U.S. President Donald Trump said he would look to reinstate weaker automobile emissions standards, casting the vehicle pollution curbs imposed by former U.S. President Joe Biden as too onerous for automakers.
Trump said he discussed the issue with John Elkann, the chairman of Chrysler parent Stellantis NV, on Monday. Trump told reporters the pair talked about “some of the problems they have with the environment, which we’re going to clean up.”
“We’re going to go back, probably, to a 2020 standard,” Trump told reporters as he signed an unrelated executive order in the Oval Office. Existing pollution curbs, all over the world, don’t “mean a damn bit of difference for the environment” but “make it impossible for people to build cars,” he added.
That kind of recalibration in the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from the tailpipes of cars and light trucks would essentially freeze limits the Environmental Protection Agency embraced during Trump’s first term. Trump’s comments signal a return to a greenhouse gas pollution limit of 204 grams per mile for cars and 284 grams per mile for light trucks, once applied to model year 2020 vehicles.
During Trump’s first term, the EPA tried to freeze that 2020 level in place. But Biden later imposed a more rigorous trajectory, which limits tailpipe releases of carbon dioxide to 170 grams per mile for model year 2027 and just 85 grams per mile in 2032.
Trump has frequently criticized the Biden-era requirements as an EV mandate because they grow so stringent as to compel automakers to sell zero-emission electric vehicles.
Environmental advocates and scientists argue dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are necessary to contain global warming. The US transportation sector is the country’s leading source of that planet-warming pollution.
Trump on Monday defended the 2020 level as still “a strong standard,” adding: “We’re going to be bringing it back to a standard that is a very good environmental standard, but it makes it possible to build a car.”
Representatives of the EPA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But Trump has already directed the agency to eliminate what he’s called the “electric vehicle mandate,” and the EPA has embarked on a campaign to dial back dozens of environmental rules, including the auto pollution standards.
--With assistance from Hadriana Lowenkron and Josh Wingrove.
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