President Donald Trump announced in Detroit Wednesday that standards requiring automakers to nearly double the average fuel economy of new cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 will be reviewed. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed the standards as a single program alongside the Department of Transportation’s fuel economy rules, popularly known as Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards. They were put in place by the Obama administration not only to eliminate atmosphere-warming carbon dioxide but also to save a projected 12 billion barrels of oil.
Last year, the Obama administration speedily conducted a midterm review of whether the stricter 2022-2025 targets would be achievable. The review, which was required to be complete by 2018, found that the industry could easily meet the stricter standards.
“Today I am announcing we are going to cancel that executive action,” said Trump. “We are going to restore the originally scheduled midterm review and we are going to ensure any regulations we have protect and defend your jobs, your factories. We’re going to be fair.”
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt added that the standards “are costly for automakers and the American people,” noting that the EPA will work with the Department of Transportation “to take a fresh look to determine if this approach is realistic.”
Rolling back the standards will take more than a year of legal and regulatory reviews by the EPA and the Department of Transportation, The New York Times reports.
Trump did not take steps Wednesday to revoke a waiver that allows California and a dozen other states to enforce emissions standards more stringent than those of the EPA, Reuters reports. If those regulations remain intact, automakers will still be compelled to produce more fuel-efficient cars regardless of any changes at the federal level.
Pruitt: Let Congress Figure Out If the EPA Should Regulate Carbon Dioxide
In the same CNBC interview in which he doubted the contribution of carbon dioxide to global warming, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt said Congress, not his own agency, should decide whether the EPA has the power to regulate greenhouse gases.
“Nowhere in the equation has Congress spoken,” said Pruitt. “The legislative branch has not addressed this issue at all. It’s a very fundamental question to say, ‘Are the tools in the toolbox available to the EPA to address this issue of CO2, as the court had recognized in 2007, with it being a pollutant?’”
The comment appeared to be a reference to Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the Supreme Court found that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act. That ruling prompted the EPA to promulgate the first-ever greenhouse gas regulations for motor vehicles.
Taking a legislative approach, reports ClimateWire, would get around a protracted rulemaking process and legal challenges that might beset efforts to rewrite federal regulations addressing climate change (subscription). Congress could instead simply change the definition of an air pollutant to exclude carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, putting into question a range of federal regulations from the Clean Power Plan to fuel economy standards.
That’s the intent of the Stopping EPA Overreach Act, which the U.S. House of Representatives introduced last week. H.R. 637 would amend the Clean Air Act so that the term ‘air pollutant’ does not include carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, or sulfur hexafluoride.
The proposal would nullify the EPA’s regulation of carbon pollution, stating that “no federal agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under current law” and “no attempt to regulate greenhouse gases should be undertaken without further Congressional action.”
The bill would also repeal the Clean Power Plan and a rule setting methane emission standards for oil and gas operations. If it were to become law, legal recourse would be unlikely because the Clean Air Act would be explicitly rewritten.
This week, 17 Republicans re-introduced a resolution acknowledging the problem of global warming.
Trump Unveils $1.1 Trillion Budget; Signs Another Executive Order
President Donald Trump unveiled his 2018 discretionary spending budget proposal Thursday, one that reduces many federal agency budgets. The largest cut of 31 percent is to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The move will result in the loss of 3,200 positions, or more than 20 percent of the EPA’s workforce, and terminates more than 50 EPA programs. It defunds the Clean Power Plan, which sets limits on carbon dioxide from existing fossil-fuel-fired power plants, and the Energy Star Program, which identifies and promotes energy efficiency in products.
“You can’t drain the swamp and leave all the people in it. So, I guess the first place that comes to mind will be the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. “The president wants a smaller EPA. He thinks they overreach, and the budget reflects that.”
The budget is only an outline, as Congress has the authority to set government spending levels and appropriate money.
Stating that he couldn’t “in good conscience be supportive” of the Trump administration’s major cuts to the EPA budget, Mustafa Ali stepped down as head of the EPA’s environmental justice office, which he helped found in 1992 to alleviate the impact of air, water and industrial pollution on poverty-stricken areas.
In a lengthy letter, Ali urged EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt not to kill the agency’s programs as Pruitt prepares to dismantle many in response to the Trump administration’s 2018 budget blueprint.
Setting the stage for the historic downsizing of federal agencies and the federal workforce in the budget proposal was an executive order signed Monday that requires government agencies to make themselves lean. The new White House review effort, the Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch, could identify additional areas for cuts within the EPA and the Department of Energy and Department of the Interior.
“Today there is duplication and redundancy everywhere,” said Trump. “This order requires a thorough examination of every executive department and agency to see where money is being wasted, how services can be improved and whether programs are truly serving American citizens.”
The order directs Mulvaney to “propose a plan to reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies … components of agencies and agency programs,” according to the White House. Agency heads have 180 days to submit a reorganization plan.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.