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(Bloomberg) -- Republicans moved a step closer Thursday to repealing a federal waiver allowing California to ban gasoline-powered cars by 2035, a policy that had drawn opposition from automakers, fuel producers and President Donald Trump himself.

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The US House voted 246-164 to roll back an Environmental Protection Agency authorization issued under former President Joe Biden, which let California enact emissions standards even stricter than the US government’s requirements to increase sales of electric and other zero-emission vehicles. Thirty-five Democrats joined with Republicans to vote in favor of the measure.

The Senate now has until mid-May to vote on the California waivers, though that may require overriding a decision by the Senate parliamentarian — the legislative body’s chief rule-keeper — first.

On Wednesday, the House had approved measures repealing EPA waivers that allowed California to compel sales of zero-emission trucks and limit nitrogen oxide pollution from heavy-duty vehicles and engines.

The vote comes as the Trump administration has begun the process of undoing scores of Biden’s environmental and climate policies, while promoting fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal.

California’s requirements, which were also set to apply in New York, Washington and other states that agreed to follow along, were designed to slash planet-warming pollution, more than halving greenhouse gas emissions from light-duty vehicles in the state by 2040.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who introduced the plan to phase out gas-powered cars in 2020, said the EV shift is necessary to curb pollution in the most-populous state. The House vote defies decades of precedent, he said.

“Big polluters and the right-wing propaganda machine have succeeded in buying off the Republican Party – and now the House is using a tactic that the Senate’s own parliamentarian has said is lawless,” Newsom said in a statement. “Our vehicles program helps clean the air for all Californians, and we’ll continue defending it.”

But opponents of California’s rules, which include automaker Toyota Motor Corp., the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers trade group and the US Chamber of Commerce, have said they are unachievable.