Public health advocates say Trump rollbacks would increase Philly air pollution
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President Donald Trump announced this week plans to rollback Biden-era fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, citing affordability.
The Biden administration set fuel efficiency standards for automakers to manufacture vehicles that would run an average 50.4 miles per gallon for the 2031 model year as a way to reduce harmful air pollutants and climate warming greenhouse gas emissions. The newly proposed standards weaken those rules to 34.5 mpg, making it much easier to reach with gas-powered vehicles.
“This is the final nail in the coffin of the Trump administration’s plans to completely obliterate the federal climate program writ large,” said Jeff Alson, a retired engineer who worked for 40 years at the Environmental Protection Agency, where he helped to establish clean car standards under the Obama administration.
In announcing the new rule, Trump said the previous standards are “ridiculously burdensome,” and would have raised the cost of new vehicles by $1,000, or about 2% of the current average cost of a new vehicle, which is $50,000, according to Kelley Blue Book. The move follows reversals of other Biden-era policies that encouraged the manufacture of electric vehicles, and more cleaner cars and trucks.
“Today we’re taking one more step to kill the green new scam,” Trump said while announcing the rules at the White House on Wednesday. “The greatest scam in American history, the green new scam, it’s a quest to end the gasoline-powered car, this is what they wanted to do even though we have more gasoline than any other country by far and people want the gasoline car.”
What are CAFE standards?
Congress enacted the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standards, or CAFE, in 1975, directing the Department of Transportation to establish the rules in response to high gasoline prices and dependence on foreign oil. Opponents say the rules are effectively an “EV mandate” because the country is no longer dependent on oil imports and the Biden administration instead raised the bar so high it would mean more electric vehicle production at the expense of gas-powered cars and trucks.
“Today’s a victory of common sense and affordability,” said Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley who joined Trump in the Oval Office, along with Stellantis NV CEO Antonio Filosa and General Motors plant manager John Urbanic.
Earlier this year, Congress defanged the CAFE standards by eliminating the penalties as part of the budget bill.