Politics
EPA restores California’s authority to set its own auto pollution rules
California is again within the driver’s seat because it steers the nation towards a way forward for cleaner vehicles and light-weight vans.
The Biden administration on Wednesday reinstated the state’s authority to set motorized vehicle air pollution requirements stricter than the federal authorities’s. That features tighter restrictions on greenhouse fuel emissions.
The choice, introduced by the U.S. Environmental Safety Company, reverses an try by the Trump administration to dam the state from utilizing its huge market energy to push the auto trade in a greener course. The 2019 revocation of its waiver from the federal customary put California and the states that comply with its lead on air pollution limits into regulatory limbo, casting a temper of uncertainty throughout the car trade.
“That is actually essential,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan instructed The Occasions. “Not only for the folks in California however for the nation as an entire. We’re proudly reaffirming California’s longstanding authority to steer on this space.”
Vital, sure, stated Mark Wakefield, who heads the car group at consulting agency AlixPartners, however not surprising. It wasn’t even sure the Trump-era resolution would survive courtroom challenges, he stated, and only a few automakers had assumed California would lose the battle with Trump. “It’s the world as we knew it returning,” stated Wakefield, pointing the U.S. auto trade within the course of “a market extra built-in with world traits.”
Not everyone seems to be pleased. The difficulty has proved partisan with no room for compromise. Final summer time, 16 Republican state attorneys normal referred to as California’s particular remedy unconstitutional and urged the EPA to not reinstate the state’s authority. In an announcement Wednesday, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, Republican chief of the Home Power and Commerce Committee, stated, “President Biden’s strict auto emissions rules are one more instance of this administration placing a radical rush-to-green regulatory regime forward of restoring America’s vitality dominance and management.”
Democrats in California are celebrating. “We’re so thrilled,” stated Lauren Sanchez, senior local weather advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom. “That is the primary problem the governor raised with the Biden-Harris administration. It’s been a prime precedence for him since Day One.”
“The restoration of our state’s Clear Air Act waiver is a significant victory for the setting, our financial system and the well being of households throughout the nation that comes at a pivotal second underscoring the necessity to finish our reliance on fossil fuels,” Newsom stated in an announcement.
Though the choice can have no instant impact on excessive and rising gasoline costs, the transfer to cleaner gasoline vehicles and electrical automobiles will “defend not solely public well being and handle local weather change, but in addition be certain that we’re much less depending on international oil,” Sanchez stated.
Till Trump moved to deflate it, California held monumental energy to set air pollution and gas financial system requirements. Underneath the federal Clear Air Act, handed in 1970 and later amended, the state was granted the authority to set its personal automobile air pollution guidelines, partly as a result of the air in Southern California was so terrible that it required particular consideration. To obtain a waiver from the federal authorities beneath the Clear Air Act, California needed to present “compelling and extraordinary circumstances.”
California is the nation’s largest automotive market, and automakers tended to go together with the state’s tighter rules on tailpipe emissions. California’s guidelines turned extra influential as extra states adopted the state’s rules. Immediately, 16 different states and Washington, D.C., comply with the California plan. Along with California, they account for greater than 40% of the nation’s marketplace for vehicles, pickups and SUVs.
After the monetary disaster of 2007-08, when Normal Motors and Chrysler had been bailed out of chapter by the federal authorities, President Obama used his clout to power automakers to comply with tighten emissions and gas financial system requirements. The businesses agreed to meld the federal Division of Transportation’s gas financial system necessities and the EPA’s air pollution necessities with California’s rules. Greenhouse gases turned a part of the EPA’s mandate after the U.S. Supreme Court docket in 2007 dominated that the EPA holds the authority to control them as pollution.
However California wanted a separate waiver to exceed federal limits on greenhouse gases spewed by vehicles and light-weight vans. That problem has been ping-ponging from administration to administration, with George W. Bush and Trump rescinding it and Obama and now Biden returning it.
The Trump administration used the regulatory course of and its personal interpretation of the Clear Air Act to knock down each the Division of Transportation’s gas financial system requirements and the federal waiver that enables the state to go its personal method. Stricter gas financial system necessities would result in smaller vehicles, the administration argued, which might be extra harmful in a crash. Stripping California of its EPA waiver led to battles in courtroom.
Amid the forwards and backwards, auto firms took sides. Ford, Honda, BMW, Volvo and Volkswagen went with California. Normal Motors, Toyota, Nissan and the corporate then generally known as Fiat Chrysler sided with Trump.
