GM pushes for national mpg rules
Company says U.S. should set a 0-emissions percentage
DETROIT — General Motors says it will ask the federal government for one national gas mileage standard, including a requirement that a percentage of auto companies’ sales be zero-emissions vehicles.
Mark Reuss, GM’s executive vice president of product development, said the company will propose that a certain percentage of nationwide sales be made up of vehicles that run on electricity or hydrogen fuel cells.
“A national zero emissions program will drive the scale and infrastructure investments needed to allow the U.S. to lead the way to a zero emissions future,” Reuss said.
GM, the nation’s largest automaker, will spell out the request Friday in written comments on a Trump administration proposal to roll back Obama-era fuel economy and emissions standards, freezing them at 2020 levels.
Under a regulation finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency at the end of the Obama administration, the fleet of new automobiles would have to get 36 miles per gallon by 2025, 10 miles per gallon higher than the current requirement.
But the Trump administration’s preferred plan is to freeze the standards starting in 2021.
GM on Thursday said it doesn’t support the freeze, but wants flexibility to deal with consumers’ shift from cars to less-efficient SUVs and trucks.
Its proposed requirement would be based on current standards now required in California and nine other states. Under those rules, GM must sell a minimum of around 2,200 fully electric vehicles in California this year, or about 1.1 percent of the roughly 200,000 cars, trucks and SUVs that it normally sells in the state each year.
GM’s proposal would set lower zero-emissions vehicle requirements than California, but spread them to the entire nation. The requirements would gradually increase until 2025.
Federal and California gas mileage standards have been the same since 2010. But if President Donald Trump’s administration ends up relaxing the requirements, it could create two standards, one for California and states that follow it, and another for the rest of the nation.
Trump could challenge California’s power to set its own standards, granted under the Clean Air Act, and that could set up a lengthy legal battle since California has pledged to defend its quest to reduce pollution.