WEBVTT - Pruitt Signals Fight with CA Over Emissions Rules 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:07.560 Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:10.440 day we bring you insight and analysis into the most 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:13.440 important legal news of the day. You can find more 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:18.040 episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:22.680 and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. California is on 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:27.520 a collision course with the Trump administration over auto efficiency regulations. 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.200 Couldn't lead the White House to try to revoke the 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:33.120 state's power to set its own limits on air pollution, 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.400 joining me as Ann Carlson, environmental law professor at u 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:40.040 c l A Law School, and Congress gave California the 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:43.880 authority to set pollution standards that are tougher than those 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.360 of the federal government in the Clean Air Act about 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.720 five decades ago. What are the limits on the e 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:54.320 p a's power to cut off that authority? Well, EPA 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:58.520 has to give California permission through a waiver process to 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.200 issue standards that are tougher than the federal standards. It's 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:06.200 already done that for fuel economy standards and greenhouse gas 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:10.680 mission standards through and so the big question is can 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:14.080 the e p A revoke that permission? And there is 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:18.280 no explicit mechanism for the e p A to revoke 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:22.880 a waiver. Well, there is no explicit mechanism, that's right. 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.440 I think that the EPA administrator, if he chooses to 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:30.600 provoke the waiver, would argue that there's an implicit authority 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:34.000 that given that they have to give permission, they also 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:36.240 can take away that permission. I think that's going to 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.679 be a hotly contected question in court, though, So that 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.160 would lead to the an e p A action like 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.760 that would lead to a court fight that would take years, 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:49.480 and the industry rules would be uncertain for that time. Well, 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:51.640 it's a very good question. It would certainly lead to 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.000 a big court fight. California has already indicated that it 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:57.320 will sue if the federal government tries to provoke the 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:01.000 permission that it's been granted. I think the question about 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.640 whether the California standards remain in place during a court 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.360 fight would be an open one, and I think a 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.639 court might well allow California to move forward with its 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.280 own standards while the question of the waiver is decided. 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:17.760 The e p A is facing an April first deadline 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:21.960 to decide whether the Obama era greenhouse gas standards for 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:26.840 cars and light trucks um remain in effect from I 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:31.760 think to where does that decision stand? Do we know? 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.839 We don't know yet, although we have some indication that 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:40.079 the UH proot e p A is going to loosen 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.920 the standards of the Obama administration set and I think 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:47.360 they're going to do it. And then the question is 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.520 California has already said it's gonna implement those standards even 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.160 if the federal government rolls its back, and then the 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.440 big question will be will they let California do that 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.320 or will they try to revoke California's waivers? Are they 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.760 negotiate sations going on between California and the e p A. 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:06.560 As I understand that there have been negotiations going on. 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.519 One thing that California would like is permission to issue 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.840 standards for model years five and forward as it tries 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.480 to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. But I understand that 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:21.440 those negotiations have fallen apart. Scott Pruitt is in the 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:25.640 press yesterday saying that it doesn't look like he's interested 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:31.760 in and and forward years, and California is indicated it's 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:36.520 going to move forward with its standards. New York and 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.760 Washington and several other states that account for about a 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:44.600 third of US vehicle sales have adopted California's standards. So 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:50.000 where does that leave them? So they can follow California standards, 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:52.960 or they can follow federal standards. They can't put together 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.800 their own standards. So as long as California standards are 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.880 in place, they are free to choose to follow the 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.720 California standards. Of course, if e p A tries to 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.840 revoke California's permission, then that leaves all of those states 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.240 in legal limbo again. I think California will fight hard 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.960 in court and will probably be joined by New York 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.440 and Washington and Oregon and the other states that have 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.880 chosen to follow California's lead. Is it Is it smart 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:23.800 for these auto manufacturers in the long run to to 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:28.599 lower the standards when they try to reseal their car 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:34.000 resale car value, and also, you know, international standards come 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.440 into play. Honestly, I don't understand the position of the 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:41.160 auto industry in this battle. We've seen over and over 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.400 again that the auto industry tries to fight these standards 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:50.640 and fight against technological change, environmental pressure, etcetera. We've got 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:52.880 China for example, announcing that it's going to try to 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:56.000 implement a zero emission vehicle goal over the course the 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.600 next ten or fifteen years. Same thing is happening in Europe. 