(Image source from: Financial Post)
The Trump administration on Thursday backing away government's years of endeavors to cut America's trips to the gas station and cut down climate-changing tailpipe emissions, and unhealthy, proposed rolling back car-mileage standards.
If the proposed rule gets finalized, the auto industry could get roiled as it prepares for new model years and weaken one of the primary weapons of the federal government against climate-change regulating emissions from cars and else vehicles.
The result, opponents say, will be dirtier air and more pollution-related illness and death. The proposal itself estimates it could cost tens of thousands of jobs auto workers who deal with making vehicles more fuel efficient.
The administration also said it wants to revoke an authority granted to California under the half-century-old Clean Air Act to set its own, tougher mileage standards. California and 16 other states already have filed suit to block any change in the fuel efficiency rules.
"The EPA has handed decision making over to the fossil fuel lobbyists ... the flat-Earthers, the climate change deniers," said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.
The United States mileage standards would freeze by the proposal at levels mandated by the Obama administration for 2020.
The proposed alteration, stopping further improvement necessitates, stakes its case on consumer choice and on highway safety claims challenged by many transportation experts.
The administration says waiving requirements for greater fuel efficiency would make cars and light trucks somewhat more affordable. And that, it said, would get vehicles with the latest technology into the hands of consumers more quickly.
Now, the administration will seek public comment on its proposal including leaving the tighter, Obama fuel standards in place and range of other options,
Though environmental groups and galore states assailed it, some Republican lawmakers supported the mileage freeze.
Under the presidency of Barack Obama, the EPA had proposed mileage standards that bit by bit would become tougher, rising to 36 miles per gallon in 2025, 10 mpg higher than the current requirement. In 2012, California and the automakers agreed to the rules, setting a single national fuel economy standard.
President Donald Trump, shortly after taking office called for a rollback, urging "common sense changes" if the mileage necessitates threatened auto industry jobs.
A Transportation Department spokesperson called the estimate of job losses "rough approximations."
Two former EPA mileage officials said the administration's proposal departed from years of findings on fuel efficiency, car safety, exhaust emissions, and costs.
By Sowmya Sangam
