EPA chief touts curb on fuel economy

WASHINGTON — The acting administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defends a White House decision to curb stringent new standards on fuel economy mandated by the Obama White House, saying the decision will allow more people to buy fuelefficient new cars, benefiting both the economy and the environment.

The new preferred proposal — which acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler stressed is just a proposal, still subject to comment and revision – would cap the goal of auto efficiency at 37 miles per gallon through 2026. Obama’s guidelines, meanwhile, had called for auto manufacturers to reach a fleet average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2026. The plan to halt the goal at 37 miles per gallon was presented as the preferred option of a list of alternatives, including one alternative that would keep the current Obama-era plan in place.

The proposal, expected to be challenged in the courts, reverses Obama’s plan to keep tightening standards through 2026 in order to improve air quality. It also would bar states such as California from setting their own tougher fuel-efficiency standards, striving instead for what Wheeler called a “50-state solution.”

Wheeler, a Butler County, Ohio native, disputed the notion that the administration’s preferred alternative — curbing the new standards to 2020 levels — would be a “rollback,” saying fuelefficiency standards would continue to tighten over current levels.

He also said that because auto manufacturers would not have to meet more-stringent requirements set by the Obama administration, cars Wheeler