Long overdue...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration will announce as early as Wednesday it is revoking California’s authority to set its own greenhouse gas and vehicle fuel efficiency standards and barring all states from setting such rules, two auto industry officials said on Tuesday.

The move is sure to spark legal challenges over issues including states’ rights and climate change that administration officials say could ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump met with senior officials last Thursday and agreed to greenlight the plan to bar California from setting tailpipe emission standards or requiring zero emission vehicles, Reuters reported last week. The White House declined to comment.

The administration plans to issue separate rules rolling back Obama-era fuel economy requirements in the coming weeks. A formal announcement is tentatively set for Wednesday at the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) headquarters and automakers and dealers have been invited to attend, industry officials said.

Government officials said the timing is still in flux and could be announced later in the week.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, speaking to a group of auto dealers, said Tuesday that “in the very near future, the Trump administration will begin taking the steps necessary to establish one set of national fuel-economy standards.”

Under Trump, federal regulators have backed freezing emissions requirements for new cars and trucks at 2020 levels through 2026. Administration officials say its final regulation will include a modest boost in annual efficiency requirements but far less than what the Obama administration set in 2012.

The Obama-era rules called for a fleetwide fuel efficiency average of 46.7 miles per gallon by 2025, with average annual increases of about 5%, compared with 37 mpg by 2026 under the Trump administration’s preferred option to freeze requirements.

Wheeler said the EPA would take action “very soon” with the U.S. Transportation Department “to bring clarity to the proper – and improper – scope and use of the Clean Air Act preemption waiver.”

Reuters has previously reported the administration plans to revoke the waiver California received in 2013 to set its own vehicle emissions standards that are followed by more than a dozen other states.

California wants 15.4% of vehicle sales by 2025 to be EVs or other zero emission vehicles and 10 other states have adopted those requirements.

California has vowed to challenge the Trump administration effort, arguing that the United States has an obligation to protect the environment for future generations. “We’ll see you in court if you stand in our way,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said.

Some senior administration officials believe provoking a court battle with California gives them a historic chance to displace the state from vehicle emissions oversight and could give the Supreme Court the chance to revisit a landmark 5-4 2007 decision that found the EPA has the legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles.

Wheeler on Tuesday said California’s ability to address smog and other forms of air pollution caused by motor vehicles would not be affected.

“One national standard will provide much-needed regulatory certainty to automakers, dealers, and consumers,” he said.

To meet the Obama-era rules, automakers might have been forced to lower the price of electric vehicles and “raise the price of other, more popular vehicles, such as SUVs and trucks,” Wheeler added.

“In other words, American families are paying more for SUVs and trucks so automakers can sell EVs at a cheaper price.”

Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, said the attack on California and other states “threatens to make America polluted again. It rejects cleaner, less-polluting vehicles in favor of pollution-spewing Trump-mobiles for urban cowboys hauling lattes home from Starbucks.”

The Trump administration is battling California on several auto industry fronts.

In August, the Justice Department sent letters to four major automakers asking about their voluntary agreement with California to adopt compromise vehicle emissions requirements, antitrust chief Makan Delrahim confirmed Tuesday.

“I’m not out there to try to increase pollution into the air,” Delrahim said at a Senate hearing.

Ford Motor Co (F.N), Honda Motor Co (7267.T), BMW AG (BMWG.DE), and Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) said in July they had reached a deal to adopt standards that were lower than Obama-era rules but higher than the Trump administration’s 2018 proposal.

The automakers were defying the Trump administration’s effort to strip California of the right to fight climate change by setting its own standards.

ARTICLE

God bless Donald J. Trump.

-Rob

One of the last minute acts performed by outgoing Democrat Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper was to tie Colorado's vehicle emission levels to California's ridiculously high standards.

I recently caught a radio interview with a representative of a Colorado car dealer's association who opposed this measure as a needless and onerous burden on both the state dealership's as well as customers buying a new vehicle. He pointed to the fact that Colorado's air pollution had already been greatly reduced, largely due to better designed emission control systems as well as more efficient engines burning less fuel. In fact, the vehicle emission levels have dropped pollution levels to such a level that many counties dropped their emission testing programs as needlessly wasteful and instead subsidized some repairs on the few remaining older vehicles that might emit higher levels.

