A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction late Friday blocking California from enforcing a zero-emission sales agreement with truck manufacturers while a lawsuit challenging the 2023 deal plays out.
What happened: U.S. District Judge Dena Coggins, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, wrote in her decision published Monday that a separate lawsuit the California Air Resources Board filed in state court last week — seeking to enforce the Clean Truck Partnership — undermined the state’s argument that an injunction was not needed because truck manufacturers do not intend to follow the agreement and therefore faced no potential harm from it.
“At the time Defendants raised these arguments in their opposition brief, there may have been some persuasive weight to them,” Coggins wrote. “But whatever weight those arguments may have carried has since evaporated.”
Why it matters: The decision is a setback for California air quality regulators as they navigate a multipronged legal fight that launched after Trump overturned California’s zero-emissions sales rules for trucks and cars in June.
