California has already sued the Trump administration at least 54 times a little more than a year into his second term. State Attorney General Rob Bonta claims the lawsuits are an effort to hold President Donald Trump accountable. But litigation goes both ways. The administration is now suing California over its zero-emission (in effect, electric) vehicle mandate. 

The Justice Department says that California’s ZEV mandates and its stringent standards for CO2 emissions violate federal law, which expressly prohibits states from setting their own fuel economy standards for cars, adding that the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) mandates “also harm the interests of the United States in ensuring American consumers’ access to and choice of reliable, affordable motor vehicles.”

According to the DOJ’s March 12 filing, the rules “should be declared unlawful and unenforceable, and the defendants should be permanently enjoined from enforcing them.”

CARB and Executive Officer Steven S. Cliff are listed as the defendants, with Cliff “responsible, directly and through CARB, for the promulgation, implementation, and enforcement of” California’s CO2 standards. Like all members of the Air Resources Board, Cliff was appointed, not elected. The agency, as are many others across the state, is “responsible when major regulations raise costs, eliminate jobs, or disrupt entire industries,” says state Sen. Tony Strickland of Huntington Beach. 

California’s EV mandate was not approved by voters in a ballot measure nor enacted by the legislative process. It was kicked off in 2020 by a wave of the hand of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who handed down an executive order that requires all new-auto sales in the state to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035, then “codified” two years later by selected-not-elected CARB. 

Last year, the Trump administration overturned the rule. California sued in response. But the administration’s decision makes sense, just as the DOJ lawsuit makes sense.

The EV mandate is oppressive, in that it strips consumers of their right to choose, and expensive, as upfront EV costs are as much as 42% higher than conventional cars. While there is a niche market for electric vehicles, it’s primarily made up of trend-conscious wealthy Californians who feel the need to express their virtue. Quotidian buyers have made it clear that they just don’t want them. 

While the court has been sorting out the DOJ lawsuit, Trump issued an executive order, but unlike Newsom’s EV mandate, it loosens government rules by enabling oil production off the coast of Santa Barbara to resume. The purpose is to “strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright said. 

Consumers should benefit, as well, since, as the Energy Department noted, 60% percent of the oil refined in California is shipped “from overseas, with a significant share traveling through the Strait of Hormuz,” which, for now at least, is a hotly contested war zone. When crude can’t make it through, the state, which has stranded itself on an energy island, suffers. 

Naturally, the governor said the state is going to sue the administration over the order. There’s no room for rational energy policy in California. Only the costly and unreliable green variety is allowed. 

Could it be that Trump knows what’s better for the state than Newsom and the rest of the Democratic ruling class in Sacramento that increasingly wants to make Californians’ choices for them? Given how “leadership” has flattened the state’s trajectory over the last 20 to 25 years, that’s not an unreasonable position to take. 

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board