Science Group Joins Lawsuit to Reverse Vehicle Standards Rollback

A coalition of state and municipal governments and a coalition of nonprofit groups are both suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over their rollback of vehicle efficiency and emissions standards. The lawsuits, filed today, contend that federal agencies violated the law and the best available science; they are asking the court to set this action aside. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has joined the nonprofit group litigation, represented by Democracy Forward.

Below is a statement by Ken Kimmell, president of UCS.

"The administration's final rule that rolls back vehicle standards isn't just an effort to undo the most significant and successful climate policy on the books. It's also an absolute travesty of a regulatory process. In their rush to gut vehicle standards, these agencies abandoned their mission, ignored the evidence, sidelined experts, cut corners, and wound up with an indefensible new rule that will cost consumers $200 billion in extra gasoline costs at a time when so many Americans are losing their jobs, and increase air pollution at a time when our public health is in danger. On top of that, this rollback will result in billions of tons of additional emissions of the heat trapping gases that cause global warming, making the already difficult problem of climate change much harder to solve.

"These agencies are obligated to make decisions that advance the public interest, based on the best available science, and they're supposed to show their work. They willfully abandoned their obligations, and a bad process predictably resulted in bad policy. Fortunately, when the administration can't or won't do their job, the courts give us a way to hold them accountable."