Agency doubted car fuel-economy freeze would save lives as claimed

THE Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department sparred for months over the Trump administration’s plan to ease vehicle efficiency and emissions standards, debating whether it would actually save lives and money.

The joint proposal released by the two agencies earlier this month aims to suspend scheduled increases in vehicle fuel economy requirements after 2020 so they remain at a fleet average of 37 miles per gallon.

Under Obama- era rules the Trump administration wants to replace, those requirements are set to steadily increase, ultimately reaching 47 mpg by 2025.

The proposal estimates that roughly 1,000 traffic fatalities would be averted each year compared to the current standards — a key justification offered for the changes.

The government’s analysis projects that easier standards will lower the cost of cars, so more people will buy new, safer models.

EPA officials repeatedly questioned assumptions in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s original draft of the rule and disputed the analyses conducted to support it.

The EPA in mid- June asserted that freezing fuel economy requirements would lead to an increase in traffic fatalities and boost the overall fatality rate, citing its own analysis, conducted after the agency said it corrected “erroneous and otherwise problematic elements” in a Transportation Department model.

In July, NHTSA fired back, countering that EPA’s corrections assumed the size of US vehicle fleet and the number of miles driven would remain constant, rather than changing because of the fuel economy standards -- an outcome the agency said “would be much more reasonable to expect.”

Ultimately, in the released proposal, the Trump administration asserted its plan would reduce traffic fatalities by roughly 1,000 lives per year — a key justification offered for the proposed changes.

The proposal projects that easier standards will lower the cost of new cars, so more people will buy new, safer models.

The behind-the- scenes bickering is revealed in hundreds of pages of correspondence, analysis and drafts from an interagency review of the plan led by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, filed in a government docket on Tuesday.

The inter-agency disputes could further complicate Trump administration efforts to broker a compromise final rule that appeases carmakers eager to avoid a protracted legal battle on the issue and California regulators reluctant to relax the existing requirements.

If administration officials are not unified, adversaries across the negotiating table could seek to exploit those disagreements.

Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, said the documents are evidence the administration’s plan “is based on bogus science and fundamentally flawed assumptions.”

“The administration’s own EPA itemized its technical concerns about the plan’s baseless claims, but DOT and the White House seems to have willfully ignored much of it and chose instead to release a deeply flawed proposed rule that almost certainly will be struck down in court,” Carper said in an emailed statement.

The released documents show that the EPA and NHTSA also disagreed about how aggressive to make the measure.

The EPA also fought — unsuccessfully — to soften the government’s proposal to ease vehicle emission standards, the new documents show. — Bloomberg