President Trump’s Department of Transportation today formally proposed eliminating CAFE miles-per-gallon standards, which save billions of gallons of gas and save consumers billions at the pump. The agency indicated its intention to complete the procedures by the end of the year.
Trump’s action is illegal because the CAFE Act requires standards to be set at the “maximum possible” level, yet the weak new rule ignores not only the viability of clean technology, but the existence of millions of efficient cars on the road.
“At one fell swoop, Trump is exacerbating three of our country’s most troubling problems: oil thirst, rising costs at the gas pump, and global warming,” said Dan Baker, the center’s director. Center for Biodiversity‘s Safe climate transport campaign. “The cure for pollution and high gas costs is strong fuel economy standards, not killing them as a favor to the president’s Big Oil buddies, big car companies, and OPEC golf buddies. Trump’s actions will fuel America’s destructive use of oil, while holding us back in the green technology race against Chinese automakers and other foreign automakers. The auto industry will use this rule to push itself back into a familiar trench, and fail to compete.”
The CAFE rule that Trump eviscerates will be just that Save 64 billion gallons of gas and saved consumers $35 billion over the life of the covered vehicles. To do that, automakers would have had to add gas-saving technology to make new cars get an average of 50.4 miles per gallon by the 2031 model year.
These standards would also have reduced pollution that harms American children, created job opportunities, and helped stop the flow of billions of dollars to OPEC and other countries.
Breaking clean car standards would allow automakers to make cars that guzzle more gas and cause more pollution. It will force consumers to pay up to $35 billion more at the pump.
“We’ve seen this movie before when President George W. Bush’s weak standards allowed Detroit to ignore technology and produce old, gas-guzzling cars. The result was the bankruptcy of two of the Big Three companies and an $80 billion bailout paid for by taxpayers,” Baker said. “It’s sad that Trump is calling on the Big Three to tell them they don’t need to make gas-efficient cars, while China is asking automakers to take advantage of the lack of American competition and accelerate their efforts to seize the world’s booming clean car market.”
CAFE standards are important because the United States is the world’s largest oil consumer, consuming 20 million barrels (840 million gallons) per day — 20% of the world’s oil use. Transportation is the largest consumer of this oil, making stronger vehicle standards the most effective way to reduce pollution and oil use.
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