California v. United States

California and 10 other states filed a lawsuit challenging three Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions that “disapproved” Clean Air Act preemption waivers granted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for California’s Advanced Clean Trucks, Advanced Clean Cars II, and Omnibus Low NOx regulations. The other state plaintiffs adopted one or more of these regulations pursuant to Section 177 of the Clean Air Act. The states filed their lawsuit on the same day that President Trump signed the resolutions. The states asserted that the defendants—the United States, EPA, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, and President Trump—took actions outside their statutory authority to reclassify the waiver decisions as rules “to provide a pretextual basis for the use of the CRA to disapprove adjudicatory orders granting the three waivers.” The complaint alleged that Congress intended the CRA to apply only to federal rules of general applicability and had never before applied the CRA outside this intended scope. The complaint further alleged that Clean Air Act preemption waivers had consistently been understood to be adjudicatory orders and not rules, and that both the Government Accountability Office and the Senate Parliamentarian had determined that the three waivers at issue in this case were not subject to the CRA. In addition to their claim that the defendants’ actions were ultra vires, the states also asserted that the defendants violated the CRA, separation of powers, and the Tenth Amendment and structural principles of federalism. In addition, the states claimed that the United States, EPA, and the EPA Administrator violated the Administrative Procedure Act and that President Trump, EPA, and the EPA Administrator violated Article II’s Take Care Clause, which provides that the Executive Branch “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” They also brought a nonstatutory review claim asserting that the CRA resolutions were unlawful and unconstitutional. The states requested declaratory and injunctive relief and asked the court to vacate EPA’s reclassification of the preemption waivers as rules and submission of the documents to Congress.