SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s plans to limit pollution from diesel-powered trains and big rigs were put on hold because they thought the new Trump administration would fight them.
The California Air Resources Board said on Tuesday that it was pulling its requests for federal approval to make rules for locomotives and semi-trucks that put them under tougher emissions standards because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had not yet approved them. The choice was made just a few days before Democratic President Joe Biden stepped down.
During his first term in office, Trump tried to stop California from taking action on climate change, such as rules that would have cut down on greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.
California changed some rules after the EPA didn’t agree with them. These changes would have stopped selling new semi-trucks and buses that run on diesel by 2036. In 2023, the Air Resources Board made the rule. The agency also approved another rule that same month that would have banned locomotive engines that are more than 23 years old by 2030 and boosted the use of zero-emissions technology to move freight from ports and around railyards.
Businesses were against both rules because they thought they would be expensive and hard to follow.
The head of the Air Resources Board, Liane Randolph, said that the agency is looking at its choices for how to keep working to reduce emissions that warm the planet and improve air quality, but she didn’t say what the next step would be.
Randolph said in a statement, “We are disappointed that the U.S. EPA wasn’t able to act on all the requests in time, but the withdrawal is an important step given the uncertainty caused by the incoming administration that has attacked California’s programs to protect public health and the climate and has said it will continue to do so.”
A spokesman for the EPA’s Pacific Southwest area, Mike Alpern, said that the agency would not do anything else about the rules.
California has long had the power to make rules about pollution that are stricter than federal rules. During Trump’s first term, his government questioned that power. But last year, a federal court supported California’s right to set the strictest rules in the country for vehicle emissions. Last month, the EPA gave California the power to police a rule that says by 2035, no new gas-powered cars will be sold in the state.
A Trump transition team spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, didn’t say anything about California pulling its waiver requests, but she did say that the new president would work to improve air and water pollution as president.
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