WASHINGTON - September 15 -  The Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency today teamed up to announce details of the first national plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars, light-duty trucks and SUVs.  Together, these vehicles are responsible for almost 60 percent of all U.S. transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.   According to the EPA, if implemented the rule would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 950 million metric tons and save some 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of the covered vehicles when compared to a business-as-usual approach. 

“The proposal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles under the Clean Air Act is a historic step in the fight against global warming,” said Vera Pardee, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Clean Air Act is our strongest and most successful tool for reducing air pollution, and will now be put to work together with our fuel economy law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect the air we breathe, and save consumers money.” 

The proposal is the first time greenhouse gas emissions will be regulated under the Clean Air Act, and it will have a significant impact in slowing the rise of U.S. emissions.  But the proposed standards will still leave the U.S. far short of the vehicle standards already achieved today by other countries and needed to avert dangerous levels of global warming. 

The proposed rule also increases national gas-mileage standards for these vehicles by about 5% per year with the standard reaching 35.5 mpg for model year 2016, ahead of the existing deadline to achieve 35 mpg by 2020.  Despite the increase, the Administration’s proposal even for 2016 fails to accomplish what the European Union, Japan and China are achieving today, at approximately 43.3, 42.6 mpg and 35.8 mpg, respectively.  Until the standards are further strengthened, the battered U.S. auto industry will likely remain last among its international rivals.

In November 2007, the Center for Biological Diversity, other NGOs and over a dozen states won a landmark court victory overturning the Bush administration’s fuel economy standards for model years 2008-2011, in part because of the administration’s failure to consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from the regulated vehicles.  New, but still inadequate standards for model year 2011 were proposed by the Bush administration and finalized by the Obama administration, and once again challenged by the Center for Biological Diversity in court in April, 2009. 

“While today’s proposal can and should be strengthened, we hope that it marks a turning point away from the fundamentally flawed approach to fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions used in the past, towards the rapid progress we can and must achieve to reduce greenhouse pollution and slow global warming,” said Pardee.  

Figure 1: Fuel Economy by Country/Region. Source: Actual and Projected Fuel Economy for New Passenger Vehicles by Country/Region, 2002-2020, ICCT (May, 2009); Bush proposal for 2011-2015 and the Obama proposals for 2011-2016 have been added to the ICCT graphic.

Documents:

Proposed Rule: EPA and DOT Greenhouse Gas and Fuel Economy Standards Vehicles

Further information from the agencies is available at:

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/regulations.htm

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/site/nhtsa/menuitem.43ac99aefa80569eea57529cdba046a0/