18 states file suit to enforce federal emission rules
Eighteen states on Tuesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration over its push to “reconsider” greenhouse-gasemission rules for the nation’s auto fleet, launching a legal battle over one of former President Barack Obama’s most significant efforts to address climate change.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt in April said he would revisit the Obamaera rules, which aim to raise efficiency requirements to about 50 miles per gallon by 2025.
Pruitt’s agency said that the standards are “based on outdated information” and that new data suggest “the current standards may be too stringent.”
But in the lawsuit, the states contend the EPA acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” in changing course on the greenhouse-gas regulations.
“This phalanx of states will defend the nation’s clean car standards to boost gas mileage and curb toxic air pollution,” California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement announcing the suit, which was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The lawsuit comes amid a larger struggle over climate policy regarding U.S. cars and light trucks. The Trump administration has drafted a proposal that would freeze the federal standards at 2021 levels, leaving them well below levels targeted under Obama.
Twelve other states participating in the lawsuit, including New York, have followed California in setting more stringent emission standards. The total market involved is 36 percent of sales in the United States, according to Margo Oge, a former EPA official who helped the agency set auto regulations during the Obama years.
The current standards were created under a 2011 agreement reached among the Obama administration, California officials and automakers. If enacted, they would avert 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles sold between 2012 and 2025, according to the EPA.