For Immediate Release
Andrea McGimsey, Environment America Sr. Dir. of Global Warming Solutions, amcgimsey@environmentamerica.org, (703)-477-4722
Endangering Human Health and the Planet: Environment America Gives President Trump a Citizen Citation
WASHINGTON - Today, Americans are rallying at the White House to deliver a citizen citation to Pres. Donald Trump for rolling back fuel economy standards that are working to protect human health and the environment.
Despite the many dangers of rolling back these standards, from global warming to negative public health effects, the Trump administration is once again going the wrong way on clean cars.
President Trump is meeting today with the CEOs of major automakers to discuss his administration’s plans to significantly weaken America’s clean car standards. The meeting comes on the heels of last week’s lawsuit filed by the attorneys general in 17 states and Washington, D.C. against the Environmental Protection Agency after EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced his plans to weaken the standards.
“Rolling back America’s clean car standards is a massive blow to human health and the environment, and it takes us in the wrong direction,” said Andrea McGimsey, Senior Director of Global Warming Solutions for Environment America. “President Trump and the EPA should work with California, the automakers and other interested parties to continue going forward, not backward on clean cars.”
If fully phased in, the clean car standards are projected to save 6 billion metric tons of carbon pollution and 12 billion barrels of oil by 2025.
In January of 2017, the EPA concluded that America’s clean car standards were working and achievable, and should not be weakened. But now, without any change in the facts, the current administration is reversing that decision, ignoring the overwhelming evidence that supports keeping the standards in place.
The American public supports cleaner cars and wants to keep moving forward. Nearly 7 in 10 Americans want current fuel efficiency standards to remain in place, and we’ve seen tens of thousands of citizens and hundreds of health experts voice their support for cleaner cars.
“It’s past time to clean up our transportation sector, the nation’s largest source of carbon pollution. We need to move forward to clean up our cars, not pull a U-turn on the progress we are set to achieve,” said McGimsey.
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Environment America is a federation of state-based, citizen-funded environmental advocacy organizations. Our professional staff in 27 states and Washington, D.C., combines independent research, practical ideas and tough-minded advocacy to overcome the opposition of powerful special interests and win real results for the environment. Environment America draws on 30 years of success in tackling environmental problems.
