YourVoice.Now Summary
EnvironmentCorporate BenefitsCongress would cancel California's approval to make harbor boats cut diesel soot — and block a similar one later.
Environment
Federal law bars states from setting their own boat engine rules unless the EPA signs off. The EPA signed off on most of California's 2022 harbor craft rules in January 2025, and this would undo that.
Under the law Congress is using here, a canceled rule cannot come back in much the same form. The EPA could approve a similar California rule only if Congress passes a new law saying so.
Corporate Benefits
Owners of tugboats, ferries, and workboats have been adding soot filters or buying cleaner engines to meet the state deadlines. If the approval is canceled, California could not require those upgrades.
More about this bill
California's clean-air rules for tugboats, ferries, and workboats would stop applying. The Environmental Protection Agency approved most of those state rules in January 2025. This resolution would cancel that approval. The rules would then have no legal force, as if they had never taken effect. The state rules require older harbor boats to add soot filters or move to cleaner engines. The deadlines run from 2023 into the 2030s. Boat owners in California would no longer have to meet them. People near the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, and San Diego breathe that engine exhaust. Congress would also bar the EPA from approving a similar California rule later, unless a new law allows it. The House passed it on September 16, 2026, by a vote of 214 to 208. The Senate and the President would both still have to agree.
Congressional Summary
Congress's official summary of this bill still describes an earlier version of the text, so we have left it out here. You can read it on Congress.gov.
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Passed House
- Action Date
- 2026-09-16
- Date Added
- 2026-09-11
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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