The Environmental Protection Agency suggests cutting greenhouse gases

For years, the Environmental Protection Agency has prompted auto manufacturers to reduce the amount of climate change contribution.

Today the Environmental Protection Agency has laid out plans not only weakening these rules, but completely ending them.

In 2009, the agency decided that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a form of air pollution that the agency can regulate under the clean air law. This is because these gases contribute to climate change, which harms human health.

This design, called "Discovering exposureand" The main regulations-including strict standards made of car makers who imagined at least half of the new cars sold in the United States are electric or spatial hybrids by 2030. The transport sector is The largest source From direct greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

President Donald Trump made a campaign against "Electric vehicle delegations," And once in his position, he pledged to decline such rules. Three groups of regulations that drive companies to build cars that burn less gasoline – or no gas at all – were in their eyes. His administration and Congress have already been canceled or the weakest of them.

Now, the Environmental Protection Agency published its proposal cancellation "Discovering exposure" And restore to write the standards of its tube – this means that the third group of rules is preparing to fall.

The director of the Environmental Protection Agency Li Zeldin announced the proposal of the auto agency in Indiana on Tuesday, after examining a governor podcast. "We heard loudly and were forced to worry that the standards of tactical gas emissions (greenhouse gases) at the Environmental Protection Agency itself, and not carbon dioxide that was not evaluated independently, was the real threat to the livelihoods of Americans," Zeldin wrote in a statement.

Changes will not occur immediately. The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal must now be subject to public suspension. Once completed, it is possible that the lawsuits are likely to follow. Auto companies companies cannot focus on the squad for ten cents.

However, this proposal is a great victory for oil companies and biofuels who have long fought against these rules. It meets the promise of the campaign for President Trump, who criticized the regulations as increasing costs and choice.

It has terrified environmental defenders. The head of the Environmental Defense Fund, Farid Krob, wrote in a statement on Tuesday, "If there are no coercive limits to pollution, you will get more of them, which makes life more expensive and more dangerous. The risks cannot be higher for Americans." AMDOCACY Group Moms Air Force Clean Air Force is called retreat "A shameful, reckless and immoral step."

Three clean car standards – all of them are reflected

Vehicles in the United States have always been covered with three intertwined groups of efficiency and pollution rules.

The Environmental Protection Agency organizes vehicle emissions through the standards of tube tube. They judge the amount of pollution that the car can launch while working.

The Ministry of Transport organizes the economy in fuel consumption, or the number of miles for each gallon. These rules are known as the Café standards, and they are short for the average fuel economy, and run by the National Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA. It requires that the average fuel consumption efficiency for new cars that are brought to the market – through all the vehicles offered by the manufacturer – meet a specific tape. This tape rises every year.

Because it was the first mandate to organize vehicle emissions, before federal regulations, California has long been able to set its most striking special rules of national standards. These include pollution standards and a base that imposes the number of cars that cars must be sold in the state. Other states can choose to follow the California bases, which ends with a significant impact on the car market.

Over the past few decades, the mixture of these three types of bases has pushed to build more fuel consumption and pollution.

The Trump administration has taken great steps to decrease the three.

First, the administration asked Congress to abolish the environment protection agency that allows California to set the mandate of the zero emissions in the state. This was an unprecedented step, and in May, Congress I did as required.

Meanwhile, the federal cafe standards are still in place – at the present time. But the Ministry of Transport is currently Review These rules, after noting that they cost car manufacturers too much to comply with them, and that they increase consumer prices. Re -writing the rules "It will reduce vehicle costs and ensure that the American people can buy the cars they want," Transport Minister Sean Duffy He wrote in a statement in June. (The regulations increase the cost of cars, however Consumer groups I have repeatedly found that it provides fuel drivers over the life of the car more than they create at the costs of the introduction.)

Meanwhile, Congress distorted the café standards by removing fines for car factories who fail to meet them. This change, which was passed in the draft tax and huge spending law that President Trump Recently, the law took placeIt can provide hundreds of millions of dollars to automobile companies such as General Motors and Stellantis, which chose to make less efficient vehicles and pay the resulting penalties. And removes the incentive for other car manufacturers to comply; They do not face any consequences if they do not.

This leaves the standards of the EPA tube.

Comments and public lawsuits

While the decline in the assignment of California and the elimination of cafe fees in the law has been signed, the change of the Environmental Protection Agency is just a proposal. There will be a period of suspension, when companies, institutions and members of the public public can inform the agency of what they are thinking about, and the Environmental Protection Agency is required to take these comments into consideration before any changes end.

The interim batch is also challenged – it will definitely face more lawsuits.

California filed a lawsuit against the abolition of EPA.

The states and environmental groups also asked federal courts to review some changes in NHTSA on the café standards.

The Environmental Defense Fund has repeatedly sued the Trump administration about the changes that weaken environmental protection. When asked whether this last change is likely to demand legislation, Vicky Patton, the group’s chief adviser, stopped for a moment.

"This will be one of the most harmful procedures, really, at all in the history of the Environmental Protection Agency, if they move forward with an effort to stay away from protecting the American people from some of the most dangerous pollution in our lives," She said, referring to the ongoing effects of heat waves and fires, which worsened due to climate change, as well as smoky fog and soot from vehicles. "The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for implementing the law and ensuring the protection of the American people from harmful pollution."

Understanding for auto manufacturers

The criteria for the decline vehicle have always been a priority for oil and biofuels, with a focus on its intensifying issue as the bases have become more strict. in A statement last fall, The American Petroleum Institute launched the standards "Delegate the intruder government," While the American farm office said "Pull the carpet from under the farmers" Crops for renewable fuel.

The automotive industry site was more accurate, with the main automotive group of automotive innovation, a few years ago to defend the right of the Environmental Protection Agency to set strict criteria – but also the indication that it will be much easier and more efficient in obtaining one A set of criteria instead of three.

Recently, with the increasing demand for EV than expected – it is now expected to get worse by canceling the administration Consumer tax credits EV Traditional car manufacturers have been a loud warning that the Biden era standards were not possible.

On Tuesday, John Bouzella, the coalition head to create cars, issued a statement saying the group "Review" Proposal "To understand what it means to the rules of US vehicle emissions to go forward." This added "There is no doubt that the vehicle emissions regulations that were completed under the previous administration cannot be achieved and must be reviewed to reflect the current market conditions."

Although many car manufacturers will welcome the dilution of the rules, the disposal of the face between departments and laws deposited creates the tremendous uncertainty for them, so that companies must make decisions regarding the formation of their products for five years or more in the future.

As for consumers, beia Spiller, an economist and a resource colleague for the future, is a non -partisan research tank, indicates that drivers Love The presence of more efficient cars. "People prefer to have a vehicle that costs them less to work," She says. But she says research shows that new car buyers focus more on the prices provided (especially now, when these prices are very high) and reduce the value of fuel saving in the future.

This means that the market forces alone will not pay cars to clean them as soon as possible. Thus, the decline, in addition to increased emissions, would increase the costs of long -term fuel for drivers.

But she, she says, will not send the market to an immediate shift towards gas gases. Car manufacturers have made large investments in cleaner car technologies. Some of these investments may be reversed, and they are only crossed as lost money; Others may be moved forward. Even in the case of EV sales, you say, the hybrid is likely to remain in particular, strong.

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