In a significant legislative victory for President Donald Trump and a setback for environmental advocates, the Senate voted Thursday morning to repeal California’s de facto national electric vehicle (EV) mandate. The 51-44 party-line vote approves a resolution that rescinds a Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) waiver, which had allowed California and other adopting states to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.
The resolution, sponsored by Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, previously passed the House on May 1st with the support of 35 House Democrats and now heads to President Trump’s desk for his signature.
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The repeal delivers on a key pledge from Trump’s presidential campaign to undo bans on gas-powered vehicles.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY), a vocal opponent of the California waivers, framed the Senate’s vote as a fundamental rejection of Democratic lawmakers’ “Green New Deal” proposals.
“Washington bureaucrats will not dictate the vehicles we can drive in Wyoming or across America,” Senator Barrasso stated following the vote. “Republicans rejected the Democrats’ delusional dream of banning gas-powered vehicles forever. We rejected their effort to force-feed electric vehicles to every single American. The electric vehicle mandate was a pillar of the Democrats’ Green New Deal. Today, Republicans toppled that pillar. The American people are back in the driver’s seat, exactly where they belong.”
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Throughout his 2024 presidential campaign, President Trump frequently called for the repeal of all EV mandates, arguing they imposed undue burdens on consumers and the automotive industry. This Senate vote marks a decisive step in fulfilling that promise.
The repeal is expected to have far-reaching implications for the automotive market and environmental policy across the United States, potentially slowing the transition to electric vehicles in states that had aligned with California’s more aggressive emission standards.
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