A Hot, Smoggy Pickup-Truck Capital Opens Trump Tailpipe Debate
- NHTSA, EPA begin hearing Monday on easing pollution limits
- Chants of ‘EPA go away’ as event gets underway in Fresno
Cars travel over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
To test how Americans feel about its plan for rolling back car and truck pollution standards, the Trump administration kicked off an initial public hearing on Monday in Fresno, California, a place where it might reasonably expect a friendly response.
Fresno lies in the Central Valley, California’s farm belt, where people drive pickups more out of necessity than fashion and where, according to the California New Car Dealers Association, the share of zero-emission and hybrid new-vehicle sales account for less than half what they do in San Francisco. Fresno is also represented in Washington by Congressman Devin Nunes, a Donald Trump loyalist who once described climate change as nonsense.