Democrats accused Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt Monday of misleading them about his plans to weaken President Barack Obama-era fuel-efficiency rules and potentially revoke a waiver for California allowing the state to make its own tougher standards.
The Trump administration is considering a proposal to freeze fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions targets at 2020 levels through 2025, according to multiple reports.
The proposal is the “preferred option” of one of several alternatives being considered by the EPA and Transportation Department’s National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, which are jointly drafting the rules.
All of the options would weaken the standards. The EPA is also prepared to challenge California over a waiver it has that allows it to set its own, stricter fuel-efficiency standards, the New York Times and Washington Post reported.
“If these reports are correct, your response to direct questioning on this issue during your appearance last week before the House Energy and Commerce Committee was potentially false and misleading,” Reps. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., wrote in a letter to Pruitt Monday.
Pruitt testified to the Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday that he has not decided whether to allow California to keep its waiver.
“We are working very closely with California on the issue,” Pruitt said. “It’s important we work together to achieve a national standard.”
He was responding to a question from Matsui, who warned Pruitt to allow California to maintain its own rules, which follow the Obama administration’s stricter targets.
“When it comes to California and vehicle standards, the concept of cooperative federalism all of a sudden doesn’t apply?” Matsui said Thursday, making light of Pruitt’s common refrain that he wants to give states more authority on environmental issues.
Matsui and Tonko, in their letter to Pruitt, asked him to provide documents related to the EPA’s development of its new standards and a list of all meetings and teleconferences held with stakeholders or businesses associated with the proposal.
Pruitt announced this month that he is scrapping Obama’s new fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gas rules for cars and light trucks, saying the rules that set a 54-mile per gallon standard by 2025, up from the current average of 38.3 mpg, were “not appropriate” and should be revised.
Under the Trump administration’s preferred outcome in its draft plan, fuel economy standards would be frozen after 2020, keeping the fuel economy target near 40 miles a gallon through 2025.
Stanley Young, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, told the Washington Examiner he had not seen the Trump administration’s proposal but would oppose it.
California’s emissions regulations are a key component in its plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
Federal law allows California, because of severe air pollution problems caused by smog, to set its own fuel-efficiency regulations that can be tougher than the national standards. Other states can follow California’s standards instead of the national rules. Those states account for about one-third of the U.S. auto market.
California could move to formally separate its rules from the national program if the EPA weakens the standards.
That means California and the other states would require automakers operating in those states to follow the more stringent regulations, even if the EPA weakens the national standard, creating a patchwork of regulations.
