Trump Tweets He's Revoking California's Tailpipe Emissions Waiver while Visiting State

September 18, 2019

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by Miranda Green (The Hill) President Trump announced on Wednesday that his administration will be removing California's tailpipe emissions waiver under the Clean Air Act, a decision likely to face fierce backlash in courts.

Trump made the announcement via Twitter while touring California for private fundraisers and a visit to the border with Mexico. The tweet came just before he was scheduled to deliver remarks at a breakfast with donors at a downtown Los Angeles hotel.

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Trump added that the administration's new standard — which has not yet been released — would have "very little difference in emissions between the California Standard and the new U.S. Standard."

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Trump's announcement indicates the White House is moving ahead with plans to split its auto emissions rule into two parts, a move seen as a way to speed up the process of finalizing the hotly debated deregulation. The final draft of the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Rule was submitted to the White House in August.

The first section of the rule, which would formally revoke California’s preemption and waiver under the Clean Air Act, could be finalized as early as this week.

The administration has not yet announced the second part of the rule, which will include a final decision over what fuel efficiency levels to set emissions at starting in 2025. It's expected the regulations will be much weaker than those proposed under former President Obama.

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The state maintains it has the right to establish its own strong air quality standards under the Clean Air Act, and auto manufacturers have long sought one national standard for vehicles across the country. READ MORE

EPA set to end California’s ability to regulate fuel economy (Associated Press)

Trump says he’s revoking California’s power to limit pollution from cars and trucks (Washington Post)

Trump Defends Plan to Kill California’s Auto-Emissions Authority (New York Times)

Trump Moves to Stop California From Fixing What He’s Breaking (Rolling Stone)

Trump Says California's Ability To Set Its Own Emissions Standards Will Be Revoked (NPR)

California Vows To Take Trump To Court Over Emissions Standards (NPR's Morning Edition; includes AUDIO)

Trump: EPA to Revoke California’s Clean Car Waiver (NGT News)

CARPER'S NEXT AUTO MOVE (Politico's Morning Energy)

Trump fight on California auto emissions could outlast presidency (Reuters)

The Post's View Opinion: The White House should compromise with California on fuel efficiency standards (Washington Post)

The Interaction of the Clean Air Act, California’s CAA Waiver, Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards, Renewable Fuel Standards and California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (Advanced Biofuels USA)

Excerpt from Washington Post: His tweets came just minutes before the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department indicated that they would announce the move Thursday morning.

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Trump administration’s own analysis also acknowledged that easing the Obama-era standards would increase U.S. fuel consumption by roughly a half-million barrels of oil per day, an increase of 2 to 3 percent, and would lead to an increase in greenhouse-gas emissions.

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Public-health experts and environmental groups have insisted that the White House’s proposal ignores the health benefits from more efficient, less-polluting cars and would lead people to spend more money at the gas pump. They said the rollback would allow more carbon dioxide to spew from the nation’s vehicles, undermining any chance of curbing climate pollution in the transportation sector, which has emerged as the nation’s largest source of carbon dioxide emissions.

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Over thousands of pages, the administration’s proposal last year argues that the costs of meeting existing federal mileage requirements over the next few years would boost the sticker price of vehicles, prompting people to continue driving older cars and trucks rather than buying newer, more efficient ones. That would in turn increase the risk of accidents, it claimed. EPA staffers questioned some of those estimates, though the EPA and the Transportation Department ultimately published the proposal jointly.

Trump’s move sets up a potential clash over the state’s long-standing ability to set its own more stringent standards for tailpipe emissions and fuel efficiency, a power the courts have upheld for the past half-century. California is pressing ahead with a plan to raise the average mileage of the U.S. auto fleet to 50 miles per gallon by model year 2026, and 13 other states and the District have pledged to adopt those standards.

At a news conference Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and other top officials said they would challenge the move in court.

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California’s power to set its own standards dates back to 1967 legislation and has been reaffirmed every time Congress amended the law. Its governor,, pledged Tuesday to sue the federal government if it revoked the state’s existing waiver.

