EPA rolls out new car rule aimed at cutting emissions

The Biden administration on Wednesday issued one of the most significant climate regulations in U.S. history, a rule designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the country are all-electric or hybrids by 2032.

Nearly three years in the making, the new tailpipe pollution limits from the Environmental Protection Agency would transform the U.S. automobile market. A record 1.2 million electric vehicles rolled off dealers’ lots last year, but they made up just 7.6% of total U.S. car sales, far from the 56% target under the new regulation. An additional 16% of new cars sold would be hybrids.

Cars and other forms of transportation are, together, the largest single source of carbon emissions generated by the United States, pollution that is driving climate change and that helped to make 2023 the hottest year in recorded history.

Electric vehicles are central to President Joe Biden’s strategy to confront global warming, which calls for cutting the nation’s emissions in half by the end of this decade.

“Three years ago, I set an ambitious target: that half of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 would be zero-emission,” said Biden in a statement. “Together, we’ve made historic progress. Hundreds of new expanded factories across the country. Hundreds of billions in private investment and thousands of good-paying union jobs. And we’ll meet my goal for 2030 and race forward in the years ahead.”

The rule increasingly limits the amount of pollution allowed from tailpipes over time so that, by 2032, more than half the new cars sold in the United States would most likely be zero-emissions vehicles in order for automakers to meet the standards.

That would avoid more than 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the next 30 years, according to the EPA. That’s the equivalent of removing a year’s worth of all the greenhouse gases generated by the United States. The regulation would provide nearly $100 billion in annual net benefits to society, according to the agency, including $13 billion of annual public health benefits thanks to improved air quality.

The standards also would save the average American driver about $6,000 in reduced fuel and maintenance over the life of a vehicle, the EPA estimated.

The transition to electric vehicles would require enormous changes in manufacturing, infrastructure, technology, labor, global trade and consumer habits.

The EPA regulation is not a ban, as it does not mandate the sales of electric vehicles, and gas-powered cars and trucks could still be sold. Rather, it requires automakers to meet tough new average emissions limits across their entire product line. It’s up to the manufacturers to decide how to comply.

John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents 42 car companies that produce nearly all the new vehicles sold in the United States, said in a statement that the new rule was “a stretch goal” but one that offered some flexibility.