Due to the higher elevations in Colorado, not to mention the fact that many in the state pull heavier loads or pull recreation vehicles, and greater average snow totals in some parts of the state, trucks and SUVs are popular vehicles. He estimated tying Colorado's vehicle emission standards to California's increased the average cost of a new vehicle $2000 to $5000 or greater, compared to new vehicles sold in states with lower emission standards.

The vehicle emmissions tests are a joke. A waste of time and tax payers money. Stop all states doing this CRAP!

Good!

It’s nice to have standards for cleaner running vehicles.
It’s quite a different thing to have them forcibly shoved down your throat.

I'd like to say this should be a states' rights issue, but California has gone too far with this "greenhouse gas" business. A gasoline engine puts out more CO2 when the combustion is made more efficient. If gasoline is burned with 100% efficiency, the only byproducts are CO2 and H2O (this is the reason you sometimes see water dripping from your tail pipe or drain holes in the muffler), neither of which is harmful.

quote:

Originally posted by kramden:
The vehicle emmissions tests are a joke. A waste of time and tax payers money. Stop all states doing this CRAP!

And I would imagine that, just like political polls, the results of this emission "testing" can be skewed to render the desired result to support whatever agenda and conclusion the government wants, eh?

Now if he’ll roll back diesel emissions so we can get rid of def and dpf’s. This alone would have huge financial benefits to fleets. Longer longevity of engines and increased fuel mileage. And lower maintenance. The only ones to not like it are the dealers/mechanics and tow trucks.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
I'd like to say this should be a states' rights issue, but California has gone too far with this "greenhouse gas" business. A gasoline engine puts out more CO2 when the combustion is made more efficient. If gasoline is burned with 100% efficiency, the only byproducts are CO2 and H2O (this is the reason you sometimes see water dripping from your tail pipe or drain holes in the muffler), neither of which is harmful.

It's not a States Rights issue, they are passing regulations that affect every person in all fifty states. Companies have to plan a decade in advance to design and produce cars to meet CA standards. Manufacturers won't make two lines of cars one for CA and one for rest of the country, so what CA sets becomes the de facto law. Remember when there were CA compliant cars back in the day? I'd find a car I might be interested in then find out it had 10 less HP because of their smog controls and have to pass.

I don't want CA telling me I can't have my 17mpg car, nor do I want to subsidize someone's EV car purchase. It's BS that they can make EV cars loss leaders to stick it to me when I want a V6 or V8.

quote:

Originally posted by BurtonRW:
God bless Donald J. Trump.

-Rob

Amen

A friend of mine who works with "folks" from Sacramento told me that the general thought among the Sacramento tyrants is that no vehicle more than 15 years old should be allowed to operate on California roads. She told me to not be surprised when I see new regulations that make it difficult to register my vehicles in the future if and when they are 15 years old or older. Never-mind that I maintain all of my vehicles with great care and that they always pass the emissions tests with flying colors. They're more than 15 years old - time for me to saddle myself with debt in order to obtain newer vehicles.

Gosh I hate Leftists. I see them as petty tyrants.

quote:

Originally posted by synthplayer:
A friend of mine who works with "folks" from Sacramento told me that the general thought among the Sacramento tyrants is that no vehicle more than 15 years old should be allowed to operate on California roads. She told me to not be surprised when I see new regulations that make it difficult to register my vehicles in the future if and when they are 15 years old or older. Never-mind that I maintain all of my vehicles with great care and that they always pass the emissions tests with flying colors. They're more than 15 years old - time for me to saddle myself with debt in order to obtain newer vehicles.

Gosh I hate Leftists. I see them as petty tyrants.

They don’t include the huge amount of energy invested into the manufacture of a new vehicle. Requiring new vehicles every 15 years is wasteful. Besides, California has a huge classic cars scene. Wonder how this will go over with them?

