EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced Monday that he is scrapping former President Barack Obama’s strict new fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gas rules for cars and light trucks.
Pruitt said the Obama administration’s rules that set a 54-mile per gallon standard by 2025, up from the current average of 38.3 mpg, were “not appropriate” in light of recent automobile sales data and should be revised.
He did not say what the new standards should be but argued the Obama targets are “too high.”
“The Obama EPA’s determination was wrong,” Pruitt said. “Obama’s EPA cut the midterm evaluation process short with politically charged expediency, made assumptions about the standards that didn’t comport with reality and set the standards too high.”
Pruitt said he is starting a joint notice and public comment process with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to develop a new rule setting greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and light-duty trucks, such as pickups and sport utility vehicles, for model years 2022 to 2025.
The decision sets up a fight with California and 12 other states that had adopted the tougher Obama standards as a way of reducing man-made greenhouse emissions that many climate scientists say contribute to climate change.
California, which can set its own fuel-efficiency standards that other states may follow, could move to formally separate its rules from the national program if EPA weakens the standards. That effectively would create two separate rules for automakers to follow when producing cars for sale in the U.S.
The states that follow California, including New York and Pennsylvania, account for roughly a third of the nation’s auto market.
Pruitt on Monday said he is still examining whether to allow California to keep its waiver, permitted by the federal Clean Air Act, to force the state to follow weaker standards.
“Cooperative federalism doesn’t mean that one state can dictate standards for the rest of the country. EPA will set a national standard for greenhouse gas emissions that allows auto manufacturers to make cars that people both want and can afford – while still expanding environmental and safety benefits of newer cars. It’s in everyone’s best interest to have a national standard, and we look forward to working with all states, including California, as we work to finalize that standard,” Pruitt said.
Some conservatives have called for Pruitt to revoke California’s waiver.
“I would recommend EPA revoke the waiver, but no matter what the administration does, California is going to pick a fight,” Tom Pyle, president of the free-market American Energy Alliance and President Trump’s former Energy Department transition team leader, told the Washington Examiner. “The whole crew over there have made it their mission to undermine President Trump. Something as big as this, I don’t see a scenario where California is willing to sit down in a constructive way.”
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, has said he is prepared to sue the EPA if it relaxes the fuel efficiency standards. California is the nation’s largest market for zero-emission electric vehicles, and is aiming to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent by 2030.
On Monday, the State Energy and Environment Impact Center, a coalition representing liberal attorneys general, reiterated that multiple states plan to challenge the EPA’s move.
“EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has picked another senseless, destructive fight by undercutting tailpipe emissions reductions that industry, state and federal governments and the public worked together to put in place,” said David Hayes, the executive director of the coalition. “Pruitt leaves state attorneys general little choice but to fight back — and add to their courthouse victory tally.”
The Obama administration, seeking to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from oil, set the 2022-2025 efficiency standards in 2011 with the support of automakers, which were involved in the negotiations.
The EPA at the time called it the “the most significant federal action ever taken to reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions,” and made it a cornerstone of Obama’s climate change legacy. Obama’s rules would have cut oil consumption by about 12 billion barrels and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by about six billion tons over the lifetime of the cars affected by the regulations, according to his EPA.
U.S. carbon emissions from transportation overtook electricity for the first time last year.
The Obama rules required the EPA to conduct a midterm evaluation of whether the auto market could meet the standards.
It did so in 2016, before the Trump administration took over, and determined that the standards remained “feasible, practical and appropriate.”
But automobile trade associations complained the comment period for the midterm review had been rushed and that the requirements were too strict.
With relatively low fuel prices, less fuel-efficient SUVs and light trucks have continued their strong sales, while consumer demand for hybrid-electric and more fuel-efficient models has suffered, so manufacturers say they are having difficulty hitting the fuel-efficiency targets.
Automakers cheered Pruitt’s decision.
Gloria Bergquist, vice president of public affairs at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, noted the government had predicted future sales would be two-thirds cars and one-third light trucks, but the current ratio is the reverse of that.
The Obama administration’s rules did not require the development of electric cars, but encouraged automakers to speed their development.
Sales of electric vehicles are starting to increase but still total about 1 percent of global car sales.
“This was the right decision, and we support the administration for pursuing a data-driven effort and a single national program as it works to finalize future standards,” Berquist said. “We appreciate that the administration is working to find a way to both increase fuel economy standards and keep new vehicles affordable to more Americans.”
The auto alliance represents 12 of the largest car manufacturers.
Some major automakers, however, are wary of a rollback of the Obama standards because they fear California and other states would revolt and leave the national program.
Automakers worry that if the national rules are significantly weaker than state standards, they would face a patchwork of regulations.
“We support increasing clean car standards through 2025 and are not asking for a rollback,” said Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford and CEO Jim Hackett, in an op-ed published on Medium last week. “We want one set of standards nationally, along with additional flexibility to help us provide more affordable options for our customers.”
Toyota CEO Jim Lentz said last week that automakers would face higher costs if they had to manage fuel economy differently in various states.
Lentz said individual state emissions requirements could result in Toyota getting “towards the end of the year and I no longer can sell SUVs,” depending on the state’s fuel economy standard. “It would be an absolute nightmare for us to figure out.”
Supporters of the Obama standards argue the auto industry could lag on climate action if it is not pushed by government. Market conditions have pushed utilities to drive down emissions in the electricity sector, as natural gas and renewable energy such as wind and solar have displaced coal, but those same trends are not happening in transportation.
“The Obama standards were the biggest climate emissions reduction program on the books, and certainty paired with fuel savings this is something consumers around the country should care about tremendously,” said Dave Cooke, a senior vehicle analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “If the Trump administration moves to weaken these rules, they are taking away more efficient vehicle options for folks in two-thirds of country, and that has significant impacts on any long-term climate goals for the U.S.”
