The Senate approved a resolution Thursday that would revoke California’s federal waiver allowing it and several other Democratic-led states to mandate electric vehicle sales, dealing a blow to activists’ efforts to push green energy and fight global warming.
The resolution, introduced by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.) in April, passed in a bipartisan 51-44 vote Thursday morning. Just one Democrat, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), voted in favor of the resolution alongside every Republican who voted. Five lawmakers were absent from the vote.
“The impact of California’s waiver would have been felt across the country, harming multiple sectors of our economy and costing hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process,” said Capito, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
The vote is a significant loss for both California, which passed its EV mandate in 2022, and for climate activists who loudly defended the law. After the state approved the law, it sought a federal sign-off—the 1970 Clean Air Act allows California to obtain a federal waiver to issue vehicle emissions regulations that are stricter than federal standards, and for other states to adopt those regulations.
In December, in one of its final climate-related acts, the Biden administration issued the waiver green-lighting the rules, which a dozen states have adopted. Under the law, beginning later this year, automakers would be forced to ensure EVs are a certain share of total new vehicle sales, a percentage that would incrementally increase every year until 2035, when a complete mandate and new gas car ban would take effect.
Thursday’s vote is also a win for President Donald Trump and other critics of policies forcing consumers to buy EVs. On the campaign trail, Trump said the “crazed concept of ‘all Electric Cars’” would devastate auto workers and decimate Michigan’s auto industry.
Trump is expected to sign the bill into law in the coming weeks. The House passed the resolution in a 246-164 vote, with 35 Democrats voting in tandem with all 211 voting Republicans.
“The fact is these EV sales mandates were never achievable,” John Bozzella, the president and CEO of auto industry group the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said in a statement Thursday. “Automakers warned federal and state policymakers that reaching these EV sales targets would take a miracle, especially in the coming years when the mandates get exponentially tougher.”
“There’s a significant gap between the marketplace and these EV sales requirements,” he continued.
According to the most recent data compiled by Bozzella’s group, about 8.1 percent of total new car sales in the U.S. were battery electric last year, a 0.5 percent year-over-year increase. California’s law would have forced automakers in the state and the 11 other participating states to ensure 35 percent of all model year 2026 vehicles sold are electric.
In addition to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, major energy industry, free market, and consumer groups applauded the vote.
“Congress has made clear that California regulators have no authority to dictate what cars Americans can buy or to ban internal combustion engine vehicles. President Trump can now deliver on a major part of his campaign promise to end EV mandates in the United States,” American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers president Chet Thompson and American Petroleum Institute president Mike Sommers said in a joint statement.
Democrats and green energy groups blasted the vote, arguing Senate Republicans and Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) violated the chamber’s procedural rules to pass the resolution.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) said the bill will “cede American car-industry dominance to China and clog the lungs of our children.”
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