WASHINGTON, September 16, 2026 — The U.S. House of Representatives voted late last night to scrap vital state protections against air pollution from ships.
The 216 to 211 vote sought to disapprove a federal waiver for California’s At-Berth rules, which set limits on pollution emitted by vessels docked at California ports.
“The House’s action seeks to remove commonsense California standards that protect port communities from toxic diesel pollution. It would unravel almost 20 years of progress and ignore a court ruling that found EPA likely acted unlawfully when it sent these vital protections to Congress in the first place,” said Joanna Slaney, EDF Action’s Vice President for Political and Government Affairs. “This move would forfeit billions of dollars in health savings and cause hundreds of early deaths for Californians, all while doing nothing to lower costs for consumers. EDF Action urges the Senate to reject this deeply misguided action.”
The Clean Air Act has long guaranteed California’s right to set stronger standards for certain sources of dangerous air pollution from the transportation sector, including ocean-going vessels. The law requires that EPA grant a waiver of preemption for those more protective standards in most cases, and EPA has granted more than a hundred such waivers over the decades.
Over the weekend, a federal district court judge ruled that EPA likely acted unlawfully by “reclassifying” the preemption waiver for the At-Berth standards as a “rule” and claiming it is subject to the CRA. The CRA is a law that only applies to federal rules, not adjudicatory orders like waivers. The court granted California a preliminary injunction in the case, ordering EPA to withdraw or correct its submission to Congress with respect to the At-Berth waiver, as well as five other pending waivers.
The Court’s order is consistent with and reinforces determinations last year by the Senate Parliamentarian, the Government Accountability Office (the nonpartisan legislative agency historically responsible for determining which agency actions are subject to Congressional review) and the independent Congressional Research Service all of which determined that the CRA did not apply to California’s waivers.