Noah Feldman, Columnist

Only Congress Can Stop California's Emissions Rules

Trump's EPA will be stuck with a legal fight if it tries to revoke the state's stricter car standards.

March 10, 2017 at 2:00 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

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The Trump administration is considering a new assault on American legal and constitutional structures by taking on federalism -- and vehicle emissions. Specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency reportedly will try to revoke a waiver that California has enjoyed for 45 years, which allows the state -- and any state that wants to copy it -- to regulate tailpipe emissions more stringently than the federal government does.

A revocation by President Donald Trump and the executive branch is almost certainly unlawful. The Clean Air Act expressly says that California must be granted the waiver if its emissions rules are “at least as protective of public health and welfare” as the federal government’s. That means anything more protective must be granted. If the revocation happens, there is sure to be a protracted legal fight.