Gas up, Golden Staters.

The Senate voted Thursday to overturn California’s controversial rule requiring all new vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035, in a rebuke to the largest and most concerted effort to phase out fossil fuels in US history.

Lawmakers voted 51-44 to scrap a Biden administration-era waiver allowing Sacramento to enact the sweeping rule intended to do away with new gas-powered cars and trucks.

All 50 Republicans present voted in favor of the resolution rolling back the rule for cars and light trucks, joined by Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).

A separate resolution blocking rules curbing tailpipe emissions from medium and heavy-duty vehicles was approved 51-45 along party lines, while a third measure rolling back state regulations on smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions from trucks similarly passed, 49-46.

All three resolutions were approved by the House earlier this month and now head to President Trump’s desk for his expected signature.

Under the Congressional Review Act, Congress has broad powers to examine regulations imposed by the executive branch and reject them via a joint resolution.

So-called “resolutions of disapproval” need only a simple majority to pass the House and Senate, though they are subject to presidential vetoes.

Last year, Biden’s EPA gave California multiple waivers to enact stricter emissions standards than those specified in the federal Clean Air Act.

Automakers who failed to comply with California’s policy could have faced a fine of up to $20,000 per vehicle sold in the Golden State. 

Republicans argued that allowing California to keep the waiver would be tantamount to unconstitutionally letting a single state set federal policy.

Multiple US car manufacturers had warned that the ambitious phase-out plan set by the California regulations wasn’t feasible, due in large part to uncertainty about how consumers would react to being forced into zero-emission vehicles. 

“I have not seen a forecast by anyone … government or private, anywhere that has told us that that number is achievable. At this point, it looks impossible,” Jack Hollis, chief operating officer of Toyota Motor North America, said in November 2024, according to CNBC. “Demand isn’t there. It’s going to limit a customer’s choice of the vehicles they want.”

“America cannot meet these impossible standards,” said Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) Tuesday. “Not next year, and not in 10 years.”

“The fact is these EV sales mandates were never achievable,” John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said in a statement following the Senate vote. “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.”

Bozzella added that the auto lobby’s beef was with the sales requirements and not electric vehicle technology, saying: “The auto industry has invested billions in electrification and has 144 electrified models on the market right now … You can be against … EV mandates (we were) and believe that transportation is trending toward a range of electrified products like battery electric vehicles, hybrids and plug-in hybrids (it is).”

Other groups, such as the American Trucking Associations, had also warned that California’s emissions rules would be bad for business. 

“As the primary mover of more than three-quarters of the nation’s freight, the trucking industry requires uniform, national rules and standards to facilitate interstate commerce and deliver for American businesses and families safely and efficiently,” ATA President & CEO Chris Spear wrote in a letter to Congress last month.

“When the Biden Administration granted waivers to California under the Clean Air Act, establishing technically unachievable emission standards along unrealistic timelines, it created a cascade of consequences that are now reverberating across the country, setting the trucking industry up for failure, and threatening to upend the supply chain for consumers.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Thursday the state plans to sue over the Senate vote, alleging that Republicans acted improperly to block the emissions rules

“What we have at stake is … a state’s ability, its right to make its own laws and to protect its own citizens, without having this body overturn that right,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said ahead of the floor vote, adding that the outcome should “send a chill down the spine of legislators in every state.”

“This is not about electric vehicles,” California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters while the Senate was still voting on the measures. “This is about polluters being able to pollute more.”

To enact the resolution, Republicans had to overcome the Senate’s parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who had ruled that the EPA waivers didn’t count as rules subject to the Congressional Review Act.

As a workaround, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) took up a vote Wednesday on a separate resolution to nix a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulation on standards for hydrogen vehicles.

That resolution was used to tweak the procedural rules, allowing the Senate to consider the EPA waivers under the Congressional Review Act.

Democrats cried foul, with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) describing the move as a “point of no return” and calling the Republicans “fair weather institutionalists.”