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NewsWire

A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact:

Suzanne Struglinski, NRDC, 202-423-6004, sstruglinski@nrdc.org

EPA, DOT Issue Landmark Clean Car Emission Standards

New Rules Will Save Consumers Billions at the Pump, Cut Global Warming Pollution and Curb Dependence on Foreign Oil

WASHINGTON

The Environmental Protection Agency finalized vehicle emission
standards today that will make millions of new cars, SUVs, minivans and
pick-up trucks use fuel more efficiently. These standards will reduce
greenhouse gases, save consumers billions at the gas pump and reduce our
national reliance on foreign oil, according to the Natural Resources
Defense Council.

These federal EPA emission standards, issued in conjunction
with the Department of Transportation fuel economy standards, will bring
the benefits of California's landmark clean car standards to the entire
nation. The California standards, set in 2004, were adopted by 13 other
states and the District of Columbia. In an historic agreement announced
in the Rose Garden in May 2009, President Obama brought the states, the
auto makers, labor unions, and the environmental community together to
extend the benefits of those standards nationwide and end a protracted
legal battle.

The Natural Resources Defense Council played a key role in
passing California's clean car legislation, developing its standards,
defending them in court, and working out the clean car agreement
announced last May.

NRDC estimates that the new standards will save consumers $65
billion at the pump in 2020 by cutting oil consumption by 1.3 million
barrels of oil a day, while also slashing global warming pollution by
more than 220 million metric tons in 2020.

The following is a statement by Roland Hwang,
Transportation Program Director at the Natural Resources Defense
Council:

"A year ago, President Obama said his administration would
enact better clean car standards for our country and, today, they made
it a reality. These historic standards will help consumers, automakers,
and the planet. Clean, efficient cars will put us on the road to safely
reducing our dangerous dependency on foreign oil.

"These national emission standards represent a consensus
among the state and federal governments, the automakers, the
environmental community, and labor unions on effective action under the
Clean Air Act to curb dangerous global warming pollution.

"By completing these rules, the Obama Administration is
putting our country on the road to creating thousands of clean energy
jobs and cutting our dangerous dependency on oil.

"We look forward to working with the automakers, the unions,
the administration, and the states on future standards that will ensure
that the United States remains a leader in clean car technologies."

NRDC works to safeguard the earth--its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. We combine the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of some 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild.

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