GM sides With Trump in emissions battle, splitting the auto industry
Decision pits some carmakers against Honda and Ford
General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota and other auto giants said they were intervening on the side of the Trump administration Monday in an escalating battle with California over fuel economy standards for automobiles.
Their decision pits them squarely against some of their peers, including Honda and Ford, who this year reached a deal to follow California’s stricter rules.
The automakers that are siding with the Trump administration, led by industry group Global Automakers, say that the federal government, not California, has the ultimate authority to set fuel economy standards for passenger cars and trucks.
It represents the latest dramatic twist in one of the Trump administration’s most consequential rollbacks of regulations designed to fight climate change.
The administration has proposed a major weakening of federal auto emissions standards set during the Obama administration, prompting California to declare that it will go its own course and continue to enforce the earlier, stricter standards. Under the Clean Air Act, California has the authority to write its own clean air rules — and California has now taken the Trump administration to court to defend its authority to set its own emissions rules.
Several other states have pledged to follow California’s lead, meaning that the action has the potential to split the U.S. auto market into two markets, each selling vehicles with different sets of emissions standards.
In July, Honda, Ford, Volkswagen and BMW sided with California in the battle, striking a deal with the state to follow more stringent standards close to the original Obama-era rules. That surprise agreement, which prompted an angry response from President Donald Trump, would allow those automakers to meet both federal and state requirements with a single national fleet, avoiding a patchwork of regulations.
The automakers that intervened in the legal battle Monday are instead siding with the Trump administration, though John Bozzella, chief executive of the Association of Global Automakers, made clear the group still hoped for a middle ground.
“We can still reach an agreement that is supported by all the parties,” Bozzella said. Still, he said that industry had “historically taken the position that fuel economy is the sole purview of the federal government — though it doesn’t have to come to that.”