Hey California, want to get serious about emissions? Ban all drive through services. Bam! Emissions reduced by 15% overnight. But then that would affect too many rule makers directly. Environmentalist theatre makes way more sense.

quote:

Gosh I hate Leftists. I see them as petty tyrants.

That's only because they are.

Probably have antique and classic cars exempt with the appropriate plate. Condition of plate is probably no daily driving. The guys with a car not quite old enough to be an antique or classic will be hung. Especially if antique is older than 25 and classic if they have one is same age or 20 and older. Some states have a distinction whether it’s by year or usage. Always be someone that doesn’t fit the exception and gets hosed.

I actually wish Trump would have stayed out of it. I wish the AutoMakers had the cajones to to say, OK, your standards are trash, no more cars for you! The gun list is no skin off their nose because they hate guns, but as soon as they turned into Cuba, with only old cars because no new cars met their "approved" list, their song would probably change. Just my take.

I'd prefer to see California reach a point where auto manufacturers are forced to stop offering most vehicles in the state. Let them reap what they sow. To this point, the CA market has been simply too large to ignore, but it can't go on forever. Regardless of what their politicians believe, they can't legislate physics.

quote:

Originally posted by jigray3:
I'd prefer to see California reach a point where auto manufacturers are forced to stop offering most vehicles in the state. Let them reap what they sow. To this point, the CA market has been simply too large to ignore, but it can't go on forever. Regardless of what their politicians believe, they can't legislate physics.

As a CA resident who is subject to the CA roster of not unsafe handguns, I have seen how it creates artificial scarcity and what that does to the price of anything interesting. Personally, it’s bad enough with guns. It would really suck if the same thing happened with cars and trucks.

As a liberty-minded individual hoping to escape this hellhole in three years though, the idea of all manufacturers just saying FU and not selling any cars or trucks into CA at all (not to individuals, not to government entities, not to anyone) seems like it might not be a bad thing. When the people were upset, tell them to fix their politicians. (Spaying or neutering many politicians seems like a good idea anyway. )

^^^^ I am sympathetic to your plight, unfortunately I think cars might just get you to the kind of critical mass necessary to create the political pushback we'd all like to see.

My dual carb 1964 Volkswagon is exempt from Smog requirements due to its age. Yet I have to smog my 2004 truck every other year.

Wouldn't you think the 1964 car is more polluting than the 2004 truck??
So what's the purpose of this California smog/clean air emission standard?

Makes NO sense. I can't wait to get out of this shit hole state.

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:

quote:

Originally posted by jigray3:
I'd prefer to see California reach a point where auto manufacturers are forced to stop offering most vehicles in the state. Let them reap what they sow. To this point, the CA market has been simply too large to ignore, but it can't go on forever. Regardless of what their politicians believe, they can't legislate physics.

As a CA resident who is subject to the CA roster of not unsafe handguns, I have seen how it creates artificial scarcity and what that does to the price of anything interesting. Personally, it’s bad enough with guns. It would really suck if the same thing happened with cars and trucks.

As a liberty-minded individual hoping to escape this hellhole in three years though, the idea of all manufacturers just saying FU and not selling any cars or trucks into CA at all (not to individuals, not to government entities, not to anyone) seems like it might not be a bad thing. When the people were upset, tell them to fix their politicians. (Spaying or neutering many politicians seems like a good idea anyway. )

CA has stretched it's influence from MPG to rounds per mag. Manufactures have to make CA compliant guns plus normal state designed mags.

Exact same concept. Gun makers have to make CA compliant guns, and it adds cost to us in other states that supplement the purchase price for a Californian compliant gun. Or even worse you can't even buy the gun of your choice because it's not on a preapproved CA list or you can't buy that sports car you've worked your whole life for.

Don't let CA drive how many horses you can have under hood or rounds in your magazines. I am sorry you fucked your own state, but your smog and violence has nothing to do with me, don't punish me because of your bad governance or over population.

PS Double fuck your California.

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