Breaking: Trump Administration Will Revoke California's Auto Emissions Authority

Ryan Beene , Jennifer A Dlouhy , John Lippert, and Ari Natter have a big scoop about the Trump Administration's ongoing efforts to roll back environmental regulations around the country. This time the front line is in California.

The Trump administration will seek to revoke California’s authority to regulate automobile emissions -- including its mandate for electric car sales -- in a proposed revision of Obama-era standards,

California has long been granted unique authority to set its own regulations of car pollution—a fact that has pushed car companies toward cleaner emissions throughout the history of the state's regulations given the size of its car market.

Now sources in the Trump Administration are revealing that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will revoke the Clean Air Act waiver that allows California its own unique authority to regulate vehicle emissions. "The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will likewise assert that California is barred from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from autos under the 1975 law that established the first federal fuel-efficiency requirements," according to the article.

The news could be perceived as a direct attack on California's ability to determine the its own public health and environmental quality outcomes, but it could also be perceived as a direct attack on Obama Administration policies. According to the article, the Trump Administration also plans to "put the brakes on federal rules to boost fuel efficiency into the next decade." The Trump Administration will "cap federal fuel economy requirements at the 2020 level, which under federal law must be at least a 35-mile-per-gallon fleet average, rather than letting them rise to roughly 50 mpg by 2025 as envisioned in the plan left behind by Obama," according to the article.