Auto fuel efficiency standards

The Trump administration released a final rule Tuesday rolling back auto fuel efficiency standards, which will let cars and light trucks emit about 1 billion more tons of carbon pollution over the lifetime of the vehicle fleet than under the standards set by the Obama administration.

“This is one of the most reckless and unconscionable decisions made by any president, and doing it in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis is doubly insidious,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group.

The Obama-era fuel standards were the single largest effort by the federal government to fight global warming and the health hazards of carbon dioxide emissions, according to a New York Times article. Several automakers supported the standards, which required them to increase fuel efficiency to 54 miles per gallon by 2025. Under the Trump rollback, vehicle fleets will be required to average about 40 miles per gallon.

Air pollution from automobiles is one of the major drivers of the climate crisis and can cause or worsen serious health problems, including damage to the heart, lungs, and respiratory system, putting people at greater risk of falling ill from viruses, including COVID-19, the EWG said.

The Trump administration’s estimates show the increase in air pollution from tailpipes as a result of the rollback will mean more Americans will die, according to a Washington Post article. The rollback will increase tailpipe emissions by 1.5 billion tons over five years.

“These achievable mileage standards would combat climate change and reduce the number of early deaths caused by tailpipe pollution,” said Cook. “At a moment when all Americans are at increased risk from the coronavirus, the president has once again put the profits of the fossil fuel and auto industries ahead of public health.”

President Trump and his administration have overseen an unprecedented assault on federal policies aimed at reducing industrial pollution from tailpipes, power plants, and coal, oil, and natural gas extraction operations, he said.

The administration has repealed, or is in the process of repealing, at least 95 different environmental rules, with 25 having a direct and adverse impact on the nation’s air quality, and dozens of others that will indirectly increase air pollution.

“Let’s also be clear that leading auto companies cravenly pressed Trump immediately after the election for relief from the Obama-era standards, including companies taxpayers bailed out in 2009 during the financial meltdown,” Cook said. “While many in the auto industry believe Trump’s deregulation hawks have taken things too far, their initial lobbying triggered this process. Those companies are fully and equally responsible for Trump’s rollback.”

Less than a month after Trump took office, the Auto Alliance, a lobby group representing the 17 largest companies that sell cars in the United States, wrote then-EPA chief Scott Pruitt, urging him to roll back the Obama mileage standards. As the EPA worked toward the rollback, Ford, Honda, BMW, and Volkswagen signed an agreement with the state of California to continue to raise mileage standards to levels similar to those called for in the Obama rule. However, Toyota, GM, Fiat Chrysler, and other companies sided with the Trump administration’s efforts to take away California’s right to set its own tougher mileage standards.

Environmental law enforcement

In an unprecedented move during the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration Friday suspend enforcement of critical environmental laws.

It’s shameful and further evidence of the administration’s utter disregard for public health, the EWG said.

The Environmental Protection Agency will let the chemical, coal, petroleum, electric utility, and other industries use “enforcement discretion” to determine for themselves whether they should be required to monitor and report air and water pollution discharges.

“Under the policy, EPA does not expect to seek penalties for noncompliance with routine monitoring and reporting obligations” by industry, the agency said in a news release Thursday. As long as industrial operations, such as chemical production facilities and coal-fired power plants, claim they can’t adhere to pollution control and monitoring requirements due to disruptions caused by covid-19, they can ignore those environmental laws indefinitely.

The EPA’s order, issued by Susan Bodine, assistant administrator for enforcement, says “facilities with environmental compliance obligations should act responsibly.”

Cook said in a tweet:

If companies “acted responsibly” we wouldn’t have needed EPA and environmental rules in the first place. But we did, and do, and this is a shameful, defining act of deregulation for the Trump administration that has made clear its view that we are not all in this together.

“Using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to turn over pollution control laws to polluters further demonstrates the glaring reality that the Trump administration has absolutely no regard for public health,” he said. “At a time when all Americans’ health is at risk, giving polluters license to ignore regulations on emissions of toxic chemicals and air pollutants is reckless and irresponsible.”