Final yr, the Biden administration’s Division of Transportation proposed to revise the Trump administration’s plan to strengthen fleetwide gas financial system necessities for automakers from a 1.5% enchancment every year by 2026 to eight% for mannequin years 2024 by 2026. The method is difficult, however automakers are anticipated to realize these objectives by bettering gasoline-powered automobile efficiency and by promoting extra electrical automobiles.
With Wednesday’s EPA motion, California is free to pursue its plan to require that every one new vehicles offered in California in 2035 be electric-powered. The California Air Assets Board has begun to develop milestones and the means to realize them between now and the planned-for all-electric future — dates by which a sure proportion of latest zero-emission automobiles have to be offered, incentives to assist transfer them off seller heaps, and the like.
The EPA’s Regan stated the company will crew with the California Air Assets Board and the opposite states allied with California.
“It’s not solely important to California however to the complete nation,” he stated. “We’ll work very intently with the state of California, with automakers, with the unions, and the environmental stakeholders to verify all of us are rolling collectively towards a clear automobile future.”
Regan stated he hopes the problem received’t land again in courtroom, however the EPA is able to defend itself if it does. “We took our time” justifying the choice, he stated. “It’s legally difficult, and we needed to get it proper. We’re ready for no matter comes our method.”
Identical for California, Sanchez stated. “The authorized crew will do no matter’s essential to defend our place.”
Politics
Appeals court rules Texas has right to build razor wire border wall to deter illegal immigration: 'Huge win'
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that Texas has the right to build a razor wire border wall to deter illegal immigration into the Lone Star State.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the ruling on X, saying President Biden was “wrong to cut our razor wire.”
“We continue adding more razor wire border barrier,” the Republican leader wrote.
Wednesday’s 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals clears the way for Texas to pursue a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of trespassing without having to remove the fencing.
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It also reversed a federal judge’s November 2023 refusal to grant a preliminary injunction to Texas as the state resisted federal efforts to remove fencing along the Rio Grande in the vicinity of Eagle Pass, Texas.
Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee during the president-elect’s first term, wrote for Wednesday’s majority that Texas was trying only to safeguard its own property, not “regulate” U.S. Border Patrol, and was likely to succeed in its trespass claims.
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Duncan said the federal government waived its sovereign immunity and rejected its concerns that a ruling by Texas would impede the enforcement of immigration law and undermine the government’s relationship with Mexico.
He said the public interest “supports clear protections for property rights from government intrusion and control” and ensuring that federal immigration law enforcement does not “unnecessarily intrude into the rights of countless property owners.”
Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling a “huge win for Texas.”
“The Biden Administration has been enjoined from damaging, destroying, or otherwise interfering with Texas’s border fencing,” Paxton wrote in a post on X. “We sued immediately when the federal government was observed destroying fences to let illegal aliens enter, and we’ve fought every step of the way for Texas sovereignty and security.”
The White House has been locked in legal battles with Texas and other states that have tried to deter illegal immigration.
In May, the full 5th Circuit heard arguments in a separate case between Texas and the White House over whether the state can keep a 1,000-foot floating barrier on the Rio Grande.
The appeals court is also reviewing a judge’s order blocking a Texas law that would allow state officials to arrest, prosecute and order the removal of people in the country illegally.
Politics
Rep. Katie Porter obtains temporary restraining order against ex-boyfriend on harassment allegations
U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) secured a temporary restraining order Tuesday against a former boyfriend, saying in dozens of pages of court filings that he had bombarded her, as well as her family and colleagues, with hundreds of messages that she described as “persistent abuse and harassment.”
Porter, 50, alleged in a filing with Orange County Superior Court that her ex-boyfriend Julian Willis, 55, was contacting her and her family with such frequency that she had a “significant fear” for her “personal safety and emotional well-being.”
Judge Stephen T. Hicklin signed a restraining order Tuesday barring Willis from communicating with Porter and her children until a mid-December court hearing. He also barred Willis from communicating about Porter with her current and former colleagues.
In the court filing, Porter said that Willis had been hospitalized twice since late 2022 on involuntary psychiatric holds and had a history of abusing prescription painkillers and other drugs.
She said in a statement to The Times that Willis’ mental health and struggles with addiction seemed to have gotten worse since she asked him in August to move out of her Irvine home. She said she sought the court order after his threats to her family and colleagues “escalated in both their frequency and intensity.”
