WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, The U.S. Transportation Department announced it may revise auto fuel efficiency requirements starting with the 2021 model year and could adopt lower standards through 2025. Among other options, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) noted it will consider including continuing the 2021 requirements through 2025, rather than requiring yearly increases previously set under the Obama Administration.
After President Obama proposed stronger fuel efficiency standards in 2009, automakers, labor groups, and environmental advocates stood with the President and agreed that the standards were important, realistic, and achievable. The federal regulations were agreed to by the Obama administration, labor groups, automakers, and environmental advocates and were finalized in 2012. A mid-term review of the regulations was set for 2016-2018. The Obama EPA finalized its portion of the mid-term review (after many months of technical evaluation and hundreds of thousands of public comments) in early January 2017, indicating that the regulations were working and should be left in place.
Since these rules went into place, efficient vehicles sales have increased, slashing pollution and oil consumption.
In February, the Auto Alliance sent a letter to the Trump administration asking to reopen the finalized standards for public comment and roll them back. In April, the Auto Alliance met with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to discuss rolling back the standards.
In response, Sierra Club Associate Director for Federal Advocacy Andrew Linhardt released the following statement:
"In order to keep our air clean and our climate safe, we need to put clean car standards in the fast lane. Even hinting at freezing these popular standards is a bad idea, so of course Trump is proposing to pump the breaks at the expense of the American people just to pad the pockets of big oil and auto executives. We've seen time and time again that automakers are trying to cheat the system - we must be more vigilant, not less.”
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About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.