Barrasso votes to block California electric vehicle rules

CHEYENNE (WNE) — U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., on Thursday issued the following statement after he voted with all Senate Republicans to overturn a series of California rules that would have established a nationwide electric vehicle mandate.

“Washington bureaucrats will not dictate the vehicles we can drive in Wyoming or across America. Republicans rejected the Democrats’ delusional dream of banning gas-powered vehicles forever. We rejected their effort to force-feed electric vehicles to every single American,” Barrasso said in the news release. “The electric vehicle mandate was a pillar of the Democrats’ Green New Deal. Today, Republicans toppled that pillar. The American people are back in the driver’s seat, exactly where they belong.”

The Senate voted Thursday to block California’s first-in-the-nation rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, along with two other resolutions that would block California rules curbing tailpipe emissions in certain vehicles and smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks, the Associated Press reported.

This story was published on May 23, 2025.