EXCLUSIVE: A major pro-business group will intervene Monday on the side of the federal government as California leads several other states in trying to undo Congress’ rescission of several electric vehicle (EV) mandates.
The American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce (AmFree) – a pro-limited-government alternative to the older U.S. Chamber of Commerce – will file suit in Oakland federal court to intervene in California’s challenge to three bipartisan Congressional Review Act resolutions signed by President Donald Trump that blocked the Golden State from enforcing what AmFree calls “radical” and commercially damaging EV mandates.
AmFree and several agricultural and trade organizations backing its intervention said they intend to help make the case that California and the other blue states it is leading as plaintiffs against the government remain preempted from enforcing the mandates and that the mooted restrictions were stifling American commerce.
“[The] entire complaint should be dismissed with prejudice,” AmFree wrote in its filing, as the Congressional Review Act (CRA) itself – the tool that Congress used to block the mandates – shields any aspect of the situation from a judicial review.
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Therefore, AmFree argues, California lacks standing and courts have no constitutional authority to interfere with internal congressional processes like CRA.
Congress properly used its power to invalidate the Biden-era waivers granted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to California, they argue.
“President Trump and members of Congress deserve tremendous credit for putting California’s EV mandates on the trash heap where they belong,” said AmFree CEO Gentry Collins. “If allowed to move forward, these onerous regulations would have been catastrophic for the U.S. economy.
“Just because Governor Newsom doesn’t like the outcome doesn’t mean he can weaponize the courts to subvert the will of elected representatives who answer to voters.”
Michael Buschbacher, the lead attorney in the case and a partner at Boyden Gray, told Fox News Digital in a Monday interview that the law is clear when it comes to challenging CRAs like those passed to blunt the EV mandates.
“Congress said that there’s no judicial review for CRA resolutions. So that alone should end things, and then, when you think about what they’re doing, they’re trying to undo a law – as best I can tell, their theory is they’re constitutionally entitled to the filibuster, but the filibuster’s not in the Constitution and I don’t see any viable legal arguments that they have,” Buschbacher said.
“That’s why, along with our motion to intervene, we’re including a motion to dismiss… with prejudice.”
He also noted that because lawsuits against the government often drag on through multiple presidential administrations, having AmFree and its trade association partners as intervenors helps prevent “collusive settlements” — which can happen when new officeholders bring shifting priorities or legal interpretations.
When asked about the case under the lens of ongoing debates on federal judicial activism and overreach, Buschbacher added that the blue-state plaintiffs are “definitely trying to get the judiciary to step way out of line into second-guessing the core parts of the institutional prerogatives of the House and Senate.”
“I’m not aware of any lawsuit that has tried to go this far [regarding] the separation of powers.
“It’s clear this is not one of those issues that is like ‘the Trump administration doing something completely novel’ and ‘courts having to wrestle with that’. This is like squarely, ‘Congress passed the law. You can’t undo that law unless it’s unconstitutional and there’s nothing unconstitutional here’.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Robert Bonta defended the merits of their suit, claiming EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and the Trump administration defied “decades of precedent” by approving Congress’ CRAs.
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“Trump’s all-out assault on California continues – and this time he’s destroying our clean air and America’s global competitiveness in the process. We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a President who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big polluters,” Newsom said in a statement.
Newsom and Bonta argued in a June statement when filing the suit that it was actually Republican icon then-Gov. Ronald Reagan who first accelerated California’s clean-air efforts when he sought waivers from then-President Richard Nixon.
“[Trump’s] reckless, politically motivated, and illegal attacks on California continue, this time with his attempt to trample on our longstanding authority to maintain more stringent clean vehicle standards,” Bonta said.
“The President is busy playing partisan games with lives on the line and yanking away good jobs that would bolster the economy – ignoring that these actions have life or death consequences for California communities breathing dirty, toxic air. I’ve said it before.
“I’ll say it again: California will not back down,” Bonta said.
Several blue states, including Pennsylvania, remain tied to some of California’s EV mandates, with the owner of a Lenhartsville trucking company warning journalist John Stossel in a recent interview that without breaking from the Golden State, the industry would have problems.
Virginia is one state that was able to break with California. As Buschbacher said, Richmond found a technicality in their own statute – where it assumed California was going to enshrine its EV mandate in one statutory subsection versus another in the state code. That helped Virginia back out of the pact previously approved by former Gov. Ralph Northam.
