Senate kills Republican efforts to repeal Clean Cars law

For the second year in a row, Republican efforts to repeal a 2021 law requiring Virginia to follow California’s vehicle emissions standards were defeated in the state Senate on Tuesday.

Republican senators proposed five bills that would repeal the 2021 Clean Cars law, which requires Virginia’s Air Pollution Control Board to implement a low- and zero-emissions program that matches California’s standards for vehicles with a model year of 2025 or later.

Sen. Stephen Newman, R-Bedford, and Sen. Richard Stuart, R-Stafford, are co-chief patrons of SB 779 which would have repealed the law and forbid Virginia from adopting the same vehicle emissions standards in the future. Three bills identical to SB 779 were also introduced by Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Mechanicsville, Sen. Bill Desteph, R-Virginia Beach, and Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Spotsylvania.

The fifth bill, SB 778, introduced by Stuart, would have simply abolished the law. Stuart proposed an identical bill last year, but it was stricken at his request in the Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources committee.

Committee members unanimously voted to roll all five bills into SB 779, before voting 8-7 along party lines to kill the legislation.

While speaking on the motion to pass on the bill, Sen. Barbara Favola, D-Arlington, emphasized the importance of the Clean Car law.

“I truly believe that a clean environment is our future,” Favola said. “I think this is a public health issue, I think people suffering from all kinds of diseases would do better if we had cleaner air.”

During the committee meeting, Stuart and other Republican legislators expressed concern about following regulations set in another state.

“I have a fundamental repulsion to the fact that we gave this to an unelected group of individuals in California,” Stuart said.

Individual states cannot form their own standards and must choose to follow either California or federal standards, according to the federal Clean Air Act. The Environmental Protection Agency granted California an exception because of the state’s stricter standards to address smog problems.

Newman questioned Virginia’s ability to meet California’s emissions standards, which require 35% of new vehicles sold in the state be zero emission by 2026, 68% in by 2030 and 100% by 2035.

“We’re planning to fail on this,” Newman said during the committee meeting.

With the funding Virginia is receiving – including over $100 million for electric vehicle chargers under the federal infrastructure act – Virginia is well on its way to funding the infrastructure necessary to meet the regulations, Trip Pollard, a lawyer for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said.

“The private sector is also rapidly building charging infrastructure, so we’ve got a lot of money in the pipeline coming to build this,” Pollard said. “This standard is going to be better for our health and our environment and it gives consumers more choice.”

Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, one of the chief co-patrons of the 2021 law, pointed to proposed bills that support the transition to electric vehicles. This includes his bill, HB 1588, which would fund the installation of electric vehicle chargers in rural areas.

“Electric vehicles are coming and we need to be ready for it and that requires building out infrastructure,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan was disappointed but not surprised by the attempts to repeal the law, he said.

“It shows a terrible lack of confidence in Virginia,” Sullivan said. “This is happening and we ought to be the leader Virginia always is.”

Republicans still have another chance to repeal the Clean Car law with two bills that are still alive in the Republican-controlled House: HB 1378, introduced by Del. Tony Wilt, R-Rockingham, and HB 1372, introduced by Del. Buddy Fowler, R-Hanover.