The Trump administration on Thursday put forth its long-awaited proposal to freeze antipollution and fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles and challenge the right of states, California in particular, to set their own, more stringent tailpipe pollution standards.
The administration’s plans immediately faced opposition from an unusual mix of critics — including not only environmentalists and consumer groups but auto-industry representatives as well as individual states — who are now launching efforts to change the plan before it is finalized.
Thursday’s proposal goes much further than many major automakers wanted, and manufacturers are now worried that years of legal challenges and regulatory uncertainty could complicate their business.
The governor of California, Jerry Brown, said his state was prepared to fight. “For Trump to now destroy a law first enacted at the request of Ronald Reagan five decades ago is a betrayal and an assault on the health of Americans everywhere,” he said.
Administration officials have lied trying to justify it saying that, by promoting lighter cars, the Obama-era standards could lead to about 12,700 more auto fatalities over the coming 13 years. However, it clashes with the Obama administration’s analysis of the same rule, which found that improving fuel-economy standards would actually lead to about 100 fewer auto-related casualties over the next 13 years.
Experts have disputed the accuracy of the new analysis.”The administration’s effort to roll back these standards is a denial of basic science and a denial of American automakers’ engineering capabilities and ingenuity,” said John DeCicco, an expert on transportation technology at the University of Michigan.
A group of 19 state attorneys general announced their plans to sue the administration if it finalizes the rule. The attorneys general said they expected to focus on the claim that cleaner cars would lead to more crash fatalities. “The case we’ll make is that the data and science do not back up what they’re trying to do,” said Josh Shapiro, the attorney general of Pennsylvania
… few industries spoke up in its favor, even among those that the proposal might benefit. The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil business — which stands to gain if the rule change creates a greater demand for gasoline — did not put out a public statement on the proposal.
Maura Healey, the attorney general of Massachusetts, said, “Once again, the E.P.A. has handed decision-making to fossil fuel lobbyists and climate change deniers, while sticking the American people with the bill. Together with California, and 19 other states, my office will be suing to stop this terrible proposal.”
That legal threat is what worries the nation’s automakers, who will now urge the Trump administration to go back to the table and find a way to strike a deal with California and the other states before issuing a final proposal.
“With today’s release of the administration’s proposals, it’s time for substantive negotiations to begin,” Gloria Bergquist, a spokeswoman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said in a statement. “We urge California and the federal government to find a common sense solution that sets continued increases in vehicle efficiency standards while also meeting the needs of America’s drivers.”
Also urging the Trump administration to go back to the drawing board will be the nation’s manufacturers of auto parts and components. Those companies say that the uncertainty of a protracted legal battle would freeze investment and innovation in the high-tech auto-parts sector.
again, Trump is mentally ill with a 4th grade negative attitude:
Mr. Wheeler’s views have clashed with those of others in the administration, particularly in the White House and at the Transportation Department, who are understood to be spoiling for a fight with California.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/climate/trump-auto-emissions-california.html
Trump Officials Link Fuel Economy Rules to Deadly Crashes. Experts Are Skeptical.
Lets’ get real here. Trump and the republicans will say anything to sucker people into following them. They don’t care what the truth is, they just want to wreck any attempts to save the environment for which they have no interest.
see
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/climate/trump-fuel-economy.html