The Biden administration quietly handed California a loaded gun in the final weeks of 2024.
Now Gavin Newsom is pointing it at every American's grocery bill.
The weapon is still firing – and Congress finally has a chance to take it away for good.
California Emissions Rules Are Raising Prices at Every Port in America
The California Air Resources Board answers to no voter outside California.
It never has.
But through a series of federal waivers granted under Biden, CARB now writes energy and shipping rules that hit every American at checkout – whether they live in Ohio, Georgia, Texas, or Wisconsin.
California ports move nearly 40% of everything America imports.
When CARB mandates that cargo ships docked at those ports must shut down their diesel engines and plug into California's grid – or pay fines approaching $50,000 per day – shipping companies do not absorb that cost.
Shipping companies build it into freight rates, freight rates drive up wholesale prices, and Americans pay the difference at checkout.
CARB's own figures put the total tab for its At-Berth shipping regulation at $2.23 billion by 2032.
The agency called that figure reasonable.
It is not reasonable when the people paying it never cast a vote for any of it.
Congress Killed Three California Emissions Waivers and Newsom Told Congress to Go to Hell
Trump signed three Congressional Review Act resolutions in June 2025, voiding the Biden-era waivers that had empowered CARB's truck and vehicle mandates.
The CRA is the sharpest tool Congress has – it erases rules "as if they had never taken effect" and blocks the same agency from reinstating anything substantially similar without an act of Congress.
California's response was to ignore it.
Governor Newsom signed an executive order directing state agencies to circumvent the congressional action.
CARB kept enforcing voided rules.
The Department of Justice had to file suit in August 2025 just to force compliance – a sitting state agency defying federal law in writing, on the record, in the open.
The DOJ said: "President Donald Trump and Congress have invalidated the Clean Air Act waivers. CARB must respect the democratic process and stop enforcing unlawful standards."
California's lawsuit against the 2025 CRA resolutions is still moving through federal court – and CARB has used that ambiguity as cover to keep collecting penalties.
Lee Zeldin Just Sent Four More California Waivers to Congress for Review
On June 12, 2026, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin transmitted four additional CARB waivers to Congress for review under the Congressional Review Act.
The package covers greenhouse gas emission standards dating to 2009, zero-emission vehicle mandates, and small off-road engine rules – waivers that no previous administration ever submitted to Congress.
Zeldin was direct: "EPA is accountable to Congress, but most importantly we must be accountable to the American people."
California filed another lawsuit ten days later.
Zeldin's move also opens the door on the At-Berth shipping regulation and the drayage truck mandates – both next in line for CRA review.
Russell Vought's Office of Management and Budget argued in a June 2025 letter that these waivers function as rules of general applicability subject to congressional review, and the administration's June 12 action confirms it considers the legal path clear.
California Emissions Costs Flow Through Every Port to Every American
California has already collected tens of millions of dollars in penalties from shipping companies that lack the technology to comply with the At-Berth regulation – and every dollar of that came out of that hikes freight rates to move goods to states that never passed the rule.
The drayage truck mandates are pushing the same impossible timeline on truckers – zero-emission vehicles on infrastructure that does not exist – and the costs roll through the same supply chain.
Californians get to feel virtuous.
Everyone else pays the bill.
California has run the same play for two decades.
The Obama EPA granted CARB a greenhouse gas waiver in 2009 that became the regulatory foundation for every vehicle mandate that followed, and no administration bothered submitting it to Congress until Trump's EPA did it this month.
Sixteen years of unchecked expansion built on a waiver that Congress never got to review.
Zeldin's June 12 transmittal is dismantling all of it – not just Biden-era overreach, but the entire architecture Sacramento constructed on top of a rule Congress was never asked to approve.
The midterms are close enough that lawmakers running on cost relief now have a concrete action in front of them: demand that the At-Berth and drayage waivers be the next ones submitted to Congress under the CRA.
One state writing national energy policy for 330 million people who never voted for it is not federalism.
It is exactly what the Congressional Review Act was built to stop.
Sources:
- EPA, "EPA Fulfills Statutory Obligation by Transmitting Four California Waiver Rules to Congress," EPA.gov, June 12, 2026.
- Holland & Knight, "EPA Sends 4 More California Vehicle Emission Waivers to Congress for Potential Nullification," hklaw.com, June 2026.
- U.S. Department of Justice, "Justice Department Sues California to End Enforcement of Unlawful Emissions Standards for Trucks," Justice.gov, August 15, 2025.
- Van Ness Feldman LLP, "Regulatory Whiplash for Heavy-Duty Vehicle and Engine Manufacturers," National Law Review, August 27, 2025.
- Frank Lasee, "California's Climate Tab Is Being Sent to the Rest of Us," Daily Wire, June 29, 2026.