EPA may scrap fuel targets, setting up California clash
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is poised to abandon America’s pioneering fuel economy targets for cars and SUVs, a move that would undermine one of the world’s most aggressive programs to confront climate change and invite another major confrontation with California.
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce in the coming days that it will scrap mileage targets the Obama administration drafted in tandem with California that aim to boost average fuel economy for passenger cars and SUVs to 55 miles per gallon by 2025, according to people familiar with the plans.
The agency plans to replace those targets with a weaker standard that will be unveiled soon, according to the people, who did not want to be identified discussing the plan before it was announced.
EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said a draft determination was undergoing interagency review and a final decision would be made by Sunday.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt has previously suggested that he thinks the targets are too onerous for manufacturers and inhibit them from selling the vehicles most popular with Americans. A climate skeptic, Pruitt has questioned mainstream science on the warming caused by greenhouse gases such as auto emissions.
Whether Pruitt can weaken the rules for the entire country is an open question. California, with its history of smog problems and heightened vulnerability to climate change, has unique authority under the Clean Air Act to impose its own standard. The act also permits other states to adopt the California rules, and a dozen have.
Over the past decade, the federal government has worked with California to keep mileage targets uniform nationwide, folding the state’s aggressive smog and anti-pollution goals into the national program. A single standard is crucial to automakers who don’t want to contend with multiple production lines to comply with conflicting rules in states, particularly one as important to car sales as California.
After President Donald Trump was elected, automakers immediately began lobbying him to rewrite the rules — and to pressure California to dial back its efforts. Pruitt’s action would give the companies limited or no relief if it is not enforced nationwide since California’s rules apply to more than a third of cars sold across the country, and automakers are loath to create multiple production lines to comply with conflicting rules.