The Trump administration finalized its rollback this week of the Obama-era clean car standards, which were widely regarded as some of the most important environmental regulations combatting carbon emissions and air pollution.

The rollback has been three years in the making, but environmental advocates accuse the administration of trying to slip it through while the country is focused on the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“To ignore the health implications of dirtier air in the middle of a pandemic that affects peoples’ breathing is almost unbelievable,” says Andrew Linhardt, the Sierra Club’s deputy advocacy director for the Clean Transportation for All campaign. 

The new rule ratchets back the original target of 5 percent annual efficiency improvements to a measly 1.5 percent, which is less than automakers would have accomplished on their own. It also reduces the average target fuel economy of model year 2026 cars from 54 mpg to 40.5 mpg.

The administration claims the rollback will save consumers money. While it will reduce the up-front cost of buying a new vehicle, the savings will be offset by increased spending at the pump. The administration estimates Americans will burn an additional 2 billion barrels of oil as a result. 

Critics say that it’s not a coincidence. In 2018, a New York Times investigation found that Marathon Petroleum, the US’s largest refiner, had engaged in a Koch-funded campaign against the standards.  

Dave Cooke, senior vehicles analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, points out that the administration’s own analysis shows the rollback could result in as many as 1,444 premature deaths from air pollution. The Environmental Defense Fund says that there could be as many as 18,500 fatalities. Meanwhile, the climate implications of pumping all that extra carbon into the atmosphere, according to EDF, is the equivalent of 68 coal plants operating over five years. 

The clean car standards have been on Trump’s agenda since 2017. Last fall, he finalized a rule removing California’s authority to set its own emissions standards, which were stricter than the national standards. That move is still being challenged in court.  

The fuel efficiency standards were his latest target. In February, The New York Times reported that as recently as January, the documents outlining the rollback looked like “Swiss cheese,” with more than 100 sections marked “text forthcoming” and other sections riddled with errors, including the misspelling of Massachusetts.  

Linhardt and Cooke expect the lawsuits to follow shortly.