“I sincerely hope he gets the help he needs,” Porter said.
Willis declined to comment. He will have an opportunity to file a legal response to the temporary restraining order and challenge Porter’s allegations.
Porter is leaving the House of Representatives in January after losing in California’s U.S. Senate primary in March. She has been discussed as a front-runner in the 2026 governor’s race in California after Gov. Gavin Newsom is termed out, but has not said whether she will launch a campaign.
The 53-page court filing, first reported by Politico, included 22 pages of emails, text messages and other communications among Porter, family members and colleagues who had received messages from Willis, as well as messages that Willis sent to Porter’s attorney and to her political mentor Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The filing also included messages between herself and Willis’ siblings as they discussed trying to help him during his psychiatric holds and while he was staying in a sober-living facility.
Porter said that since she ordered Willis to move out, he had sent her more than 1,000 text messages and emails, including texting her 82 times in one 24-hour period in September, and 55 times on Nov. 12 before she blocked his number.
Porter said in the filing that her ex-boyfriend had “already contacted at least three reporters to disseminate false and damaging information” about her and her children, which she said “poses a serious risk to [her] career and personal reputation.”
The filing includes an email that Porter said Willis sent to her attorney late Monday, in which Willis said he had visited Porter’s son at college in Iowa and told him that he would “bring the hammer down on Katie and smash her and her life into a million pieces.”
Another screenshot shows Willis telling Porter’s attorney that he would file a complaint about Porter, who has children ages 12 and 16, with child protective services.
One of Porter’s congressional staff members received a text message from Willis saying he would “punish the f—” out of him if he did not agree to “cooperate” with a New York Times reporter and Willis’ attorneys, according to a screenshot included in the court document.
Willis previously made the news in 2021, when he was arrested after a fight that broke out at a Porter town hall at a park in Irvine.
Times staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this report.
Politics
Homan taking death threats against him ‘more seriously’ after Trump officials targeted with violent threats
Incoming Trump border czar Tom Homan reacted to news of death threats against Trump nominees on Wednesday and said he now takes the death threats he has previously received seriously.
“I have not taken this serious up to this point,” Homan told Fox News anchor Gillian Turner on “The Story” on Wednesday, referring to previous death threats made against him and his family.
“Now that I know what’s happened in the last 24 hours. I will take it a little more serious. But look, I’ve been dealing with this. When I was the ICE director in the first administration, I had numerous death threats. I had a security detail with me all the time. Even after I retired, death threats continued and even after I retired as the ICE Director. I had U.S. Marshals protection for a long time to protect me and my family.”
Homan explained that what “doesn’t help” the situation is the “negative press” around Trump.
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“I’m not in the cabinet, but, you know, I’ve read numerous hit pieces. I mean, you know, I’m a racist and, you know, I’m the father of family separation, all this other stuff. So the hate media doesn’t help at all because there are some nuts out there. They’ll take advantage. So that doesn’t help.”
Homan’s comments come shortly after Fox News Digital first reported that nearly a dozen of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees and other appointees tapped for the incoming administration were targeted Tuesday night with “violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” prompting a “swift” law enforcement response.
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The “attacks ranged from bomb threats to ‘swatting,’” according to Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman and incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“Last night and this morning, several of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and administration appointees were targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” she told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. “In response, law enforcement acted quickly to ensure the safety of those who were targeted. President Trump and the entire Transition team are grateful for their swift action.”
Sources told Fox News Digital that John Ratcliffe, the nominee to be CIA director, Pete Hegseth, the nominee for secretary of defense, and Rep. Elise Stefanik, the nominee for UN ambassador, were among those targeted. Brooke Rollins, who Trump has tapped to be secretary of agriculture, and Lee Zeldin, Trump’s nominee to be EPA administrator, separately revealed they were also targeted.
Threats were also made against Trump’s Labor Secretary nominee, GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and former Trump attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz’s family.
Homan told Fox News that he is “not going to be intimidated by these people” and “I’m not going to let them silence me.”
“What I’ve learned today I’ll start taking a little more serious.”
Homan added that he believes “we need to have a strong response once we find out is behind all this.”
“It’s illegal to threaten someone’s life. And we need to follow through with that.”
The threats on Tuesday night came mere months after Trump survived two assassination attempts.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report
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