Oftentimes in Washington, promises made go unkept, and priorities fall to the wayside as politics take over. I’m proud to have worked in tandem with my colleagues and President Trump to make good on a promise I made.

On May 22, Congress struck down a key aspect of the Biden Administration’s nationwide EV mandate under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). This is a win for American consumers and protects Congress’s constitutional and statutory oversight authority over federal agencies and unelected bureaucratic overreach.

How did we get here?

More than 50 years ago, Congress allowed California to request a “wavier” from applicable federal air regulations. Congress provided California this tool because the state had extraordinarily poor air quality and unique challenges to control it. Recently, California has abused that discreet authority to set climate policy across the country.

In December of 2024, the lame duck Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved California’s request to implement its “Advanced Clean Cars II” regulation when Democrats wouldn’t have to face voters over this politically toxic policy.

California’s ACC II waiver requires all vehicles sold in the state, Washington D.C., and the 11 other states that have adopted California’s standard to be zero emissions vehicles by 2035. This means in one decade that these states, totaling 30 percent of the nation’s new car market, will have a full ban on the sale of gasoline powered vehicles and traditional hybrids. These unattainable standards, backed by a fine of over $26,000 per vehicle for non-compliance, would reshape auto manufacturing and take away consumer choice across the country.

Only 2.3 percent of new vehicle registrations in West Virginia last year were EVs. Nationwide, EVs accounted for only 10.2 percent of new vehicle registrations. West Virginians don’t want California’s climate policy, and West Virginians don’t want California’s EV mandate. I’m confident that most Americans don’t want these things either.

The Biden EPA tried to avoid accountability from Congress by claiming their decision was not a rule and refusing to submit it to Congress under the CRA. Fortunately, President Trump corrected this by identifying the waiver as a rule and submitting it to Congress.

To protect American consumers and workers, as well as the Senate’s oversight authority of bad agency rules, I introduced a resolution under the CRA to reverse EPA’s California waiver. Using this statutory process allows members of the Senate and the House – the constitutionally elected representatives of all Americans – to decide whether a nationally significant agency rule should move forward.

After the rule was submitted to Congress, Senate Democrats who wanted to protect this EV mandate requested the Government Accountability Office (GAO) find the waiver was not a rule under the CRA. GAO has consistently found that once a rule is submitted by an agency, GAO does not issue an opinion. Despite its own precedent, GAO “observed” in a letter that the Biden EPA action approving California’s waiver was not a rule under the CRA, despite the agency’s submittal to Congress.

Democrats got this GAO letter to obstruct the Senate from exercising its authority provided by the CRA. Nothing in the plain text of the CRA, Senate Rules, or Senate precedents gives unelected staff at the GAO the authority to prevent the Senate from considering a resolution of disapproval against a rule that has been submitted to Congress.

Once an agency submits a rule to Congress, as EPA did here, elected representatives are able to decide whether to approve or disapprove of the rule. That is how the CRA and GAO precedent has functioned since its enactment in 1996 as a statutory exception to the Senate’s normal practice of unlimited debate. This allows Congress to realize the fundamental purpose of the CRA – oversight by elected representatives over unelected agencies.

Democrat Senators claim that our action undermines the legislative filibuster. That is simply untrue. Unlike my Democrat colleagues, I have supported the legislative filibuster as a Senator in the majority and as a Senator in the minority. The procedural action we have taken is not about the filibuster. Instead, the procedural action the Senate has taken is simply about whether GAO staff can violate its own precedent and have veto authority over elected officials’ ability to use the CRA against rules submitted to Congress by an agency. The answer is no.

Despite the best efforts of unelected bureaucrats in California, the Biden Administration, and congressional Democrats to shield this EV mandate from the will of the American people, Congress has rejected California’s attempt to impose an electric vehicle mandate that would have eliminated consumer choice, increased prices, and killed jobs across the country.

(Capito, a Republican representing West Virginia in the U.S. Senate, is chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee)