Sullivan cosponsors resolutions to void EPA's California vehicle emissions waivers

Sen. Dan Sullivan has signed on as a cosponsor of two joint resolutions that would use the Congressional Review Act to wipe out Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decisions granting California authority over vehicle emissions. Both were introduced Aug. 5, 2026, in the 119th Congress, and both were read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works the same day.

S.J. Res. 206, sponsored by Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., targets the EPA rule relating to "California State Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Standards; Notice of Decision Granting a Waiver of Clean Air Act Preemption for California's 2009 and Subsequent Model Year Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards for New Motor Vehicles." S.J. Res. 208, sponsored by Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, targets the EPA decision reconsidering a previous withdrawal of a waiver of preemption under California's Advanced Clean Car Program. Each resolution invokes chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, the Congressional Review Act's disapproval mechanism.

The filings extend a pattern for Sullivan, who has repeatedly used the same tool and the same committee against EPA actions tied to California standards. He introduced S.J. Res. 209 on Aug. 6, 2026, seeking disapproval of the EPA's "California State Nonroad Engine Pollution Control Standards; Ocean-Going Vessels At-Berth; Notice of Decision," which also went to Environment and Public Works.

Sullivan's friction with the EPA runs beyond vehicle rules. He and Sen. Lisa Murkowski have long pressed the agency over discharge reporting rules for small boats. More than 8,000 Alaska boats could face civil penalties for hosing fish slime off a deck, Murkowski said in 2015, describing a federal incidental discharge reporting requirement Alaska's congressional delegation has tried for years to lift. The comments, carried in a SeafoodNews account picked up by the California Wetfish Producers Association on Feb. 16, 2015, describe S. 387, a bill Murkowski introduced Feb. 4, 2015, that would have stripped discharge reporting requirements from commercial, fishing and recreational vessels under 79 feet. Sullivan was a cosponsor, along with Sens. Barbara Boxer and Maria Cantwell. The same account says Murkowski and former Sen. Mark Begich had introduced similar legislation in a prior session.

"You've got a little bit of slime. You hose it off. That would be an incidental discharge that would be reportable to the EPA and if you fail to report, you could be subject to civil penalties," Murkowski said.

The EPA's own standards page, which offers general regulatory context rather than a response to Murkowski's 2015 argument, says the agency's standards protect water quality by regulating discharges from vessels in U.S. waters, covering roughly 85,000 international and domestic vessels. Its 2024 vessel incidental discharge standards, issued under the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act, set three general standards plus specific standards for 20 onboard systems. Vessels under 79 feet and fishing vessels of any size remain subject to existing ballast water requirements regardless of the exemption sought in S. 387.