It is unclear whether the auto industry will endorse Trump’s push to ease tailpipe emissions standards. Four companies — Ford, Honda, Volkswagen, and BMW of North America — reached an agreement with the California Air Resources Board in July to produce vehicles that would reach an average of nearly 50 miles per gallon by 2026. The Justice Department has launched an inquiry into whether the four carmakers violated antitrust law by entering into a voluntary agreement with California.

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The Trump administration’s pressure campaign targeting automakers has begun to pay dividends. Not a single company has joined the framework forged in July, and on Wednesday California officials said those discussions stalled after the Justice Department started its inquiry. READ MORE

Excerpt from New York Times: “Our message to those who claim to support states’ rights is, ‘Don’t trample on ours,’” said Xavier Becerra, the attorney general of California, at a Sacramento news conference about an hour after Mr. Trump’s tweets. “We cannot afford to backslide in our battle against climate change.”

The Trump administration is expected Thursday morning to formally revoke California’s authority to set auto emissions rules that are stricter than federal standards, taking a major step forward in the administration’s wide-ranging attack on efforts to fight climate change. Andrew Wheeler, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Elaine Chao, the transportation secretary, are scheduled to announce the formal abolition of the waiver, one of California’s signature environmental policies, at the Washington headquarters of the E.P.A.

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Still, Mr. Rabe and other experts said that Mr. Trump’s assertions, while using the language of emissions policy, veered from the facts on several significant points.

Several analysts, for instance, disputed Mr. Trump’s assertion that weakening emissions standards would improve highway safety.

“The president’s claim that high fuel economy negatively affects safety is baseless,” said Shannon Baker-Branstetter, the co-author of an August Consumer Reports analysis concluding that the Trump administration’s rollback of fuel economy standards would have no statistically significant effect on highway safety.

Legal experts said that if Mr. Trump’s move was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court, it could permanently block states from regulating greenhouse gas pollution from vehicles — a major setback for efforts to control climate change. If it was struck down by the Supreme Court, it would allow states to set separate tailpipe pollution standards from those set by the federal government.

That outcome could split the United States auto market, with some states adhering to stricter pollution standards than others. For automakers, that would be a nightmare.

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The administration’s plans have been further complicated because major automakers have told the White House that they do not want such an aggressive rollback. In July, four automakers formalized their opposition to Mr. Trump’s plans by signing a deal with California to comply with tighter emissions standards if the broader rollback goes through.

Mr. Trump, who was blindsided and angered by that announcement, according to two people familiar with the matter, wanted to press forward with a policy that would punish California.

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The Obama-era tailpipe pollution rules that the administration hopes to weaken would require automakers to build vehicles that achieve an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, cutting about six billion tons of carbon dioxide pollution over the lifetimes of those vehicles. The proposed Trump rule would lower the requirement to about 37 miles per gallon, allowing for most of that pollution to be emitted.

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The 1970 Clean Air Act, the landmark federal legislation designed to fight air pollution nationwide, granted California the right to set its own, stricter rules because the state already had clean air legislation in place when the act passed. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: CARPER'S NEXT AUTO MOVE:Sen. Tom Carper, ranking member on the EPW Committee, said he's reaching out to automakers following the move to revoke California's waiver in hopes of getting them to sign onto a voluntary agreement with the state. "They've now seen what this administration is up to," he told reporters. "My hope is that this will convince some of these auto companies that have been standing back, waiting to decide whether or not they're going to join the Fabulous Four," referring to the agreement inked between Ford, Volkswagen, BMW, Honda and California. READ MORE

Excerpts from The Washington Post: Auto-efficiency standards might not be the best strategy for cutting emissions and fuel waste from the transportation sector — a higher gas tax or a carbon tax would be better. But, at the moment, efficiency rules are the legal way to do so. And the ones the Obama administration and California established would undoubtedly help: The experts at the Rhodium Group determined last year that the Trump administration’s push to wipe away auto-efficiency standards would result in the national fleet reaching only 38 mpg. The result would be higher oil consumption on the order of 221,000 to 644,000 barrels of oil per day by 2030 — and 28 million to 83 million metric tons more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Drivers would not really benefit, because they would end up paying billions more in gasoline costs. READ MORE