The EPA proposes gutting its greenhouse gas rules. Here’s what it means for cars and pollution : NPR

In an aerial view, cars travel along Interstate 80 in Berkeley, California, January 16, 2024. The regulations that force manufacturers to build more efficient and cleaner vehicles are loosened by the Trump administration.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images from North America

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Justin Sullivan / Getty Images from North America

For years, the Environmental Protection Agency has prompted car manufacturers to reduce the amount of vehicles that contribute to climate change.

Today, the EPA has established plans to not only weaken these rules, but finish them entirely.

In 2009, the agency determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a form of air pollution that the agency can regulate under the clean Air Act. Indeed, these gases contribute to climate change, which harms human health.

This determination, called “endangered“Under major regulations – including strict exhaust pipes for car manufacturers who have imagined at least half of the new cars sold in the United States being electric or rechargeable hybrids by 2030. The transport sector is the transport sector the greatest source Direct greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

President Trump campaigned against “electric vehicle mandates” and once in power, is committed to establishing such rules. Three sets of regulations that push companies to build cars that burn less petrol – or no gas at all – were in sight. His administration and congress have already eliminated or weakened two of them.

Now EPA has published its proposal to Revoke the “conclusion of endangerment“And rewrite its exhaust pipe standards – which means that the third set of rules is ready to fall.

EPA’s administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced the proposal to a car dealer on Tuesday in Indiana, after having presented it on a conservative podcast. “We heard strongly and empty the concern that the GHGs of the EPA [greenhouse gas] The norms of emissions themselves, not carbon dioxide, which the finding has never evaluated independently, was the real threat to the means of subsistence of the Americans, “Zeldin wrote in a statement.

The changes will not occur immediately. EPA’s proposal must now undergo public comments. Once finalized, prosecution is likely to follow. And car manufacturers cannot rotate their alignments with a penny.

However, this proposal is a major victory for oil companies and biofuels manufacturers who have long been fighting against these rules. He takes a campaign promise for President Trump, who castigated the regulations as increasing costs and limiting the choice.

And he horrified environmental defenders. The president of the environmental defense fund, Fred Krupp, wrote in a statement on Tuesday: “If there are no forced limits on pollution, you get more, making life more expensive and even more dangerous. The issues could not be higher for Americans.” Moms Defense Moms Moms Clean Air Force

Three clean cars standards – all being reversed

In the United States, vehicles have long been covered by three sets of riding and pollution rules.

EPA regulates vehicle emissions through exhaust pipe standards. They govern the amount of pollution that a vehicle can release during its operation.

The Ministry of Transport regulates the fuel economy, or the number of kilometers per gallon that a car obtains. These rules are known as coffee standards, abbreviated as the average fuel economy of companies and are administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA. They require that the average energy efficiency of new armed cars – on all vehicles offered by a manufacturer – must meet a certain bar. This bar increases each year.

And because it was the first state to regulate vehicle emissions, long before federal regulations, California has long been able to establish its own rules more difficult than national standards. These include pollution standards and a rule requiring the number of zero emission vehicles that manufacturers must sell in the state. Other states may choose to follow the rules of California, which end up having a major influence on the automotive market.

In recent decades, the combination of these three types of rules has prompted car manufacturers to build cars that are much more fuel efficient and pollute less.

The Trump administration has taken major measures to retreat the three.

First, the administration asked the congress to revoke the derogation of the EPA which allows California to set the term of the zero emission vehicle of the State. It was an unprecedented decision, and in May, the Congress done as requested.

The federal standards of coffee, on the other hand, are still in place – for the moment. But the Ministry of Transport is currently revision These rules, after having declared that it is too expensive to car manufacturers to respect them and that they increase consumer prices. The rewriting of the rules “will reduce the costs of the vehicles and ensure that the American people can buy the cars they wish”, the transport secretary Sean Duffy written in a statement in June. (Regulations increase the cost of cars, but consumer groups have noticed several times that they save many more fuel drivers during the life of the car they do not create in initial costs.)

Meanwhile, the Congress has defused coffee standards by removing fines for car manufacturers who do not meet them. This change adopted in the bill on mega taxes and expenses that President Trump recently signedCould save hundreds of millions of dollars for car manufacturers like General Motors and Stellantis who have chosen to make less effective vehicles and pay the resulting sanctions. And it removes incitement from other car manufacturers to comply; They do not face any consequences if they do not.

This leaves EPA exhaust pipe standards.

Public comments and prosecution

While the decline in derogation in California and the elimination of coffee fees were both signed, the change in EPA is only a proposal. There will be a commentary period, when companies, organizations and members of the general public will be able to tell the agency what they think, and the EPA is required to take these comments in consideration before finalizing any change.

The deregulation push is also disputed in court – and will be almost certainly faced with more prosecution.

California continued on the revocation of its renunciation of EPA.

Environmental states and groups have also asked the federal courts to examine some of the NHTSA changes to coffee standards.

The environmental defense fund has repeatedly continued the Trump administration on changes that weaken environmental protections. When asked if this last change is likely to cause legislation, Vickie Patton, the group’s chief lawyer, took a break for a moment.

“It would be one of the most damaging actions, really, never taken in the history of the Environmental Protection Agency, if they are advancing with an effort to move away from the protection of the American people of some of the most dangerous pollution of our lives,” she said, pointing to the continuous effects of heat waves and aggravated lights by climate change, in addition to smog and vehicles. “It is the responsibility of the EPA to conclude the law and to ensure that the American people are protected against pollution of harmful exhaust pipes.”

Uncertainty for car manufacturers

Vehicle rolling standards has long been a priority for the oil and biofuels industries, emphasizing the question of intensifying the issue as the rules became more strict. In A statement last fall, The American Petroleum Institute described the standards as “intrusive government mandate”, while the American Farm Bureau said that it “fired the carpet of farmers under farmers” cultivating cultures for renewable fuels.

The position of the automotive industry was more nuanced, with the large automotive automotive trade group, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a few years ago to defend EPA law to establish strict standards – but also frequently stressing that it would be much easier and more efficient to have A set of standards instead of three.

Recently, as EV demand has increased more slowly than expected – which should now be aggravated by the elimination of the administration of Consumer fans tax credits – Traditional car manufacturers warned vocally that the Biden era standards are impracticable.

On Tuesday, John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, published a statement saying that the group “examines” the proposal “to understand what it means for the rules of emissions of American vehicles in the future”. He added that “there is no doubt that the regulation of vehicle emissions finalized under the previous administration is not achievable and should be revised to reflect the current market conditions”.

While many car manufacturers would accommodate a relaxation of the rules, the task between administrations and the prosecution written creates an enormous uncertainty, even if companies must make decisions concerning their product ranges five years or more in the future.

As for consumers, Beia Spiller, economist and stock market at Resources for the Future, a non -partisan thinking group, stresses that drivers as Have more effective cars. “People would prefer to have a vehicle that costs them less to work,” she said. But, she says, research shows that new car buyers focus more on initial prices (especially now, when these prices are so high) and undervalue their future fuel savings.

This means that market forces will not alone push cars to clean as quickly as regulations. Thus, decline, in addition to increasing emissions, would also increase long -term fuel costs for drivers.

But, she said, it would not send the market either in an immediate tour of gas guzems. Motor manufacturers have made significant investments in clean car technologies. Some of these investments could be reversed and simply canceled like lost money; Others could be postponed. Even if the EV sales flag, she says, hybrids, in particular, are likely to remain strong.