The title of your article is about CO2, not emissions. California enacted tailpipe emissions tests
specifically to address smog in LA. California can, has, and will continue to have steep gas taxes as the primary mechanism to address climate change, and those state taxes aren't being challenged here. Switching to shitty diesel VW Jettas will make the problem worse, not better, despite the reduced CO2 footprint.
Second- bullshit. Every commercially viable coal plant burns much hotter than any gasoline or diesel engine, and will have a much higher efficiency as a result. (Wikipedia "Carnot cycle") Line/conversion losses will not make up the difference.
Third-we're talking about California. We don't have any coal plants. So even if we pretended physics wasn't a thing, our relatively large supply of wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear, and hydro production would fix it. We're trying to replace natural gas with "batteries" of some sort, but even at the worst case, natural gas plants produce very little smog, even though their CO2 production is unfortunate.
Fourth- (well, three point fivesth) smog from coal plants in states that we share a grid with is their problem- winds generally blow west to east, so that smog won't end up in our cities. If the states where that smog ends up wants to enact federal smog reduction standards I'll be at the table shoulder to shoulder with you.
Trump has done a lot of shit to piss me off. As a resident of the bowl that includes Los Angeles, this is probably the issue that makes me the angriest, even though its national significance is fairly small. We need air quality protections here. We can't survive otherwise, and solving this problem at the state level had worked out fairly well so far. I'd rate it of more importance to me than the housing crisis, (our fault, we're doing nothing to address it) or the wild fires. (partially our fault, we're talking steps to fix it on a global scale with the knowledge that it won't ever be enough by ourselves)