Two agencies locked horns on emissions rules, files show

The Trump administration’s environmental protection and transportation safety agencies sparred for months over plans to ease vehicle efficiency and emissions standards, debating whether it would actually save lives and money.

The joint proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, unveiled earlier this month, calls for rolling back increases in fuel economy requirements put in place while President Barack Obama was in office.

In announcing the proposal it calls the “Safer and Affordable Fuel Efficient Vehicles Rule,” the Trump administration estimated that the changes would save roughly 1,000 lives a year because less stringent regulations would keep the cost of cars lower and more people could buy new, safer models.

Documents released Tuesday showed EPA officials repeatedly questioned assumptions in the traffic safety administration’s draft of the plan submitted for White House review in late May and disputed the supporting analyses as the two agencies negotiated a final rule.

In a June email, senior EPA staff members told the Office of Management and Budget — the White House office charged with evaluating regulatory changes — that the mileage freeze would slightly increase highway deaths, by 17 annually.

The “proposed standards are detrimental to safety, rather than beneficial,” William Charmley, director of the assessments and standards division of the EPA’s office of transportation and air quality, said in a June 18 interagency email, released Tuesday.

In the comments, the EPA said the safety agency’s model overestimated the number of older, less-safe cars that would remain on the road if drivers didn’t buy new cars due to higher prices caused by the Obama-era standards, which had the effect of inflating projected traffic deaths.

In July, the safety agency fired back, countering that EPA’s corrections assumed the size of the U.S. 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.”

The ultimate proposal released by the agencies this month calls for suspending Obama-era planned increases in auto fuel economy requirements after 2020 so they remain at a fleet average of 37 miles per gallon. The levels are currently scheduled to increase steadily to reach 47 mpg by 2025.

Representatives from traffic safety administration and the Transportation Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Information for this article was contributed by Ellen Knickmeyer of The Associated Press.