The EPA’s Ambitious Plan to Cut Auto Emissions to Slow Climate Change Runs into Skepticism

by Tom Krisher (Associated Press) The U.S. government’s most ambitious plan ever to slash planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles faces skepticism both about how realistic it is and whether it goes far enough.

The Environmental Protection Agency in April announced new strict emissions limits that the agency says are vital to slowing climate change as people around the globe endure record-high temperatures, raging wildfires and intense storms.

The EPA says the industry could meet the limits if 67% of new-vehicle sales are electric by 2032, a pace the auto industry calls unrealistic. However, the new rule would not require automakers to boost electric vehicle sales directly. Instead, it sets emissions limits and allows automakers to choose how to meet them.

Even if the industry boosts EV sales to the level the EPA recommends, any reduction in pollution could prove more modest than the agency expects. The Associated Press has estimated that nearly 80% of vehicles being driven in the U.S. — more than 200 million — would still run on gasoline or diesel fuel.

Peter Slowik, a senior EV researcher with the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation, has calculated that to cut emissions enough to reach Paris Agreement goals, the proportion of new electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles sold would have to reach 67% by 2030. The EPA has projected 60% by then.

Using sales projections from the EPA and industry analysts from 2022 through model year 2032, the AP calculated that Americans will likely buy roughly 60 million EVs. With 284 million passenger vehicles on U.S. roads today, at that pace only about 22% of them would be electric in nine years. Two million are already in use, and vehicles now stay on the road for an average of 12.5 years.

Dave Cooke, a senior vehicles analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that even with slow vehicle turnover, studies show the EPA’s proposal would be an important step toward a zero-carbon transportation system by 2050. In addition, power plants that fuel EVs, he noted, will be converted to renewable energy such as wind and solar.

THE AUTO INDUSTRY SAYS THE LIMITS CAN’T BE MET
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group that represents companies such as General Motors, Ford and Toyota that make most new vehicles sold in the United States, argues the EPA standards are “neither reasonable nor achievable in the time frame covered.”

The alliance says the agency is underestimating the cost and difficulty of making EV batteries, including short supplies of critical minerals that also are used in laptops, cellphones and other items. Sizable gaps in the charging network for long-distance travel and for people living in apartments pose another obstacle.

Though automakers continue to downsize engines and produce more efficient transmissions, the alliance says they need to use their limited resources more on producing EVs than on developing more fuel-efficient technology for gas-powered engines.

ARE ELECTRIC VEHICLES REALLY CLEANER?
Studies by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology show that shifting to electric vehicles delivers a 30% to 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over combustion vehicles, depending on how the electricity is derived. READ MORE

Excerpt from Missouri Corn Growers Association/Missouri Times: EPA has other options. As the agency itself acknowledges, when ethanol is blended into gasoline, the carbon intensity of the fuel decreases and the fuel’s octane increases. The agency has the authority to permit or require high-octane, low carbon fuels with higher blends of domestic ethanol. A 95 RON E20 fuel would unlock a 5–10% efficiency boost in all new cars while cutting greenhouse gas emissions by around 40 percent and saving American drivers more than 25 cents per gallon at the pump.

If EPA continues to ignore common-sense solutions like higher ethanol blends in favor of an all-electric future, the results will be catastrophic. As we explained in detailed regulatory comments, the agency’s cost analysis is flawed in at least a dozen ways: it underestimates battery costs, it ignores the cost of new electrical infrastructure, and it writes off tax-payer subsidies, to name just a few. But the most egregious error EPA makes is in its estimates of current and future electric vehicle costs. The proposal assumes—without any explanation, and scarcely a mention—that electric vehicles cost about as much to make, relative to their price, as their conventional counterparts. That is simply not true. There is overwhelming evidence that the manufacturing costs for electric vehicles far exceed their current list prices. Ford, for example, lost about $60,000 per electric vehicle it sold. The company only remained profitable by raising prices on conventional vehicles to offset those losses.

This sort of cross subsidization is only possible when conventional vehicle sales far outnumber electric vehicle sales. If electric vehicles grow from 6 percent to 67 percent of sales, automakers will no longer be able to offset large electric losses with small increases across conventional vehicle prices. In EPA’s proposed fleet, Ford vehicle prices could be expected to rise from around $36,000 today to $92,000 in 2032. Like all Ponzi schemes, EPA’s plan will inevitably hit a wall.

These high costs are the main reason that—no matter what EPA requires—we won’t see an all-electric vehicle fleet anytime soon. But the attempt to mandate this pipe dream will nevertheless be destructive. The burden will fall disproportionately on rural Americans. Demand for biofuels will shrink while transportation will get more expensive, a double whammy against American agriculture. Collectively, the top five corn-producing states could stand to lose well over $100 billion in farmland value from corn acreage alone. These losses would cascade into local communities and supporting industries, and would have profound implications for the financial viability of Midwestern farming operations, for the nation’s food supply, and for rural Americans.

The Supreme Court just last year warned EPA that it does not have authority to reshape the American economy like this. In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court held that the “Clean Power Plan” exceeded the agency’s legal authority. There, EPA attempted to force a shift from coal-fired plants to gas-, wind-, and solar-powered plants. The Court explained that an agency can’t just to “announc[e] what the market share of coal, natural gas, wind, and solar must be, and then requir[e] plants to reduce operations or subsidize their competitors to get there.” Deciding that sort of “major question” is Congress’s job. So too here.

Of course, rapid electrification would be as much of a failure if undertaken by Congress as by EPA. But Congress hasn’t done so. And Congress has other—and better—options for reducing vehicle emissions. Currently pending before the Senate is the bipartisan Next Generation Fuels Act. The Act would establish high-octane (95 and 98 RON) certification test fuels containing 20 to 30 percent ethanol, while requiring automobile manufacturers to design and warrant their vehicles to allow these fuels beginning in model year 2026. The CO₂ emissions savings from these improved fuels would add up to more 600 million tons over ten years—nearly three times what electrification could save—while saving consumers money on fuel. This more sustainable approach would be much better for the environment, for consumers, for farmers, and for the rule of law. READ MORE