EPA to Expand Calif. Clean Car Authority — and the Nation’s

by Arianna Skibell (E&E News) The Biden administration is preparing to reinstate California’s authority to set auto emissions rules that are more stringent than federal standards, taking a major step toward cutting transportation-related climate pollution and continuing to chip away at former President Trump’s environmental rollbacks.

The waiver, granted decades ago because of California’s severe pollution problems, gave the Golden State the legal authority to surpass national fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards. But under Trump, EPA revoked California’s Clean Air Act waiver, citing a need for national uniformity.

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia follow California’s tougher rules, together representing over a third of the national auto market. California itself is the largest economy in the country and fifth globally.

“The effectiveness of America’s transportation decarbonization policies and strategies is fully grounded in California’s leadership,” said Dan Sperling, a member of the California Air Resources Board.

Shortly after his inauguration, President Biden instructed EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to consider restoring the waiver.

For its part, NHTSA moved to restore the waiver last year (Greenwire, Dec. 22, 2021).

Still, with the reinstatement of the California waiver, the state could immediately begin to enforce its Advanced Clean Trucks rule, which requires a growing percentage of all new medium- and heavy-duty trucks to be zero-emissions beginning in 2025.

California also adopted a Heavy-Duty Omnibus rule, which boosts fuel economy for fossil fuel-powered trucks, making them up to 90 percent cleaner. The rule is considered especially important for reducing smog and other localized toxic pollutants in low-income areas and communities of color that are disproportionately located near highways and freight corridors and bear the brunt of pollution.

EPA is expected to shortly unveil its own rule to clean up highway freight-related pollution (Climatewire, Jan. 18).

His administration issued a new fuel economy rule last year that it said will reduce carbon pollution by about 2 billion metric tons. Biden also set a target that half of all new car sales will be electric by decade’s end. READ MORE