GM, Toyota, Chrysler side with Trump on fuel standards
A coalition of international automakers, including General Motors, Toyota and Fiat Chrysler, on Monday announced an effort to intervene on behalf of the Trump administration in its ongoing fight with California over how fuel-efficient the nation’s auto fleet must be in coming years.
The move could pit the powerful auto manufacturers against other industry giants such as Ford, Honda and Volkswagen, which this summer struck a deal with California regulators to produce more fuel-efficient cars and trucks through 2025. It underscores carmakers’ desire to achieve some sort of regulatory certainty at a time when the Trump administration and the nation’s most populous state remain at a standoff.
The administration is challenging California’s long-held authority to set tailpipe emissions under the Clean Air Act, effectively giving it substantial power over fuel mileage.
Colorado, which has chosen to mirror California’s low-emission vehicle standards, has joined a lawsuit supporting the state over the Trump administration.
John Bozzella, president of the Association of Global Automakers and a spokesman for the coalition, said Monday that the companies intervening are not necessarily endorsing a White House proposal that would essentially freeze fuel standards enacted during the Obama administration. But he said the firms do support the long-standing principle that the federal government has the “sole purview” for setting national standards.
Ultimately, he said, what the group wants is for California and the federal government to forge a compromise on one national set of fuel-economy standards.
He said the decision to intervene in the contentious legal fight “is about how the standard should be applied, not what the standard should be. By participating we ensure the concerns of consumers, autoworkers, retailers, and manufacturers are heard in this dispute.”
The group of international auto manufacturers includes Nissan, Subaru and Hyundai. But one member, Honda, issued a statement dissenting from the decision.
The latest development comes three months after four major automakers — Ford, Honda, Volkswagen and BMW of North America — struck a deal with California to produce increasingly fuel-efficient fleets, undercutting one of the Trump administration’s most aggressive climate policy rollbacks. The four automakers represent roughly 30 percent of the U.S. auto market.