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.880 Japan now has more electric vehicle chargers than it does 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.239 gas stations, and so the trend is in the direction 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:09.640 of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero. The way to 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.280 do that is to increase fuel economy and to keep 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.640 tightening those standards, not to reduce it. Well, this was 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:21.560 one of President Barack Obama's most concrete environmental achievements. Some say, 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:26.440 and um, the Trump administration has been trying to unravel 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:30.880 a lot of his environmental achievements. Is this part of that? 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.440 In about a minute? Absolutely, this is part of that. 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.480 In fact, in my view, the auto emission standards are 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:42.719 the most important climate change policy that the Obama administration issued, 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:45.960 even more important than the standards for power plants. And 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:50.080 that's because, unlike in the electricity sector, we're seeing increases 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.400 in greenhouse gas missions coming from the transportation sector for 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:55.640 a couple of reasons. One because gas prices have been 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.440 going down, and too because the auto manufacturers have been 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:03.359 pushing hard to sell bigger vehicles SUVs and so forth, 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:05.520 and so if this gets unraveled, we're going to see 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:08.480 an even steeper increase in greenhouse gas missions in the 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:13.120 transportation sector. Just briefly, and in about thirty seconds, how 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:17.800 much of Obama's environmental legacy is left? If you have 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:21.800 a number, Oh, that's such a hard question, because there 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.719 are a lot of places where the Trump administration is 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.760 not succeeding in ruling back rolling back Obama era rules, 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:30.520 and so we're gonna see a lot of court fights 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.719 to protect what the Obama administration does. I'm sorry, did 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.520 There are also some really big rules that stayed in place, 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:42.560 including reducing toxic commissions from power plants and that sort 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.000 of thing. So it's really really hard to put a 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:46.680 number on that, but I think you know, it is 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:48.719 safe to say that the Trump administration is doing everything 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.160 it can to roll back the major initiatives, especially on 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:53.800 climate change. Well, thank you so much for your insights. 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.440 That's and Carlson, environmental law professor at u c l 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:04.040 A Law School. States are going in radically different directions 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:08.360 over whether to support President Trump's crackdown on undocumented immigrants 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.120 to states that are diametrically opposite our Texas with its 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:16.320 anti sanctuary law and California with its pro sanctuary law, 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:18.880 and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has now given 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.200 Texas permission to enforce much, though not all, of its 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:26.080 controversial sanctuary city ban. Joining me is Leon Fresco of 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:31.080 Hollandon Knight Leon. The Trump administration helped defend Texas ban 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.480 in court. How big a victory is this for the 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:38.720 Trump administration. There's no other way to couch it other 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.760 than to say that they dramatically enormous victory for the 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:47.000 Trump administration in the sense that they now have cleared 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.640 the field for states like Texas to pass these kinds 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.000 of laws that basically will say, if they are able 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.240 to pass them, that cities within a state cannot choose 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.160 to uh say that they're not going to coop a 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.960 with requests from Immigration and Customs enforcement when they ask 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.920 for information about people in their custody. You mentioned some 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:10.520 of it there, But how what did the appeals court 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.600 ruling give Texas the ability to do? Give us the 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:19.560 high points? Sure so, the provision that Texas pass, which 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:23.360 was known as SB four, had four basic principles to it, 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.880 and the four basic principles that it had was that 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.679 it would say that if a city tried to say 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.440 to its individuals that its officers could not ask about 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:39.720 immigration information, could not cooperate with a request for immigration 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.360 information from ICE, or did not work, did not comply 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.520 with what are called detainer requests, which is where ICE 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.520 asked a local uh a local police office to say, hey, 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.520 do you mind holding this person until we find out 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.319 if there's someone we can deport, and then we'll come 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.360 and pick them up. That what the Texas statute said 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:01.760 is if a c the doesn't do all of this 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.800 level of cooperation, that the actual officers who are ordering 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.840 this kind of non cooperation can be fined or even 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.959 can be subject to criminal penalties. And that was that 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:14.560 had been enjoined by a lower court. But now all 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.400 of that's been viewed as fine. There's one provision that 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:18.920 that side of that, which if you want to talk 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.880 about we can that's still been enjoyed. But other than that, 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.600 all of this cooperation that Texas has mandated cities to 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:30.440 do with ICE is now required. The opinion rejected the 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.040 