While the squatter in the White House has been cozying up to Tsar Vlad, tweeting ALL-CAPS shrieks at the president of Iran, calling the Robert Mueller investigation a hoax, whining about tape recordings of potentially illegal activities, and watching as staff members stampede for the exits, the Trump regime’s assault on the environment continues without abatement.
The latest—and potentially one of the most damaging assaults—has been expected for the past year-and-a-half and could be officially announced as early as this week. In this attack the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will jointly propose trashing stricter fuel-efficiency standards negotiated early in the Obama administration, revoking California’s Clean Air Act authority to regulate automobile greenhouse gas emissions separately from the federal standards, and stopping the state from requiring that a certain level of electric cars be sold each year.
The change the White House is on the verge of announcing would cap fuel-efficiency requirements at or near the 2020 level. Federal law now sets that at 35-mile-per-gallon fleet average with an increase to 54.5 mpg by 2025. An early version of the government’s proposal would set the new standard at 37 mpg.
Under the federal Clean Air Act, California has long had the authority to set more stringent air pollution standards than the federal government's. At first, that authority was used strictly to regulate smog-generated pollutants. These days, those standards are seen as a bulwark in the state’s efforts to do its part in addressing climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
A key reason for fighting against the federal government’s proposed changes is pressure to meet California’s emissions-control goal:
“California has done the math, and it’s concluded that the only way to meet both its greenhouse gas goals and its ozone targets is to move away from fossil fuel-based transportation,” said Paul Cort, an attorney for Earthjustice, a San Francisco-based environmental group. “The law is very clear about California’s authority to set these standards, and for the EPA to try to narrow it now means they have an uphill battle.”
If the Obama administration’s mandate to double fuel efficiency nationwide to 54.5 mpg held, it would mean by 2030 the removal of 580 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from emissions, the equivalent of 85 million cars or 140 coal power plants. A big portion of that would come from California.
With more than 2 million new cars and light trucks sold last year, California is the nation’s leading passenger vehicle market, equal to Canada’s. A dozen other states follow California’s vehicle rules and, together, they add up to one-third of the U.S. car and light-truck market.
The first fuel-efficiency standards—Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations—were set in 1975 as a consequence of the Arab oil embargo. In the first upgrade in two decades, the Obama administration negotiated a tightening of the standards with the auto companies, mandating that passenger cars and light trucks average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. (The actual level is lower because of loopholes and credits.)
CAFE standards had been administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration without direct involvement by the Environmental Protection Agency. But since 2012 when the EPA was confirmed in its authority to regulate CO2 emissions, the EPA and NHTSA must synchronize their regulatory actions. Under the Obama changes, CAFE rules require new vehicles to improve from about 28 mpg in 2000 to about 46 mpg in 2021. During the Obama administration, the EPA had recommended a 54.5 mpg standard by 2025. NHTSA has not yet made its proposal because it isn’t allowed to recommend beyond five years into the future.
In any of the coming lawsuits, NHTSA can be counted on to claim that California (and other states) are prohibited by federal law from setting separate standards even though courts have ruled otherwise more than once. One of those victories for California came in response to a Bush administration effort in 2002 to stop the state from regulating tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases.
David R. Baker writes regarding the Obama standards:
"These were issues that were resolved 9 years ago, and it's almost like picking at a scab that healed long ago and reopening it, only to cause the automakers a lot of bleeding," said Simon Mui, a senior scientist and clean vehicles specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
As you might imagine, Thomas J. Pyle, the president of the Institute for Energy Research—a Charles Koch and ExxonMobil and American Petroleum Institute-funded climate science-denying operation with a propaganda arm named the American Energy Alliance—expresses a different point of view. He thinks Trump is doing the right thing:
“The Obama administration promised a review of their unrealistic mandate, but decided to lock it down after they didn’t like the outcome of the last election,” Pyle said. “While we would prefer a full repeal of the [current standards], the Trump proposal is a reasonable first step.”
Manufacturers are torn. While they have urged the Trump regime to roll back efficiency standards they claim are too stringent, they are eager to avoid having their plans for future models tangled in uncertainty and legal fights between California, other states, and the federal government. Indeed, they have urged the White House to adjust the Obama standards downward but still mandate slightly higher fuel-efficiency standards each year.
Litigation opposing the rollback is already underway. Seventeen states, including California and the District of Columbia, filed a suit on May 2 seeking to block the rollback. “This proposal is an extraordinary repudiation of sensible climate policies, an assault on California’s environmental leadership, and another gift to the fossil fuel industry,” said Ann Carlson, a University of California Los Angeles law professor. “There’s no question California, environmental groups, and clean tech manufacturers will fight back in the courts.”