Automakers get more time under Biden administration’s new emission rules
The Biden administration on Wednesday finalized tough new greenhouse gas standards for cars sold in the U.S., but gave a break to automakers worried that they might be too strict to meet, enacting a slower ramp-up in the first few years before standards increase more steeply.
The decision, however, was a blow to Midwest farm and ethanol groups. They complained the federal government failed to consider the environmental benefits that the largely cornbased renewable fuel could provide as the nation seeks to slash carbon emissions.
“This decision will not only severely hamper the administration’s ability to reach its own climate goals, but it will also hurt family farms and rural communities that rely heavily on the sale of biofuels,” said Minnesota corn grower Harold Wolle, president of the National Corn Growers Association board.
Automakers praise changes
Nearly a year ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shocked the auto industry and heartened environmentalists by proposing tailpipe emissions standards so strict that, by model year 2032, automakers would virtually be required to ensure that two-thirds of all new cars and light-duty trucks sold were electric vehicles or potentially face stiff fines.
The final standards released Wednesday didn’t back off that ambitious 2032 target in terms of the fleetwide reduction in greenhouse gases, including carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and others that are considered dangerous to human health and contribute to climate change.
But they did change the amount by which those reductions occur beginning with model year 2027, making them somewhat less strict compared to the current standards in the first couple of years, before ramping them up more steeply later. The original proposal was always technology-neutral in theory, meaning automakers could sell any
cars and light-duty trucks they wanted as long as they hit the fleetwide reductions. That proposal had noted that the likely and least costly path toward hitting the standards meant an enormous growth in the sales of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), which accounted for only 9% of new car sales last year. The final rule, however, outlined several pathways that could work.
For instance, the EPA said, under one likely pathway, the percentage of light-duty trucks and cars powered by internal combustion engines could drop from 64% of new vehicle sales in model year 2027 and 58% in model year 2028, to 29% in model year 2032; while the percentage of battery-only electric vehicles could increase from 26% in 2027 and 31% in 2028, to 56% in 2028, with other EVs — pure hybrids and plug-in hybrids — making up the difference.
In the proposed rule last year, however, the pathway foresaw battery-only EVs needing to account for 36% of new cars in 2027 and 45% in 2028 — a much steeper sales curve.
That change didn’t sit well with some environmental groups. Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign, said the EPA “caved to pressure from Big Auto, Big Oil and car dealers,” allowing more damage to the planet and public health upfront.
But many other environmental groups cheered the plan as historically strict. Automakers and the United Auto Workers Union said it recognized the challenges facing the industry in the move to get the public to embrace EVs.
“Pace matters to automakers, it certainly matters to consumers,” said John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Auto Innovation, a trade group that represents most automakers doing business in the U.S., including Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.
He noted that while automakers are committed to an electric future, “choppy” sales, supply chain issues and a nationwide charging infrastructure that still must be built warranted the more gradual change in standards. The end product, he said, is “much improved over what was originally proposed.”
Ethanol proponents say requirements ignore EV-related environmental hazards
Farm and renewable fuel groups said the EPA ignored EVs’ “upstream” emissions tied to electricity generation and mining and processing of rare minerals needed to make batteries.
“While we share the Biden administration’s vision for reducing carbon emissions and increasing energy efficiency, today’s final rule certainly isn’t the best way to accomplish that goal,” Renewable Fuels Association CEO Geoff Cooper said in a statement.
“Today’s final rule effectively forces automakers to produce more battery electric vehicles, based on the false premise that they are ‘zero-emission vehicles,’” Cooper said.
“At the same time, the regulation would strongly discourage manufacturers from pursuing other technologies — like flex fuel vehicles and engines optimized to operate on high-octane, low-carbon ethanol
— that could achieve superior environmental performance at a lower cost to American consumers.”
The concerns weigh heavily in Iowa, the nation’s largest corn grower and ethanol producer. About half of the state’s annual corn crop is used to make the biofuel.
The Renewable Fuels Association said the industry is on its way to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Among the paths is carbon capture and sequestration, a controversial issue in Iowa, where two companies seek to build carbon capture pipelines. Advocates say the projects are vital to ethanol remaining viable, but opponents say the pipelines are unsafe, trample on landowner rights and damage farmland.
Biden’s EV emphasis is campaign issue
President Joe Biden, whose administration worked with environmentalists, the automakers and the UAW in reaching the final rule — and who has been chastised by Republicans and former President Donald Trump for implementing what they have called an EV “mandate” — issued a statement saying he’s following through on a promise to try to make half of all new cars and trucks sold by 2030 be zero-emission.
“Today, we’re setting new pollution standards for cars and trucks,” he said. “U.S. workers will lead the world on automaking, clean cars and trucks, each stamped ‘Made in America.’ You have my word.”
EPA Administrator Michael Regan also noted that, with transportation sources making up the largest percentage of greenhouse gas pollutants, the new standards will protect public health while creating new jobs for workers building vehicles that comply with them.
“The standards will slash over seven billion tons of climate pollution, improve air quality in overburdened communities and give drivers more clean vehicle choices while saving them money,” Regan said.
But the greenhouse gas requirements, which were rolled back by the Trump administration before being replaced when Biden took office in 2021, have become a sharp issue in this year’s presidential rematch between Biden and Trump. The former president is arguing that the vehicles are too expensive, though they are eligible for tax breaks and can save thousands in fuel costs, and that they don’t travel as far as internal combustion vehicles, which is not true in the case of many models.
Trump also has argued that autoworkers will lose their jobs because of the new standards as China dominates the EV market. Over the weekend, he said at a rally in Ohio that there will be a “bloodbath” in the auto industry with foreign-made cars flooding the U.S. unless he is elected. But U.S. automakers have been investing billions, much of it sparked by incentives proposed by Biden and passed by Congress, in new EV plants domestically.
Union says new rule ‘taking seriously’ labor issues surrounding EV production
The report also specifically mentioned that while union workers may be adversely affected by the transition to EVs — since they typically require fewer workers to assemble, with much of the labor associated with the manufacture of the batteries — the UAW in its successful strike of the Detroit Three automakers last year negotiated contracts making more workers involved in EV production eligible to be unionized.
In a statement Wednesday, the union said the final rule represented “significant progress” from the first proposal.
“By taking seriously the concerns of workers and communities, the EPA has come a long way to create a more feasible emissions rule that protects workers building ICE vehicles, while providing a path forward for automakers to implement the full range of automotive technologies to reduce emissions,” it said.
The EPA’s final rule also set tough new standards for medium-duty vehicles like vans. Both sets of standards still need to be coordinated with fuel economy standards — generally stated in terms of miles-pergallon of fuel and their equivalent for electric vehicles — set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is expected to happen in the next several months.
“U.S. workers will lead the world on automaking, clean cars and trucks, each stamped ‘Made in America.’”
President Joe Biden