argument that immigration policy should be left to Congress, not 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.840 the States. Does that lead to the conclusion that California's 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:43.120 pro sanctuary legislation should be upheld. Well, it's it's it's 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.600 a bit complicated because what the opinion said was that 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.720 it's Congress. If all the states and the cities have 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.000 been making arguments around the court that there's this Tenth 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:59.360 Amendment issue that Congress cannot require cooperation but it's voluntary, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.319 then if a state, in a city like California is 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:05.640 going to say, well, you shouldn't require us to do anything, 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.640 it's voluntary, then that eliminates the argument that the plainests 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:14.120 in Texas made that this is required by statute, because 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.040 the point that Texas cannot require this, because the point 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.640 is it's the cities and the state's choices to make. 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.120 Then this is the state. This is the choice Texas made, 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:25.600 and so that choice has to be respected. And so 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:27.640 the court did kind of rub that a little bit 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.000 in the face of the plaintifts to say, you can't 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.360 have it both ways. You can't say a state like 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:35.400 California can't be forced to do it, and then a 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.800 state like Texas doesn't have the option to agree to 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:43.000 do it, to do this cooperation. And so that's why, uh, 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:46.280 this is a particularly tough pill to swallow for the plaintiffs. 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.080 The Court said, future challengers of this Texas ban will 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.000 have to violate the ban and suffer the consequences to 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:56.920 gain the legal right to sue. Considering the outrage of 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.560 many when this Texas law was passed, do you expect 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.319 challenges to deliberately violate the band to get into court? 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.480 I think that I think that it may be possible 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:12.520 that people will look for extreme cases, but I think 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.640 at the end of the day, based on some conversations 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.079 I've had with some of the folks involved in this litigation, 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.640 people are pretty uh concerned about just winding this down 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.560 and not sort of allowing this impetus for for the 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.120 Supreme Court to say it's fine sort of to live 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.200 to fight another day and hope that other states don't 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.880 do what Texas has done here and American Civil Liberties 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.840 Union lawyer vowed to keep fighting this, possibly with an 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:44.120 eventual appeal to the Supreme Court. Are you saying that 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.880 the Supreme Court might take this case or might not? Well? 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.120 I think the I think the problem is I think 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:52.720 that you know, there's there are ne jerk comments that 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.360 people make right after they lose a lawsuits, but right now. 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:59.680 The sort of discussion is is this the right time 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:01.880 to in a case like this to the Supreme Court, 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:03.920 even that the Supreme Courts made a couple of other 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:08.640 rulings already in the immigration context that have been promoting 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.320 things like detention and now some aspects of the travel, 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:14.840 then that maybe this is not the right time to 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.920 bring this Texas case the Supreme Court and instead to 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.600 let the sort of California cases happen and then you know, 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.679 at another at another time later somebody else could challenge 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.560 the Texas case again and bring it up if you know, 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.400 if if there's better inclination from the court, that something 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:35.319 might be welcome. Here. Let's turn briefly to those California cases. 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:38.520 The Trump administration is suing California over three laws that 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.720 block local officials basically from complying with federal immigration directives. 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:45.960 Who has the better side of that flightly on. That 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.320 is a very very interesting case. That case is for 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.400 sure going to get to the Supreme Court because here 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.360 there are some limits that California is putting on just 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.320 basic cooperation with ice, which is, you know, if I 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:07.360 asked for basic information on where somebody is located or 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.960 what the date of the release that that cooperation is 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:15.400 no longer allowed. And also there are provisions in there 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.679 that actually limit the ability of ICE to put the 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.320 tension facilities in the state of California. The law actually 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.720 says that not even one additional detention bed can be 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.000 added in the state of California. And so there there 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.880 are some strong preension claims the Department of Justice has here, 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:35.959 and I expect the Department of Justice to prevail of 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:40.240 at least some of their claims in the ultimately, even 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.040 though it may not happen in the district court, it 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.360 may not happen in the Court of Appeals, but they 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.079 will ultimately, I think, be able to get almost their 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:51.680 claims prevail. The ponds that you know currently on, we'll 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:53.720 have to We'll have to leave it at that. Well, 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:56.200 we'll talk about this next time. That's Leon Fresco of 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.520 Hollandan Night. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:03.920 You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.920 and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Grosso. 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:13.400 This is Bloomberg h