The House Energy and Commerce Committee issued a subpoena Monday to California Air Resources Board Chair Lauren Sanchez, escalating a seven-month investigation into whether the state has continued enforcing electric vehicle mandates that Congress and President Trump already struck down.
The subpoena demands communications and documents tied to California regulations that state officials said would phase out gas-powered vehicles by 2035. The committee is specifically seeking records exchanged between CARB, the California Governor's Office, and the California Attorney General's office, the New York Post reported.
Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, a Kentucky Republican, made clear in a letter accompanying the subpoena that California's cooperation had fallen short. He wrote that "CARB's lack of cooperation with this investigation requires the issuance of compulsory process." The committee began its probe in August and had spent months negotiating with the state agency before resorting to compulsory measures.
The central question is straightforward: Did California keep enforcing vehicle emissions rules that no longer had legal backing?
The Biden administration had signed off on waivers allowing California to impose vehicle pollution standards stricter than federal rules, using authority under Section 209(b) of the Clean Air Act. Those waivers gave the state power to push regulations aimed at transitioning away from gas-powered cars and trucks by 2035. More than a dozen other states followed California's lead.
Last June, President Trump nullified those waivers after three Congressional Review Act resolutions passed on a bipartisan basis in the House and Senate. At a White House bill-signing event, Trump said the action would "kill the California mandates forever."
But Guthrie's letter to Sanchez alleges that CARB kept right on going, "denying auto manufacturers approval to bring vehicles to market unless the manufacturers agreed to comply with the regulations that had already been nullified through these CRA resolutions." If accurate, that means a state agency was enforcing rules that Congress had formally repealed and the president had signed out of existence.
That pattern, Sacramento officials treating federal law as optional, will be familiar to anyone who has watched Gavin Newsom face scrutiny over his party's stance on ICE and other federal enforcement questions. The instinct is the same: when Washington acts, California resists.
Guthrie told the Post that the forced EV transition threatens consumers and national security alike:
"Forcing Americans to buy unreliable, and costly, EVs would eliminate consumer choice, strain our electric grid, raise costs, and increase our reliance on entities tied to the Chinese Communist Party."
He added a direct message to Sacramento:
"We will continue to follow the facts and demand accountability from California. I urge California to comply with this subpoena speedily and in good faith."
The committee's letter spelled out why the records matter. Guthrie wrote that reviewing these documents and communications "is vital to understanding what actions, including actions related to enforcement and implementation of the aforementioned laws and regulations, the state of California has taken thus far with respect to its new vehicle and new motor emission reduction plans following the CRA resolutions signed into law last year."
In plain English: Congress wants to know whether California treated a federal repeal as a suggestion.
A CARB spokesperson pushed back on the characterization that the agency had stonewalled the investigation. The spokesperson said CARB "has provided information and documents" and defended the state's regulatory posture as rooted in "California's longstanding authority under the Clean Air Act and the actions CARB has taken to protect public health and welfare in the state."
The spokesperson also said CARB's "goal is to support the Committee's legislative inquiry through a transparent, cooperative exchange of information." That language sounds conciliatory. But seven months of negotiations followed by a subpoena suggests the committee found the exchange neither transparent nor cooperative enough.
The gap between what CARB claims it provided and what the committee says it still needs is the core of this dispute. If the agency had turned over the relevant communications with the Governor's Office and the Attorney General's office, a subpoena would not have been necessary.
The subpoena is only one front in a broader clash between Washington and Sacramento over vehicle regulations. In June, Gov. Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta, and CARB joined with a group of 10 other state attorneys general to sue the Trump administration over the waiver revocations. That federal court battle is currently being heard by the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Newsom has not slowed down. Also in June 2025, the governor signed an executive order asking CARB to submit another proposal that would help the state transition from fossil fuels. The move signals that Sacramento intends to find a new path to the same destination, fewer gas-powered vehicles, even after Congress revoked the original authority.
This is the same governor who has blamed Trump as California gas prices climbed, even as his own state's regulatory apparatus drives up costs for drivers and manufacturers alike.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice filed its own suit against California in March over a separate fuel economy regulation. The standards Newsom championed, including the Advanced Clean Trucks rule, the Advanced Clean Cars rule, and the Heavy-Duty Omnibus Law-NOx regulations, remain at the center of overlapping legal and congressional fights.
Newsom's ambitions extend well beyond vehicle mandates. His political profile has only grown as he signals that Kamala Harris's political moment may have passed and positions himself for 2028. The subpoena and its fallout will test whether that ambition can coexist with accountability.
What makes this subpoena significant is not just the EV mandate itself. It is the underlying question of whether a state agency continued to impose conditions on automakers based on regulations that had been formally repealed by Congress and the president.
If CARB was indeed denying manufacturers approval to sell vehicles unless they complied with nullified rules, that is not a policy disagreement. It is a state agency acting as though federal law does not apply to it.
The committee's demand for communications between CARB, the Governor's Office, and the Attorney General's office suggests lawmakers want to know who directed the continued enforcement, and whether it was a coordinated decision at the highest levels of California government. That is a reasonable line of inquiry for a congressional committee with oversight authority.
California has a track record of treating governance as a showcase for ambitious programs that do not always survive contact with reality. Newsom's $236 million mental health program that aided just 22 individuals is one example. The EV mandate may prove to be another, a policy built on waivers that no longer exist, enforced by an agency that may not have the authority it claims.
CARB now faces a choice: comply with the subpoena and hand over the records, or dig in and risk a contempt fight with Congress. The agency's spokesperson says cooperation is the goal. The committee's seven months of frustration say otherwise.
When a state agency keeps enforcing rules that Congress repealed, the problem is not just regulatory overreach. It is a government that believes its own priorities outrank the law.
