

The Clean Air Act’s California waiver authority is rooted in Section 209(b), and the exemption traces back to the Air Quality Act of 1967 and the Clean Air Act framework. Waivers must be granted unless California is arbitrary and capricious, lacks compelling and extraordinary conditions, or its standards conflict with federal law. California and 10 other states filed a similar lawsuit in 2025 after earlier CRA attacks on California clean-vehicle waivers.