The Trump administration has formally moved to revoke California’s authority to set its own vehicle emissions standards, in a decision certain to provoke a significant legal challenge.
In a statement, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Andrew Wheeler, said the decision ensures nationwide rules that provide “much-needed regulatory certainty for the automotive industry” and “promote economic growth by reducing the price of new vehicles to help more Americans purchase newer, cleaner, and safer cars and trucks”.
The announcement was made with the transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, who said the decision ensures “no state has the authority to opt out of the nation’s rules, and no state has the right to impose its policies on the rest of the country”.
The move, widely opposed by critics including the former two-term state governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, represents a wider effort to restrict California’s plans to reshape the mix of vehicles on its roads. It comes before an expected decision to roll back fuel-efficiency standards set under Barack Obama.
“See you in court,” California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, tweeted soon after the announcement.
Newsom and other state leaders condemned the president’s latest moves. He, California’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, and Mary Nichols, the state’s top clean air regulator, described the move as part of a “political vendetta”.
Trump criticized California as he returned to Washington from a two-day fundraising visit, blaming the state’s “liberal establishment” for a surge in homelessness.
“It’s a terrible situation that’s in Los Angeles and in San Francisco,” Trump told reporters. “They have to clean it up. We can’t have our cities going to hell.”
The San Francisco mayor, London Breed, called Trump’s remarks “ridiculous”.
Breed said the city was combating a homelessness crisis by adding 1,000 beds to shelters, and wants to pass a $600m bond to build affordable housing and increase services for people with addiction and mental illness.
On Tuesday, Newsom and the mayors of California’s 13 largest cities sent Trump a letter asking his administration to provide more aid to tackle the problem, including an additional 50,000 housing vouchers for poor Californians.
The housing secretary, Ben Carson, responded by saying California’s policies on law enforcement, an overregulated housing market and sanctuary cities had driven up housing costs while increasing demand.
Carson wrote: “Your letter seeks more federal dollars for California from hard-working American taxpayers but fails to admit that your state and local policies have played a major role in creating the current crisis.”
Carson’s comments came after he toured Los Angeles’s Skid Row, the centre of a crisis that numbers 60,000 homeless people in Los Angeles county alone.
The Los Angeles County board of supervisors said it planned to join an effort to petition the supreme court to review a decision that restricts efforts to prevent homeless people from sleeping rough in western states.
“The status quo is untenable,” said county supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. “We need to call this what it is: a state of emergency.”
