California’s attempt to ban gas-powered vehicles could be over for the foreseeable future, thanks to President Trump’s newly appointed EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin. 

The Biden administration approved a waiver for a new emission standard in the Golden State that requires 100 percent of vehicles sold in the state to be electric by 2035. Mr. Trump blocked California from seeking such waivers in 2019. However, the Biden administration gave the state that authority again. 

Mr. Zeldin’s approach could mean that this time is different. He announced on Friday that he had submitted the EPA’s waiver to Congress, which under the Congressional Review Act has the authority to approve or disapprove rules. 

“The Biden Administration failed to send rules on California’s waivers to Congress, preventing Members of Congress from deciding on extremely consequential actions that have massive impacts and costs across the entire United States. The Trump EPA is transparently correcting this wrong and rightly following the rule of law,” Mr. Zeldin said in a press release Friday.

The decision to send the waiver to Congress for lawmakers to consider opens the door for it to be rejected permanently under the Congressional Review Act. Lawmakers will have 60 days to decide whether to approve the rule or to pass a resolution of disapproval.

If a resolution of disapproval is passed and signed by the president within the 60-day deadline, the rule “shall not take effect (or continue).” However, it differs from Mr. Trump’s 2019 attempt to kill the waiver in that if a resolution of disapproval is passed, which can be done with just a simple majority, it would prevent a future rule with “substantially the same form” from being enacted in the unless Congress passes a new law, according to the Congressional Research Service. 

Besides the permanent end to the waiver, the CRA allows the process to play out fairly quickly as it prohibits the use of the filibuster in the Senate to prolong the passage of a resolution of disapproval. Additionally, the CRA protects resolutions of disapprovals from judicial review, which courts have usually adhered to.

California has sought for years to implement its mandated phase-out of the sale of gas-powered vehicles. However, under the Clean Air Act, which gave the EPA the authority to establish a national standard for vehicle emissions for states to follow, it has needed approval from the federal government to implement its new rule.

California was given the ability to apply for waivers from the federal government to set even stricter standards. Other states do not have the ability to apply for waivers and have to decide whether to follow the federal standards or California’s more stringent standards. Twelve states and Washington, D.C., have agreed to follow California’s EV standard, although they do not require the gas-powered phase-out to start until 2027.

If Republicans — who largely oppose a government-mandated transition to EVs — pass a resolution of disapproval, it will make it a little harder for Democrats in California to pass off the responsibility of such sweeping mandates to bureaucrats in state agencies. Lawmakers in the state could still try other methods to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles, such as legislation, but even in the left-wing state, such a vote could be politically unpopular, which means gas-powered vehicles could be around in the state for a little bit longer.