Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Vehicle fuel-efficiency freeze proposed
“Pruitt himself has never met with anyone from CARB.” — Stanley Young, spokesman for California Air Resources Board
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has drafted a proposal that would freeze fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles starting in 2021 and challenge California’s ability to set efficiency rules of its own, changes that would hobble one of the Obama administration’s most significant initiatives to curb climate change.
The draft document, while not final, suggests the Trump administration is poised to make significant changes to planned auto standards over the next decade. A federal official, who has reviewed the document, described it in detail to The Washington Post.
Drafted in large part by the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, the plan outlines a preferred alternative where the federal government would freeze fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks at levels now set for Model Year 2021, keeping them there through 2026.
The draft offers seven other options that would also weaken the standards, though not to the same extent as the preferred alternative.
Under an agreement reached between the Obama administration, California officials and automakers several years ago, manufacturers’ fleets of cars and light trucks in the U.S. are slated under current rules to average more than 50 mpg by 2025 — well above the levels at which the Trump administration is proposing to freeze the standards.
The Obama administration granted California a waiver under the Clean Air Act to set its own tailpipe emissions limits, and the state’s higher standards have led automakers to build more fuelefficient automobiles to maintain access to California’s massive market. But the Trump administration document asserts that, despite the Clean Air Act waiver, a separate federal law pre-empts California from drafting its own emissions standards.
Democrats immediately pushed back on the Trump administration proposal.
“Rather than pursuing a reasonable compromise, the Trump Administration is crafting a proposal that is dramatically weaker than any automobile manufacturer has requested and that also deliberately seeks to embark on a legal collision course with the State of California — a scenario that automakers, lawmakers and the State of California have all repeatedly urged the administration to avoid,” Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said of the new document in a statement.
Last month, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt announced he would revoke the Obama-era standards, but he did not specify what would take their place. Pruitt concluded they were “not appropriate” in light of new information, including automakers’ input that consumer demand for sport-utility vehicles and pickup trucks far outweighed interest in electric and other low-emissions vehicles.
Pruitt has publicly hinted at dissatisfaction with California’s more stringent auto standards, though in other instances he has argued that states should have more discretion in crafting environmental rules.
“Federalism doesn’t mean that one state can dictate to the rest of the country,” Pruitt told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in January.
When asked again last week if the EPA intends to start proceedings to revoke California’s waiver, Pruitt told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on the environment: “Not at present. In fact, we’ve worked very closely with California officials on that issue.”
Even though the proposal has yet