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23 American States to Sue Trump Administration Over Weakened Fuel Efficiency
By Patryk Krych | The World Daily | MAY 28th 2020
On Wednesday (May 27th), 23 American states, along with the District of Columbia, had filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its purposeful weakening of fuel efficiency standards that had been set in place during Barack Obama’s presidency.
The 5% annual increases in vehicle fuel efficiency set under former President Barack Obama had been waved by the Trump administration, in March time, where they’d set the standards to be at a comparatively meek 1.5%. This is a standard that’s meant to be set and followed through to the year 2026.
The administration had also sparked the lawsuit and outrage through its abandoned the August 2018 proposal to freeze the requirements at 2020 levels, through to 2026. Direct comment on the nature of the lawsuit was declined, by the Environmental Protection Agency, but the decision was defended as having been described as a “sensible, single national program that strikes the right regulatory balance, protects our environment, and sets reasonable targets for the auto industry.”
With this in mind, the administration is not only seeing heat from the 23 states, but also from at least 12 separate environmental groups, which include well-known names like the ‘Environmental Defence Fund’, ‘Sierra Club’ and the ‘Union of Concerned Scientists’, all of which had also filed lawsuits over the administration’s rulings.
The Trump administration is accused of having “used questionable science, faulty logic and ludicrous assumptions to justify what they wanted from the start: to gut and rewrite the single most important air regulation of the past decade,” said California Air Resources Board chair Mary Nichols.
The vehicle-emission and fuel-economy standards originally issued and now waved under the Obama administration were renowned as the single largest action the federal government had ever taken in terms of addressing the worldwide matter of climate change. The rulings had done well to slash climate-changing air pollution, and managed to cut America’s oil dependency, all while saving drivers up to 90 billion dollars at oil pumps.
The Obama administration’s work to put environmental concerns and regulations over those that benefit the industry are being flipped around in the wake of the Trump administration, who have, since Trump’s presidency, ditched numerous environmental rules and guidelines that caused any setback or harm to American industries.
According to a trade group, the lawsuit would be reviewed by them. The trade group represents General Motors Co, Toyota Motor Corp, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and many more primarily vehicle-production and distribution-based companies.
"The Trump administration's reckless reversal of the clean car standards is riddled with mathematical and logical errors, according to the administration’s own economists,” said Joanne Spalding, the Sierra Club’s Chief Climate Counsel. “This flawed rule will increase pollution, endanger public health, cut auto jobs, and further burden American families with higher fuelling costs. The Sierra Club has fought for strong clean car standards for decades, and today's filing is the latest in years of advocacy for climate action that protects people and the planet.”
The Trump administration itself has spoken out about the lawsuit in its own defence, claiming that their decision would be more positive for the environment in the long run. The specific claims it’s made in defence of its decision to change the fuel efficiency standards was that their decision would successfully reduce the costs of future new car, as well as help save automakers billions of dollars in regulatory costs. As well as this, they say, it would boost average consumer fuel costs, and lift the total oil consumption by 2 billion barrels at the very least, all while lowering carbon dioxide emissions by 867 to 923 million metric tons.
“These illegal rollbacks mean more air pollution that harms our health and fuels the climate crisis, while sucking billions of dollars more out of Americans’ pockets at the pump,” said senior attorney for NRDC (Natural Resources Defence Council), Ben Longstreth.
By Patryk Krych | © The World Daily 2020
