Donald Trump is still months away from being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, but already his enemies are amassing hundreds of millions of dollars to stop him from delivering on the commonsense agenda he promised voters.
Fortunately for Trump, and the country, his enemies are cartoonishly unserious people.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) announced this week that he was using his power as governor to call a special session of the legislature to appropriate $100 million to the California Department of Justice for the sole purpose of “immediately” filing “affirmative litigation” designed to “safeguard California values.”
And just what are these values? Well, Newsom said they include preserving “clean vehicle policies that are critical to combating climate change” and protecting “long standing environmental protections.” Newsom is undoubtedly correct that Trump’s administration will have ample opportunity to undo many of the mandates Newsom’s governments have put in place to force consumers into electric vehicles.
When Congress passed the Clean Air Act, it envisioned a national standard for automobile tailpipe emission standards that would be set by the Environmental Protection Agency. If a state wants to go beyond these national standards, the state must petition the EPA for a waiver, which is what California did when it passed a law essentially banning the sale of all gas-powered vehicles by 2035.
Now, Trump cannot snap his fingers and undo this waiver, but he can go through a lengthy rulemaking process to undo it. And that process can be challenged by California in federal court. And we are sure the state will do so. But let’s have that fight. If Newsom and California Democrats want to use the size of California’s market to push other states to ban the sale of gas-powered cars, let’s make that debate national. Let’s see how the country feels about these “California values.”
As Trump seeks to build new power lines and other infrastructure projects in California, Democrats will again try to stop anything from being built using the state’s stringent anti-permitting law, the California Environmental Quality Act. But Congress can preempt this act. And Congress can make much-needed reforms to the federal anti-permitting act, the National Environmental Policy Act. For far too long, infrastructure projects across the country have been strangled by environmental red tape. Newsom and California Democrats want to keep those anti-construction regulations, Trump wants to repeal them. Let’s have that fight.
Newsom is also promising to fight efforts by Trump to politicize “grant programs to commandeer state and local governments for federal purposes” and stop implementation of Trump’s “immigration policies.” In other words, Newsom is signaling that he will fight any effort by the Trump administration to force local law enforcement to cooperate with federal law enforcement in the apprehension, detention, and deportation of illegal immigrants.
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Again, this is a fight the Trump administration can’t wait to have. Multiple polls show that a vast majority of voters support the mass deportation of illegal immigrants. If Newsom and California Democrats want to explain to independent voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin why they don’t want to turn over murderers, rapists, and drunk drivers to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials for deportation, let’s have that debate.
Newsom and California Democrats are simply delusional when it comes to how the rest of the nation views “California values.” Whatever that phrase means to California Democrats, what it means to swing voters across the country is rampant crime, widespread homelessness, the nation’s highest energy prices, the nation’s highest housing prices, and, Vice President Kamala Harris so eloquently explained, taxpayer-funded surgery for transgender illegal immigrants.