President Joe Biden’s White House has again inserted itself into a dispute involving America’s railroads. This time, the Environmental Protection Agency has made it easier for California to require railroads to replace diesel-powered locomotives with electric locomotives or other lower-emission alternatives.

“The California locomotive regulation is unreasonable, based on flawed assumptions and mandates technology that is not viable or commercially available today, particularly at scale,” said Ted Greener, spokesman for the Association of American Railroads.

The railroads’ trade group has been fighting the law in court. The EPA’s preemption waiver, which goes into effect on Dec. 8, is making railroad lawyers’ jobs that much harder. Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta has already filed for a dismissal of the suit, citing the Biden administration’s action.

Previously, federal law had preempted state law on railroad emission regulations for reasons of interstate commerce. The federal government had held that much of railroad regulation, including emissions, must happen at the federal level.

The EPA waiver here is consistent with a larger push by the Biden administration across many agencies to cut down on carbon emissions and switch American vehicles over from combustion engine-driven to electric.

“President Biden has set an ambitious U.S. goal of achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050,” the White House’s website says.

The railroads protest that they are already quite “clean” compared to the alternatives, such as trucking, thank you very much.

“Businesses and consumers would be the ultimate loser should railroads — responsible for less than 1% of U.S. emissions — be less able to offer affordable and environmentally efficient transportation,” Greener warned.

In his request for a dismissal of the lawsuit, Bonta takes issue with the railroads’ insistence that electric-powered locomotives or other non-diesel-powered vehicles are not viable alternatives.

Bonta asks the court, specifically Judge John Mendez, a senior United States district judge for the Eastern District of California, to take note of a few thorny facts.

The first fact is that the Pacific Harbor Line, which moves freight from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, “has received a new battery-electric locomotive for evaluation and use.”

The attorney general also points out that the Sierra Northern Railway “received a $15.6 million grant to convert diesel locomotives to run on hydrogen.”

Oral arguments on all of this will be heard Jan. 9.

As a Democratic senator from 1973-2009, President Joe Biden was known as “Amtrak Joe” because of his frequent commutes to and from Delaware on the passenger train. He ran as a somewhat centrist Democrat. The railroads were cautiously optimistic that Biden would be someone they could work with rather than fight.

Granted, on one high-profile decision, that hope proved half true. Biden supported and signed legislation to avert a large railroad strike last year. That was only after his own appointees to the National Mediation Board helped to foment the strike in the first place. They managed this by cutting off negotiations at a point that many experts conceded was premature by historical norms.

“Now, California is working with the EPA to open the door for this policy to stand, which disregards the need for uniform federal standards,” Greener said. “It makes bad policy worse.”

There’s also the possibility that other states could follow California’s lead, as Oregon and Washington have done recently on everything from COVID-19 lockdown coordination to phasing out the sales of certain new cars.

On a whole range of other concerns, from the reciprocal switching rule to the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment to the American Railway Act and beyond, the railroads and the Biden administration have locked horns.

The EPA waiver decision might indicate that the White House has no mind to deescalate the conflict heading into an election year.