Vehicle emissions standards pit California against EPA

The US Environmental Protection Agency and California regulators appear headed for a showdown over Obama-era standards regarding vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA wants to ease the nationwide tailpipe standard for cars and light trucks, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt told a Senate committee on 30 January; the California Air Resources Board wants to keep in place the existing regulations, which were adopted in 2011 and reaffirmed just prior to President Trump’s taking office. Even if the EPA scales back the standard, California and the 12 other states that follow its lead can uphold the stricter standard—unless the EPA revokes the waiver that allows the states to do so.

The current EPA/California standard calls for automakers to cut greenhouse gas emissions nearly in half from their 2012 levels, to 163 grams per mile (101 g/km), by 2025. The related Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard, which is regulated by the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is set at 49.7 miles per gallon (21 km/liter) by 2025. That’s a 67% increase from the 2012 level. The auto industry has sought to roll back those standards, arguing that they can’t be met if the companies are to provide the pickup trucks, minivans, and sport utility vehicles that consumers want.

Pruitt last year reopened a review of the feasibility of achieving the 2025 greenhouse emissions standard. He said the Obama administration and California had prematurely concluded the analysis, which determined that no change was needed. The EPA intends to complete the review and announce its decision on the limits by 1 April, Pruitt told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Since before the EPA’s 1970 inception, California has been granted a waiver to establish its own more stringent vehicle emissions limits. Twelve other states and the District of Columbia have since adopted the Golden State’s regulation. The EPA, however, must approve California’s waiver. Although Pruitt didn’t explicitly threaten to revoke it, he told the lawmakers that “one national program is essential” and that “federalism doesn’t mean that one state should dictate a standard to the rest of the country.”

California Air Resources Board chair Mary Nichols told a 2 February Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in Palo Alto that there will be “a war, with many states lining up with California” if the waiver is revoked, according to news reports . She said the state has no intention of loosening its regulation.

David Cooke of the Union of Concerned Scientists says that revoking the waiver would be unprecedented. The Clean Air Act allows the EPA to deny a waiver to California or any other state only if that state’s standards are less stringent than federal ones, aren’t necessary to meet compelling conditions, or are inconsistent with the act. Cooke said it would be difficult to argue that California lacks a compelling reason to limit greenhouse gas emissions, given recent wildfires and ongoing drought conditions.

Automakers argue that complying with the current standard will force them to sell fewer of the large vehicles that consumers continue snapping up as gasoline prices remain low. Speaking in late January at the Washington, DC, auto show, William Wehrum, EPA assistant administrator for air and radiation, said “the government shouldn’t be in the business of choosing the cars people want.”

But Cooke says that manufacturers already have technologies available for all classes of vehicles that could get them to achieve the 2025 standard. He points to a new Dodge Ram pickup, with a 48-volt hybrid system and other fuel-saving features, that was unveiled at the Detroit auto show in January.