lowered fuel economy standards<\/a> for petrol-powered vehicles.<\/p>\nThe lawsuit, filed on Friday, challenges the Department of Transportation\u2019s rollback of fuel economy standards to a fleet average fuel economy of 34.9 miles (56km) per gallon (3.78 litres) by model year 2031. Under the administration of former President Joe Biden, fuel economy standards were set at 50.4 miles (81km) per gallon by model year 2031.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the lawsuit, argued that the Trump administration improperly changed how federal regulators calculate fuel economy standards.<\/p>\n
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) bases standards on technological improvements that could make petrol-powered vehicles more efficient. To do that, it first models the current fleet\u2019s performance and then considers what additional actions manufacturers could take to improve their fuel economy in future model years above that.<\/p>\n
In past standards, including during the first Trump administration, NHTSA\u2019s baseline fleet included the millions of electric vehicles that already run on US roads.<\/p>\n
Bonta said the Transportation Department change ignores the existing slate of EVs, which makes it easier to justify weaker standards for petrol-powered vehicles, and called the approach \u201cflawed\u201d and \u201cdramatically distorted\u201d.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also alleges that NHTSA\u2019s new rule is contrary to law and that NHTSA contravenes its mandate from Congress to set fuel-economy standards at their \u201cmaximum feasible\u201d level.<\/p>\n
The Transportation Department has said the change could save American taxpayers $138bn over the next five years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe president started a war that has created volatility in oil markets, disrupted global energy supplies, and left families and businesses paying the price at the pump. Yet, the Trump administration is attempting to gut fuel economy standards and force Americans to spend billions more on gas while poisoning the air in our communities,\u201d Attorney General Bonta said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The rollback was applauded by car makers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe welcome the Administration\u2019s efforts to reset the CAFE [Corporate Average Fuel Economy] regulations to more achievable targets that are better aligned with market realities,\u201d said Shane Karr, senior vice president of public affairs at Stellantis North America.<\/p>\n
Second lawsuit<\/p>\n
The litigation by the states came in tandem with a second lawsuit filed on Friday by progressive and climate groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund and Public Citizen.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s lawless push to roll back key safeguards on fuel economy will pollute our air, and line the pockets of oil and auto CEOs. We are confident of stopping Trump\u2019s CAFE standards rollback,\u201d Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen said in a statement announcing the lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in Washington DC.<\/p>\n
Auto stocks were trending downward throughout the day, with Ford, General Motors and Toyota closing down around 1 percent. Stellantis fell more than 6 percent amid reports of slumping sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lawsuit alleges NHTSA contravenes its congressional mandate to set fuel-economy standards at \u2018maximum feasible\u2019 . Published On 2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[23569,53972,7,9,8,1312,536,383,643,100,1963,13,13880,13421,435,9098],"class_list":["post-483559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-automotive-industry","tag-business-and-economy","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-courts","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-environment","tag-news","tag-oil-and-gas","tag-politics","tag-renewable-energy","tag-transport","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}