The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing first-time carbon emissions standards for aircraft engines, adopting international climate limits negotiated during the Obama administration.
“We are reducing our [carbon dioxide] emissions, but we are doing it in a thoughtful manner that preserves our manufacturing base, and we are doing it faster and better than our international partners,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters Wednesday.
Wheeler touted the proposal as the third time the Trump administration has taken “major action to regulate greenhouse gases,” also citing the EPA’s repeal and replacement of Obama-era carbon emissions for power plants and fuel economy limits. In both of those instances, the EPA set standards less strict than what the Obama administration had put forth.
The EPA’s aircraft proposal mirrors global greenhouse gas standards for new aircraft engines, using a fuel efficiency metric to encourage reductions in carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. The International Civil Aviation Organization, of which more than 190 countries are members, adopted those limits in 2017 in a deal supported by major U.S. aircraft manufacturers.
The airline industry welcomed the EPA proposal, noting it is critical for the United States to adopt the international standards to ensure American manufacturers can sell their planes into the global market and U.S. airlines can use those planes for international flights.
“Although the U.S. airlines are already driven to be highly fuel- and carbon-efficient, this stringent new emissions standard will help U.S. airlines make a green industry even greener,” said Nancy Young, vice president of environmental affairs for Airlines for America, in a statement.
Before leaving office, President Barack Obama’s EPA in 2016 issued a finding that aircraft greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare, creating the legal requirement for the EPA to set regulations for the sector.
It has taken President Trump’s administration more than three years to act on that, though, and in January, a trio of environmental groups threatened to sue the EPA for taking too long to issue the greenhouse gas standards.
Environmentalists say the EPA’s proposal is not enough to put the aircraft sector on a path to significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in line with global climate goals.
The federal government should be putting the airline industry on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050, said Annie Petsonk, international counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund. She noted that’s especially important in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, during which the airline industry has taken a huge hit as planes were grounded amid shelter-in-place restrictions.
“If the industry doesn’t put climate at the core of its rebuilding, that will not result in a durable recovery for the industry, and the workers’ jobs will be jeopardized again as the industry has to scramble to deal with climate,” she said.
In fact, the EPA acknowledged that it doesn’t expect any direct carbon emission reductions from its proposal, in large part because Boeing and other U.S. aircraft engine manufacturers are already making more fuel-efficient and lower-emitting models that meet the requirements.
“The future aircraft will be lower than today” in terms of emissions, “in part because of market forces and announced plans from the industry,” an EPA official told reporters. The official added those plans were likely made in light of the international standards.
Wheeler said he didn’t hear from anyone asking the EPA to set stricter standards than the global requirements.
He said he heard “loud and clear” from industry to implement the global standards. “Hopefully, maybe for this one regulation, everybody will tell us that we got it right,” Wheeler added.
Nonetheless, environmentalists say the EPA’s proposal just scratches the surface of what policymakers should be doing to target aircraft emissions.
“It is looking increasingly likely that the industry is going to come back to the U.S. Congress for more financial support,” Petsonk said. “They should not be able to point to this standard and say, ‘See, we did our bit for the climate,’ because this standard is not nearly sufficient to deal with the climate challenge.”
