Over five days in August 2026, five House Republicans filed five separate resolutions in Congress. Each one kills a different Environmental Protection Agency decision. Every single one is about California.

Here they are, straight off the congressional record:

All five went to the same committee: House Energy and Commerce.

That isn't five members having the same idea by accident. That's a package.

What a "waiver" actually is

California has been allowed to set stricter air pollution limits than the federal government since the Clean Air Act was written. The reason is simple and old: Los Angeles had the worst smog in America, and Congress let the state that already had its own program keep going. Other states can then choose to follow California's standards instead of the weaker federal ones. The authority is Section 209(b) of the Clean Air Act, and EPA "shall grant a waiver unless" it finds California was arbitrary and capricious in concluding its standards are at least as protective as the federal ones. Under Section 177, other states can adopt California's standards without asking EPA at all.

For California to use that authority, the EPA has to grant a waiver. Each of these five resolutions targets one of those EPA waiver decisions.

The members' own announcement is direct about the goal. August Pfluger:

"California should not be allowed to dictate what kind of vehicles Texans and Americans across the country can drive. … I'm proud to introduce this CRA to restore consumer choice, protect American families from costly mandates, and put an end to California setting de facto national auto policy."

Gary Palmer: "California should not be allowed to set de facto national vehicle standards for the rest of the country. This resolution reaffirms that the Clean Air Act cannot be used to give one state the power to reshape America's auto market."

Their release says the point is to stop California's rules "from quietly becoming the law of the land, without a single vote in Congress."

That line is worth holding onto, because of what the tool they picked actually does.

The tool they picked

The Congressional Review Act is a fast lane. A CRA resolution can't be filibustered in the Senate, needs only simple majorities, and skips the normal committee grind.

It also does something ordinary legislation doesn't: once a rule is killed by CRA, the agency is barred from issuing a rule in "substantially the same form" ever again — unless Congress passes a new law authorizing it. That's written into the statute itself: a disapproved rule "may not be reissued in substantially the same form … unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after" the disapproval.

So the complaint is that California's standards might take effect without a full congressional debate. The remedy is a procedure specifically designed to avoid a full congressional debate, with a permanent lock on the door afterward.

What's on the list is not abstract

Two of the five resolutions aren't about cars at all.

H.J.Res. 210 targets the at-berth rule for ocean-going vessels. That regulation requires that every vessel visit to a regulated California port use an approved emission control strategy for the whole time it's docked — instead of running diesel engines while tied up next to a neighborhood. Container, refrigerated and cruise ships came under it starting January 2023.

H.J.Res. 213 goes after the commercial harbor craft rules — tugboats, ferries, fishing boats working the same waters.

Those two rules are about the air in port communities. Long Beach. Wilmington. Oakland. The people who live there breathe what idles at the dock.

H.J.Res. 214 covers small off-road engines: lawn mowers, leaf blowers, portable generators. Jay Obernolte's contribution to the package is the lawn equipment.

Who filed them

This is the part that makes the package legible.

Gary Palmer chairs the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment — the panel that is supposed to protect America's air and water. He has a 0% score from the League of Conservation Voters for 2025 and a 1% lifetime score. In 2025 he cast 33 anti-environment votes and zero pro-environment votes, with a coal company, a power company and a quarry company on his donor list.

August Pfluger has a 0% LCV score for 2025 and 0% lifetime. He represents the Permian Basin and sits on Energy and Commerce.

Vince Fong has a 0% 2025 score and 4% lifetime — a record built while serving on the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

Jay Obernolte has a 3% 2025 score and 6% lifetime.

James Gallagher represents California's 1st District, which contains Paradise — the town destroyed by the deadliest wildfire in California history. In eleven years in the California Legislature he compiled an 11% lifetime environmental score, and California Environmental Voters put him in what it calls the "Polluter Caucus."

Four of the five have a lifetime League of Conservation Voters score in the single digits. The fifth spent eleven years earning an 11% lifetime score in the state legislature of the state these resolutions target.

Three of them represent California

That's the detail that should stop a Californian cold.

Fong, Obernolte and Gallagher are all California congressmen. They are not defending their constituents from another state's rules. They are asking Washington to overrule their own state — including the rules governing the ports and harbors on California's coast and the smog their own districts sit downwind of.

Pfluger's argument is about Texans being told what cars to drive. Fine — that's a real argument, and voters can weigh it. But nobody in Texas is affected by whether a tugboat in Oakland has to run a cleaner engine, or whether a container ship plugs into shore power in Long Beach instead of burning diesel at the pier.

Those two resolutions do only one thing: let more pollution into the air over California port towns. Both were filed by California Republicans.

Where it stands

All five resolutions are sitting in the Energy and Commerce Committee, where Palmer chairs the environment subcommittee and Pfluger and Obernolte are members.

They are not law yet. But CRA resolutions move fast when leadership wants them to, and this package was clearly built to move together.

If you live in one of these five districts, your congressman put his name on it.

Sources

Congressional record for H.J.Res. 210, 211, 212, 213 and 214, 119th Congress. Members' announcement: "Pfluger, Palmer, and Obernolte Push Back on California's EPA Waivers".