Calif. to Fight Trump’s ‘Politically Motivated’ Car Standards Plan

April 03, 2018

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by Timothy Cama and Miranda Green (The Hill) California officials promised Monday to put up a fight against the Trump administration’s newly announced decision to lower standards for car tailpipe emissions.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared Monday afternoon that the Obama-era greenhouse gas rules for cars made between 2022 and 2025 are too ambitious and should be eased.

That sets up a fight with the Golden State, which currently sets its own car emissions rules and has argued for stringent regulations. Twelve other states currently follow those rules, accounting for a third of the nation’s car market.

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Nichols (Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board (CARB)) said her agency would “vigorously defend” the current standards. It will also use a 2009 waiver from the Obama administration to keep enforcing the rules planned through 2025.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said Monday that he is still deciding whether to preserve California’s authority to set its own rules or to revoke the waiver.

"Cooperative federalism doesn’t mean that one state can dictate standards for the rest of the country,” he said in a statement.

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California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) said Pruitt’s declaration Monday “risks our ability to protect our children’s health, tackle climate change, and save hardworking Americans money.”

Becerra said he and the CARB were still reviewing the EPA’s action but he is “ready to file suit if needed to protect these critical standards.” READ MORE

U.S. Carmakers May Regret What They Wished For on Pollution Rules (Bloomberg)

Trump Administration to Revise EPA CAFE Standards (Hoosier Ag Today)

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced the Midterm Evaluation of Light-Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Model Years 2022-2025. (Environmental Protection Agency VIDEO)

WHAT COMES NEXT FOR PRUITT? (Politico's Morning Energy)

How U.S. Fuel Economy Standards Compare With the Rest of the World’s (New York Times)

U.S. states vow to defend auto fuel efficiency standards (Reuters)

EPA Determines Current Emissions Standards Are Not Appropriate (Convenience Store News)

CALIFORNIA THREATENS TO SUE AFTER EPA REJECTS AUTO RULES (Washington Examiner)

Impact of Trump’s Plan to Roll Back Fuel Economy Standards (ACT News)

EPA Vows to Roll Back Vehicle Emissions Standards (NGT News)

California attorney general says ready to defend vehicle efficiency standards (Reuters)

Pruitt touts states' rights. What about Calif.? (E&E News)

Quietly, Trump Officials and California Seek a Deal on Car Emissions (New York Times)

NJ TO JOIN CLEAN CAR INITIATIVE, AS EPA EASES FUEL-ECONOMY STANDARDS (New Jersey Spotlight)

Let’s Regulate CO2 Emissions, and Forget the 55.4 MPG 2025 Corporate Annual Fuel Economy Standard: The Inexpensive Way to Quickly Reduce Green House Gases (Advanced Biofuels USA)

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: The response comes after EPA went to great lengths Tuesday to avoid tough questions on Pruitt's continued scandals during his formal rollback of Obama-era emissions standards. The agency attempted to allow television camera access to Fox News, without informing the other four major networks, CNN reports. But Fox told other networks so they could establish a pool to share coverage.

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TALK ABOUT A CAR BACKFIRE: Pruitt's formal announcement to undo the Obama administration's emissions standards on Tuesday could spell trouble for the auto market. While the move will be cheered in states like Michigan and Ohio, the approach is virtually guaranteed to set off a protracted legal fight that experts say may be difficult to win, Pro's Alex Guillén reports. California has a Clean Air Act waiver to enforce its own tougher car rules, which are followed by a dozen other mostly blue states, and it's an open question whether Pruitt can revoke that authority. That means his efforts to weaken the Obama-era rules could lead to a patchwork of different requirements in different parts of the country. At the very least, car companies and their suppliers are in for up to a year or more of uncertainty with little time to waste before they begin designing the model year 2022 cars that are subject to the disputed rules. Alex has the full story here.

- A host of state attorneys general and mayors signed onto a declaration Tuesday, promising to "vigorously resist" any efforts by the Trump EPA to roll back national clean car standards for vehicle fleets in their jurisdiction. Read it here.

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Six Democratic senators wrote to Pruitt on Tuesday to express their discontent with EPA's final determination on fuel emissions standards. The senators ask Pruitt for further details on meetings he took with the auto or oil industry, as well as the modeling and methodology used to make his decision. Read it here.

- The Society of Environmental Journalists called on EPA to answer questions directly, rather than referring reporters to published articles by other media. Read the letter. READ MORE

Excerpt from Washington Examiner: The EPA, in rejecting Obama's standards, pointed out that that Monday's determination isn't a final action and thus can't be sued over. Lawsuits can't be filed until the agency concludes its rulemaking, meaning after it sets new standards. READ MORE

Excerpt from E&E News: Part of the complexity: Two different laws affecting two different agencies with two different missions create the patchwork overseeing fuel economy and car emissions.

On top of that, there's the California complication.

California can call for a tighter emissions standard through the Clean Air Act administered by EPA. Congress gave it that right because its unique topography and population density contribute to smoggy skies.

But fuel economy, administered by the Transportation Department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is a technology standard, not an air quality one. The law giving NHTSA that authority prevented states from setting fuel economy standards. Some argue California would in essence do that in a roundabout way through its Clean Air Act waiver.

In the grand scheme of environmental regulations, the fuel economy standard still has a lot of unresolved points. The evolving vehicle market, combined with structural changes implemented under the Obama administration, has added to the confusion. That, combined with the tricky regulatory custody battle between NHTSA and EPA, evokes tricky mental gymnastics.

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While conservatives often criticize federal overreach, it's an example where Congress actually passed a law delineating where executive authority began and ended.

"[The waiver] is one of the few federal environmental statutory provisions that allows a state meaningful relief from federal regulatory controls, and it still may not be enough to grant California the flexibility it wants," Jonathan Adler, a libertarian environmental law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, wrote in 2008.

Some on the right question whether California's waiver is an example of cooperative federalism, in which EPA sets a minimum standard but allows states to implement and enforce it in their own way.

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Layered on top of all this is a newer wrinkle: the role of greenhouse gas emissions. Such emissions aren't like smog-forming ones and therefore aren't limited to California's immediate geographic area.

The EPA endangerment finding on greenhouse gas emissions considers them harmful to human health. As such, EPA must regulate them. Proponents of California's waiver argue that it therefore extends to those heat-trapping gases.

Still, the law states that EPA can deny California's waiver if it "does not need such State standards to meet compelling and extraordinary conditions." It's much harder to categorize greenhouse gas emissions as pollutants contributing specifically to a local or regional problem, Adler said. READ MORE