In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that fuel producers can proceed with their lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), challenging California’s aggressive electric vehicle (EV) mandates. The decision marks a major setback for Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to transition the state to carbon neutrality by 2035. Even one liberal justice joined the conservative majority, signaling the significance of the ruling. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, criticized the EPA’s shifting legal stance and affirmed that the energy industry had standing to sue. “The government generally may not target a business or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits,” Kavanaugh wrote. The regulations in question, approved by the EPA in 2012, require automakers to cut average fleet emissions and manufacture a set percentage of electric vehicles.
Chet Thompson, president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, called the decision a victory over what he labeled California’s regulatory overreach. “Congress did not give California special authority to ban gas vehicles or mandate EVs,” he said. Meanwhile, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered another legal win for President Donald Trump by allowing him to retain control of the California National Guard. This reversed a lower court’s ruling that Trump’s deployment of the Guard violated the Tenth Amendment. Trump celebrated the decision on Truth Social, stating, “We saved L.A.,” and insisted that without federal intervention, “the city would be burning to the ground.”
