EPA Slams California’s Air Quality as It Curbs State’s Authority
Trump Administration Moves to Curb California’s Car Regulations
(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration moved to strip California of its authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, even as it warned the state it needs to do more to combat smog.
“California has the worst air quality in the United States,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said Thursday, adding that tens of millions of people in the state live in areas that don’t meet ambient air standards. “We hope California will focus on these issues.”
Although Trump announced the move on Twitter Wednesday, it was formally unveiled during an event at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington on Thursday, in front of free-market, conservative advocates, National Automobile Dealers Association officials, multi-franchise owner Geoff Pohanka, and Gloria Bergquist, vice president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said the move to gut California’s powers would reinforce the federal government’s role setting vehicle standards.
“The one national program that we are announcing today will ensure that there is one -- and only one -- set of national fuel economy standards as Congress mandated and intended,” Chao said. “No state has the authority to opt out of the nation’s rules and no state has a right to impose its policies on everybody else in our whole country.”
In its action, the Transportation Department asserts that its authority to set fuel-economy standards preempts California’s own tailpipe standards. The EPA also is formally withdrawing a 2013 waiver that authorized California to pursue its own tailpipe greenhouse gas emission standard and zero-emission vehicle mandate, arguing both programs are prohibited by the Clean Air Act.
The waiver withdrawal will be effective for the 2021 model year.
Chao and Wheeler framed the actions as delivering on a promise made by President Donald Trump in March 2017, when he declared before a crowd of auto workers in Michigan that his administration would reevaluate fuel economy and emissions standards adopted during the Obama administration. Chao called those rule “unattainable” and said they needed to be weakened because “consumers were being priced out of newer, safer vehicles.”
They also cast it as a measure to prevent California from acting as a de facto national regulator, saying the state cannot overstep its authority to fight local smog and air-pollution within its borders by regulating greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change, a global issue.
“We will not let political agendas in a single state to be imposed on the other 49,” Chao said.
The administration is still working to finalize its plan for weakening existing federal fuel-economy and tailpipe emissions standards. Wheeler said those changes will “save lives and promote economic growth by reducing the price of new vehicles to help more Americans purchase newer, cleaner and safer cars and trucks.”
Trump administration officials say the effort will help everyday Americans afford new vehicles by dialing back environmental mandates that drive up vehicle prices.
Even as the administration moved to undercut California’s authority, it took pains to emphasize the state is still on the hook to clean up its auto pollution.
California officials have argued that its tailpipe emission standards are critical to helping clean up smog and satisfy national standards for ozone and air quality and have said they will fight the revocation in court if necessary.
Legal experts said the Trump administration may have a tough time defending a suit. A waiver has never been revoked in the 50-year-history of the Clean Air Act, said Julia Stein, a University of California at Los Angeles environmental law expert.
“Ironically, even though the administration insists that it will be creating ‘one national standard’ by revoking California’s waiver, it will actually be doing the opposite,” Stein wrote in a blog post.
California officials including Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a press conference Wednesday that the state has received roughly 100 waivers to combat air pollution and they would defend the one underpinning its vehicle rules.
“This is such a pivotal moment in the history of climate change,” Newsom said, citing statistics on the role of transportation in greenhouse gas emissions. “This is our legacy moment.”
With some 35 million vehicles in the state, and the transportation sector’s role as the top contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, Becerra said California’s ability to combat vehicle greenhouse gas emissions is critical to the state’s clean-air goals.
To contact the reporters on this story: Ryan Beene in Washington at rbeene@bloomberg.net;Jennifer A. Dlouhy in Washington at jdlouhy1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman
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