Trump team wants to roll back Obama-era mileage standards

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Citing safety, the Trump administration on Thursday proposed rolling back car-mileage standards, backing away from years of government efforts to cut Americans’ trips to the gas station and reduce unhealthy, climatechanging tailpipe emissions.

If the proposed rule becomes final, it could roil the auto industry as it prepares for new model years and weaken one of the federal government’s chief weapons against climate change — regulating emissions from cars and other vehicles. The result, opponents say, will be dirtier air and more pollution-related illness and death.

The proposal itself estimates it could cost tens of thousands of jobs — auto workers who deal with making vehicles more fuel efficient.

The administration also said it wants to revoke an authority granted to California under the half-century-old Clean Air Act to set its own, tougher mileage standards. California and 16 other states already have filed suit to block any change in the fuel efficiency rules.

“The EPA has handed decision making over to the fossil fuel lobbyists ... the flat-Earthers, the climate change deniers,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.

The proposal would freeze U.S. mileage standards at levels mandated by the Obama administration for 2020, when the new vehicle fleet will be required to hit an average of 30 miles per gallon in real-world driving.

Heidi King, deputy administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said the freeze would reduce highway deaths by 1,000 per year “by reducing these barriers that prevent consumers from getting into the newer, safer, cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars.”

But private transportation experts say there are so many factors involved that the 1,000-lives figure is questionable. The affordability argument also ignores thousands of dollars of saving in fuel costs for each driver over the life of a car, opponents of the rollbacks said.

The proposed change, halting further improvement requirements, stakes its case on