Are California’s clean driving rules next on Trump’s hit list?
It appears that, with the loss of the steadying influence of nowdeparted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the United States is declaring war on one of its peskiest foes, a recalcitrant nation-state that’s been a thorn in President Donald Trump’s side ever since he took office 14 months ago.
It’s a war welcomed by his base, is populated, in large part, by the worst kind of communists and, when push comes to shove, represents everything the alt-right that controls the modern Republican party hates.
Of course, I’m talking about … California.
I know it’s just one state among 50, but it bears reminding that the land of Hollywood does have a population greater than Canada’s and, more importantly, were it a sovereign nation, California would have a gross domestic product (GDP) that would rank it as the sixth-richest country in the world.
Throw in the fact that Sacramento is America’s spiritual home of lefty politics, as well as perhaps the strongest green lobby in the free world, and it’s little wonder the Trump administration looks upon the Golden State as its formidable foe.
Which may be why, in the past couple of weeks, we have seen the president visit the Golden State to sample prototypes of “The Wall,” and beleaguered Attorney General Jeff Sessions visit Sacramento to lambaste Gov. Jerry Brown over immigrant “sanctuary” cities.
Feeling left out from this Trumpian offensive is Scott Pruitt. You remember him, don’t you? He’s the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and charged with protecting America’s environment, and he just happens to think that climate change is a hoax.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Pruitt read California the riot act over the state’s right to enact its own fuel economy/emissions standards. He reportedly warned that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) would not dictate the future of automobile fuel economy regulations.
California won’t “dictate to the rest of the country what these levels are going to be,” said Pruitt.
The problem for Pruitt is that it kinda, sorta already does.
Although regulation of greenhouse gas emissions is a federal mandate, California is allowed to regulate tailpipe emissions within its own borders, thanks to a waiver from the EPA.
The problem facing Pruitt is that, not only has California been the spiritual home of the electric car movement for the past 40 years, a number of others states — as well as the District of Columbia, Trump’s new home — have adopted CARB’s rules.
Pruitt is making a stink about this because there is an important deadline looming. By April 1, the Trump administration must decide whether the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards set for 2022-25 should proceed unchanged or be revised.
And, by revised, Pruitt means reducing the ambitious Obamaera goals to permit more consumption and, as a consequence, emit more greenhouse gases.
According to Bloomberg, California has signalled a willingness to discuss altering the state’s emission rules in the near future if the Trump administration agrees to develop fuel efficiency targets all the way out to 2030.
Pruitt’s retort — and he has a valid point, often lost on CARB’s administrators — is that “the whole purpose of CAFE standards is to make more efficient cars that people are actually buying. If … Detroit just makes cars that people don’t want to purchase, then people are staying in older cars, and the emission levels are worse, which defeats the overall purpose of what we’re trying to achieve.”
Naturally, automakers are rejoicing at the Trump administration’s position, long holding that Obama’s ambitious goal of 54.5 miles per U.S. gallon — equivalent to about 40 mpg in real-world driving — by 2025 was too onerous, citing consumers’ ever-increasing desire for large pickups and SUVs as justification for their reticence.
Blaming the popularity of gasguzzling trucks, however, is a bit of a red herring. Current rules are actually tailored to accommodate shifting consumer desires as large pickups, small econoboxes and everything in between are allowed to meet different standards. In other words, automakers are simply using consumers’ seeming antipathy to emissions reductions as an excuse to save a few R& D dollars.
The problem, whether Trump and Pruitt like it or not, is that the world is heading toward a reduced tailpipe emissions reality. While revising the corporate average fuel economy standards would save U.S. automakers money in the short run, in the long haul, it will make them less competitive on the world stage.