Why Trump and California Faced Off Over Auto Rules
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has completed a three-year quest to dismantle his predecessor’s most concrete environmental achievement: historic fuel-efficiency regulations for cars and light trucks
Vehicles move along the Interstate 405 freeway during rush hour in this aerial photograph taken over the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Friday, July 10, 2015.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has completed a three-year quest to dismantle his predecessor’s most concrete environmental achievement: historic fuel-efficiency regulations for cars and light trucks. In 2011, under President Barack Obama, the auto industry agreed to meet stricter targets for fuel economy and carbon dioxide emissions from 2017 to 2025. The Trump administration has now replaced those standards with far weaker requirements through 2026, months after it stripped California of its authority to set tailpipe CO2 limits of its own. Yet while the regulatory attack has been completed, the legal battles will continue for some time, with California leading the fight.
The targets agreed to in 2011 call for the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) of cars and trucks to rise from 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016 to a projected 51.4 by 2025 (down from an original projection of 54.5 mpg). Tailpipe CO2 emissions are to fall 31% to 173 grams per mile, a level similar to targets set in the European Union, China and Japan. Automakers are assigned corporate averages to meet, under a complex system that accounts for production volumes and the sizes of cars and trucks. If automakers fall short of corporate mpg targets, they face fines. If they miss CO2 standards, they could be barred from selling vehicles entirely.