On Rollbacks, Automakers Tell Trump 'Not So Fast,' Kochs Say 'Burn More Gas'

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Itโ€™s a classic case of be careful what you wish for. Automakers asked the Trump administration to weaken emissions and efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, and are now anxious about just how much the Trump administration actually plans to weaken theย standards.

On Friday, May 12, heads of car companies visited the White House, to make the awkward request that Trump not actually give them what they askedย for.

In late April, a draft of a joint Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) plan leaked, signaling the administrationโ€™s intent to halt increases in fuel efficiency (or CAFE) standards after model year 2021, and to perform a legal end run around Californiaโ€™s authority under the Clean Air Act to set its own greenhouse gas emissions standards for personalย vehicles.

Fearing years of litigation from states โ€” including California and at least a dozen others โ€” and indefinite regulatory uncertainty, the automakers were quick to announce that they arenโ€™t seeking such a radical rollback from the currentย program.

โ€œWe are not asking the administration for a rollback,โ€ said Bill Ford, chairman of Ford Motor Co., at the companyโ€™s annual meeting last Thursday. โ€œWe want California at the table, and we want one nationalย standard.โ€

Mitch Bainwol, head of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (or Auto Alliance), the main domestic trade group of car companies, warned Congress of aย  โ€œregulatory nightmareโ€ if the federal standards and Californiaโ€™s were not aligned. Bainwol also said that โ€œautomakers continue to support increased year-over-year fuel efficiency standards and are investing heavily in new technologies to improve fuel economy for our customers and theย environment.โ€

Not long ago, Bainwol and the automakers were singing a different tune. โ€œIf left unchanged, those standards could cause up to 1.1 million Americans to lose jobs due to lost vehicle sales,โ€ Bainwol wrote in a February 2017 letter to Scott Pruitt and other Trumpย appointees.

As of this past week, the Auto Alliance is asking for the preservation of โ€œOne National Program,โ€ while asking โ€œCalifornia to compromiseโ€ as well and allow for some added flexibilities to allow for easier compliance as the standards continue toย increase.ย 

Trump Adminโ€™s Arguments for Rolling Backย Standards Fundamentallyย Flawed

In rejecting the Obama EPAโ€™s review of the current program, current EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt cited a number of industry-supplied reasons. None of them hold up toย scrutiny.

โ€œFacts donโ€™t lie, and the data completely refute the Trump/Pruitt Administrationโ€™s latest convoluted rationale for rolling back the standards,โ€ said Jack Gillis, Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of America (CFA). โ€œSafety is up, fuel economy is up, and sales are up. Older, gas guzzling cars are less safe and more expensive to operate and people know it. Thatโ€™s why they are being driven off the road. The truth is that todayโ€™s ‘all-new’ย vehicles are the safest, most efficient, most desirable cars, trucks, and SUVs in history, and consumers are responding by buying record numbers. Americans want cars that save both lives and money.ย โ€

Gillis and his staff released a report on May 10 that refuted the safety, cost, and sales arguments point by point. The CFA report found that while cars sold in the U.S. have increased from 21.8 miles per gallon (mpg) in 2011 to 25.1 mpg in 2018, they have also become safer. It also found that savings in gasoline costs over the life of the vehicle will generally outweigh the the average increase in vehicle price that could be attributed to the increased efficiencyย standards.

Finally, the report revealed that new car sales have been increasing at a historic rate, as the federally mandated efficiency increases have been in place. Thought Pruittโ€™s EPA argues that fuel efficiency standards hurt new car sales, the data reveals the exact opposite to beย true.

Koch Reps from Trumpโ€™s Transition Teams Tell Automakers to Burn Moreย Gasoline

Meanwhile, three former members of Trumpโ€™s transition teams โ€” all of whom work or worked with Koch-funded and Koch-founded organizations โ€” sent a letter to the President on May 10ย advising him to ignore the car companies and roll back theย standards:

โ€œAs a continuation of that progress, we encourage you to stay the course on needed and essential reforms to the federal automobile mandate, more commonly known as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) programย โ€ฆ

We understand that some in the automaker community have expressed concerns about your current plans to reform theย program.

But it is worth noting that early in your presidency, these same automakers urged your administration to ‘reconsider imposing such a far-reaching mandate on an entireย industry.’โ€

The letter was signed by Tom Pyle of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Shirley Ybarra, a former fellow at the Reason Foundation. All three organizations have close Koch ties, and Pyle was himself a lobbyist for Koch Industries, the petrochemical empire privatelyย owned by billionaire brothers Charles and Davidย Koch.

This letter echoes some main themes of another letter recently sentย by a different collection of Koch-affiliated spokespersons and groups, as reported last month in DeSmog. Both letters argue that the Trump administration should revoke Californiaโ€™s right, as expressed in the Clean Air Act and granted by a waiver from the EPA in 2009, to set its own greenhouse gas standards. Under the current regulatory regime, the waiver is redundant, as California agreed to the unified โ€œOne National Programโ€ with the EPA and DOT.

However, if the Trump administration backs out of the deal, Californiaโ€™s waiver would allow it to preserve stronger standards than Pruittโ€™s EPA wouldย demand.

Trump reportedly told Pruitt and DOT Secretary Elaine Chao to pick up negotiations with California. But as of now, itโ€™s anybodyโ€™s guess how the White House will respond to the automakersโ€™ plea for stability andย consistency.

Main image: President Trump meets with auto industry executives days after taking office.ย Credit: The White House, publicย domain

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Ben Jervey is a Senior Fellow for DeSmog and directs the KochvsClean.com project. He is a freelance writer, editor, and researcher, specializing in climate change and energy systems and policy. Ben is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. He was the original Environment Editor for GOOD Magazine, and wrote a longstanding weekly column titled โ€œThe New Ideal: Building the clean energy economy of the 21st Century and avoiding the worst fates of climate change.โ€ He has also contributed regularly to National Geographic News, Grist, and OnEarth Magazine. He has published three booksโ€”on eco-friendly living in New York City, an Energy 101 primer, and, most recently, โ€œThe Electric Battery: Charging Forward to a Low Carbon Future.โ€ He graduated with a BA in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College, and earned a Masterโ€™s in Energy Regulation and Law at Vermont Law School. A bicycle enthusiast, Ben has ridden across the United States and through much ofย Europe.

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