In an agreement announced Wednesday, California and four major
automobile manufacturers have undermined the Trump regime’s effort to
roll back automobile fuel-efficiency requirements that had been finalized in
President Barack Obama’s first term. The automakers say they will push
for an average of 50 miles per gallon across their entire product line
regardless of what the federal government does.
As a consequence, said Democratic Rep. Doris Matsui, who represents Sacramento in Congress, Trump’s attempt to freeze vehicle efficiency standards at the 2020 level is now “dead on arrival.”
That’s good to hear since the Trump plan is to set efficiency at 37 mpg. But whether it’s truly d.o.a. remains to be seen. California led 16 other states last year in suing the Environmental Protection Agency over the proposed rollback. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said at the Washington Auto Show in April: “I believe we are on firm legal footing and I believe that our standards will be upheld by the courts.”
Maybe. Or maybe he’s just whistling in the dark. California and the other state parties think there’s a good chance the feds will lose the suit. Whoever wins, the litigation could take a long time to work its way through the courts.
Which is exactly what automobile manufacturers don’t want. Because delay means uncertainty. If there is one thing automakers—and other manufacturers—despise more than a tough new regulation, it’s not knowing what will be in a regulation nor when they’ll have to comply with it and how.
That’s why Ford, Honda, Volkswagen Group of America, and BMW of North America decided to negotiate with the California Air Resources Board, agreeing to manufacture fleets averaging 50 mpg by 2026. That’s just a year later than Obama’s standard—54.5 mpg on paper; 47 mpg in practice. Wheeler said at the auto show that he had tried to negotiate with CARB, but no deal emerged. “Federalism does not mean that one state can dictate the standard for the entire nation,” he said. “I met with CARB three times since taking the helm of EPA last July, but despite our best efforts, we could not reach a solution and decided to end the discussions.”
Kudos to CARB for standing firm. The deal means big savings on fuel, fewer deaths and disabilities caused by pollution, and a spur to new technology desperately needed in the transition to a zero-greenhouse gas emissions economy run on clean energy.
The root of Wheeler’s complaint is an agreement dating back half a century—to 1968—when California was granted an exemption from federal fuel efficiency standards because it, alone among the states, already had some in place when the U.S. Clean Air Act was passed. California’s emissions standards have typically been stricter than the feds’. And although California was granted the only exception, 12 other states have followed its emissions standards rather than the federal government’s. Because California sells more cars and light trucks than any other state—more than a quarter of all such sales in the U.S. in 2018—it and the dozen states that follow its fuel-efficiency lead drive automaker standards for the whole nation. Manufacturers don’t want to configure one version of a vehicle for some states and a different one for others.
Obama twisted a lot of arms to get automakers and the United Auto Workers to sign onto the new fuel-efficiency standards in 2012, the first upgrade since 1989. But when Trump arrived in the Oval Office, the manufacturers sought relief. Couldn’t they have more time, or a slightly lower standard? He gave them more than they wanted.
Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford, and Jim Hackett, the president and CEO of the carmaker, went so far as to write an essay for Medium explaining:
As a consequence, said Democratic Rep. Doris Matsui, who represents Sacramento in Congress, Trump’s attempt to freeze vehicle efficiency standards at the 2020 level is now “dead on arrival.”
That’s good to hear since the Trump plan is to set efficiency at 37 mpg. But whether it’s truly d.o.a. remains to be seen. California led 16 other states last year in suing the Environmental Protection Agency over the proposed rollback. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said at the Washington Auto Show in April: “I believe we are on firm legal footing and I believe that our standards will be upheld by the courts.”
Maybe. Or maybe he’s just whistling in the dark. California and the other state parties think there’s a good chance the feds will lose the suit. Whoever wins, the litigation could take a long time to work its way through the courts.
Which is exactly what automobile manufacturers don’t want. Because delay means uncertainty. If there is one thing automakers—and other manufacturers—despise more than a tough new regulation, it’s not knowing what will be in a regulation nor when they’ll have to comply with it and how.
That’s why Ford, Honda, Volkswagen Group of America, and BMW of North America decided to negotiate with the California Air Resources Board, agreeing to manufacture fleets averaging 50 mpg by 2026. That’s just a year later than Obama’s standard—54.5 mpg on paper; 47 mpg in practice. Wheeler said at the auto show that he had tried to negotiate with CARB, but no deal emerged. “Federalism does not mean that one state can dictate the standard for the entire nation,” he said. “I met with CARB three times since taking the helm of EPA last July, but despite our best efforts, we could not reach a solution and decided to end the discussions.”
Kudos to CARB for standing firm. The deal means big savings on fuel, fewer deaths and disabilities caused by pollution, and a spur to new technology desperately needed in the transition to a zero-greenhouse gas emissions economy run on clean energy.
The root of Wheeler’s complaint is an agreement dating back half a century—to 1968—when California was granted an exemption from federal fuel efficiency standards because it, alone among the states, already had some in place when the U.S. Clean Air Act was passed. California’s emissions standards have typically been stricter than the feds’. And although California was granted the only exception, 12 other states have followed its emissions standards rather than the federal government’s. Because California sells more cars and light trucks than any other state—more than a quarter of all such sales in the U.S. in 2018—it and the dozen states that follow its fuel-efficiency lead drive automaker standards for the whole nation. Manufacturers don’t want to configure one version of a vehicle for some states and a different one for others.
Obama twisted a lot of arms to get automakers and the United Auto Workers to sign onto the new fuel-efficiency standards in 2012, the first upgrade since 1989. But when Trump arrived in the Oval Office, the manufacturers sought relief. Couldn’t they have more time, or a slightly lower standard? He gave them more than they wanted.
Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford, and Jim Hackett, the president and CEO of the carmaker, went so far as to write an essay for Medium explaining:
We support increasing clean car standards through 2025 and are not asking for a rollback. We want one set of standards nationally, along with additional flexibility to help us provide more affordable options for our customers. We believe that working together with EPA, NHTSA and California, we can deliver on this standard.
In addition, at Ford, we believe we must deliver on CO2 reductions consistent with the Paris Climate Accord. We already have charted a course for our future that includes investing $11 billion to put 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicle models on the road by 2022 as well as responsible development of the self-driving car.What seems likely as a result of the CARB agreement with the four automakers is that GM, Toyota, Daimler AG, and other car companies will be following the same path. This isn’t just about making cars with more efficient internal combustion engines. We need a world devoid of those altogether. One way for manufacturers to meet the 50 mpg goal is to build more electric vehicles, whose efficiency ratings are much higher than ICE vehicles.
Although it’s not a mandate, California’s goal is to have 5 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030. Currently, there are 1.27 million electrics nationwide and half of them—612,000—are in California. That’s against a total of more than 14 million cars registered in the state.
Requiring higher fuel efficiency is one part of building fewer and fewer of those millions to run on fossil fuels. That, obviously, is not Donald Trump’s, Andrew Wheeler’s, and Exxon-Mobil’s vision. But it must be ours, as does vastly reducing the number of cars on the road no matter how they are powered.
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