With help from Marisa Guerra Echeverria
PARTS PROBLEM: The Trump administration has left no stone unturned in its push to dismantle California air regulators’ influence.
The most recent hit came last week, when the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would end a longstanding practice of allowing California to act as the de facto national regulator of aftermarket car parts.
This matters because the state has long policed aftermarket parts that can inadvertently or intentionally affect emissions controls on cars and trucks, causing them to spew more pollution into the air that harms public health.
Click Here to Subscribe to the California Political Review
The California Air Resources Board, the powerful regulatory agency that wields that power, is a frequent target of President Donald Trump. He’s often framed it as fueling an affordability crisis through its climate and air pollution policies.
“Unsurprisingly, the CARB process is faulty and backlogged, and its certification takes 12 to 18 months to complete,” the EPA said in its announcement about the changes. “These delays have left small businesses, the majority of aftermarket suppliers, sidelined while Chinese counterfeits flooded the market.”
The Trump administration is instead handing that authority to an industry trade association, the Specialty Equipment Market Association, that has, at times, butted heads with California state officials.
Some environmental groups are skeptical of the move — especially since the industry association was among the most vocal supporters of Republicans’ maneuver to revoke California’s EV standards last year.
“Outsourcing certification to the industry is a textbook example of putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop,” said Bill Magavern, policy director at the Coalition for Clean Air. “It reeks of conflict of interest to have the industry in charge of certifying the aftermarket parts, and it opens the door to tampering.”
The federal government has long deferred to California, which has by far the largest team of vehicle emissions-testing staff in the nation, to certify that aftermarket parts comply with the Clean Air Act. Now, parts makers can go to SEMA, which represents over 7,000 companies across the aftermarket parts industry, to receive approval.
While the change will apply to the other 49 states — CARB still has the power to test and certify aftermarket parts sold in California — the move fits into the larger pattern of the administration and congressional Republicans blunting the Golden State’s historically significant power to influence car markets nationwide.
CARB officials have countered the basis of the EPA’s latest broadside, arguing that the state’s program for certifying vehicle modifications does not apply nationwide or include replacement parts that meet original manufacturer specifications.
CARB spokesperson John Swanton said in a statement that EPA’s announcement “falsely claims California’s certification process [in place for more than 50 years] takes 12 to 18 months to complete. The fact is it takes an average of 90 days.”
Karen Bailey-Chapman, SEMA’s senior vice president for public and government affairs, said the group “agrees to disagree” with CARB’s assessment of the certification timelines, arguing that its internal data shows a process that takes an average of 12 months, if not longer. She said that the delay creates confusion and hurts small manufacturers competing with unscrupulous businesses that sell copycat parts and avoid the testing hurdles.
