Congress can’t use the Congressional Review Act against California’s aggressive plans to cut car and truck emissions and promote electric vehicles, the Government Accountability Office said Thursday.
The opinion — issued in response to a request from Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and California Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff — comes as congressional Republicans mull using the CRA against the Biden administration’s approval of California’s nation-leading pollution standards.
The CRA gives Congress power to overturn newly issued rules by simple majority. Lawmakers have already killed two of former President Joe Biden’s environmental rules this year.
The GAO said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s request to Congress last month to use the CRA to overturn EPA’s waivers granting California permission under the Clean Air Act is illegal, reiterating a 2023 opinion that Congress shouldn’t be able to overturn the waivers because they aren’t considered agency rules.
