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Instead of continuing past success on reducing emissions, lowering consumer costs, and helping American automakers lead the global transition to clean vehicles, the Trump administration has moved to eliminate EPA actions that reduce climate pollution.
The Trump administration’s “Freedom to Pollute” agenda just went into overdrive.
The 2009 endangerment finding on climate emissions is the underlying basis for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulatory responsibility for taking actions to address greenhouse gas pollution. U.S. President Donald Trump’s EPA just proposed to eliminate this science-backed finding which puts several rules, and their many health, climate, and consumer benefits, at risk. Among these rules are the wildly successful vehicle standards that are reducing pollution, saving drivers money at the pump, driving industry innovation, and providing more clean vehicle choices at the dealerships than ever before.
This action flies in the face of overwhelming evidence of climate harms and the legal basis for the determination, as my colleague Dr. Cleetus pointed out in her blog when EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin first noted his interest in targeting the finding. This, like so many other recent administrative actions, will be challenged in court and may eventually be determined to be illegal, as it most certainly is.
Congress established EPA to protect public health and welfare—and since climate change pollution is clearly endangering these things, EPA has a responsibility to do something about it. By eliminating the endangerment finding, EPA is trying to avoid its responsibility to act. This isn’t just bad news for reducing climate emissions and the worsening impacts of climate change that Americans are dealing with on a daily basis from intensified storms to extreme heat, but it’s going to mean spending more at the pump and fewer choices at the dealership.
Transportation—including the cars, trucks, and buses plying our roads everyday—is the LARGEST source of human-caused climate pollution in the U.S. accounting for 28% of the annual total. And globally, the U.S. is second only to China in overall annual climate pollution. So yes—our cars and trucks and the gasoline and diesel they burn DO contribute to climate change. And reducing those emissions is important for getting global emissions—and global temperatures—under control.
I don’t know anyone who wants to spend thousands of dollars more on gas—but that’s the path we are headed down by eliminating standards.
Alongside the endangerment finding action, the administration also announced it was eliminating all EPA vehicle greenhouse gas standards for passenger cars and heavy-duty trucks. Despite the most recent passenger car and heavy-duty truck EPA standards regulations being less ambitious than our analysis suggested was feasible, they represent the largest climate action the U.S. has ever taken, Combined, the latest greenhouse gas standards for cars and heavy-duty trucks would eliminate a total of approximately 8 billion tons of heat-trapping emissions—more than one year of total U.S. climate emissions. EPA’s Draft Regulatory Impact Analysis, released alongside the announcement to eliminate the standards, completely ignores the value of these benefits noting, “The EPA does not attempt to monetize the value, if any, of changes in GHG emissions that result from the proposed action.” We’ll be taking a closer look at what other logical and analytical gymnastics the administration is including in their assessment as we prepare comments on the proposal.
History has shown that vehicle standards are extremely effective at reducing pollution. Smog-forming pollutants, carbon monoxide, and dangerous particulates from tailpipes have all declined substantially from the 1960s and ‘70s and led to improved air quality and public health. This progress on pollution, along with steadily growing vehicle sales, occurred despite constant cries from the auto industry over the past half a century claiming vehicle pollution standards were bad for business, unachievable, etc. etc. Vehicle standards have been an essential tool to achieving lower tailpipe emissions and more efficient gasoline models as well as bringing an ever-increasing variety of electrified models to market.
(Photo: EPA)
The proof is in the pudding. Take this chart from EPA’s latest “Trends Report.” While fuel economy standards accelerated emissions reductions after the oil crisis in the 70’s, in the absence of further regulation (resulting from automaker and oil industry opposition) the emissions from new vehicles rose in the 1990s and early 2000s. Why? Because contrary to what the EPA argues in its proposal, the market does not work to innovate and cut fuel in the absence of regulation. Over the last 20 years, new fuel economy and emissions standards, currently being eliminated by this administration, have pushed new vehicles to the lowest level of emissions on record.
The data don’t lie: Vehicle standards work. Freed from binding fuel economy and emission standards in 90’s and early 2000’s, vehicle pollution increased as well as gasoline consumption. Recent fuel economy and emissions standards being eliminated by this administration have pushed new vehicles to the lowest level of emissions on record.
When Trump offered to payback oil industry donations with political favors, I don’t think oil executives themselves could have even dreamed up that this wishlist would be granted within seven months of his reentering the White House.
This latest attack on vehicle standards specifically covers EPA’s greenhouse gas standards for cars and commercial medium and heavy-duty trucks. The first of these EPA standards went into effect in model year 2012 for passenger cars. The figure above illustrates the declining emissions that have occurred for the average vehicle since their implementation. But here’s a more specific illustrative example of what that means in the real world.
The Toyota RAV4 is the best-selling SUV in the U.S. Before EPA standards, it went 15 years with essentially zero improvement in fuel economy or emissions. Thanks to EPA standards, buyers now have options that are 29-46% more efficient. These more efficient options are saving consumers hundreds of dollars at the gas pump every year while cutting emissions in half for the cleanest models. I don’t know anyone who wants to spend thousands of dollars more on gas—but that’s the path we are headed down by eliminating standards.
(Photo: EPA and DOE)
EPA’s standards haven’t only delivered more choices of lower polluting, and less fuel consuming gasoline cars and trucks. These standards have pushed traditional vehicle makers to add more hybrid and electric vehicle models to their lineups and encouraged new EV-only companies to bring products to market. The increased availability of hybrid electric (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV), and Battery Electric (BEV) models driven by vehicle standards (as shown in the figure below) has given consumers more choices to cut their gasoline bills or eliminate them all together.
(Photo: EPA)
Global warming emissions from new vehicles, no matter the type of vehicle, are at record lows, largely through the use of hybrid and plug-in electric technologies deployed by manufacturers in response to EPA standards, exactly the technologies that this administration is now attacking.
While the above examples are about passenger vehicles, the story is similar for the heavy-duty trucks. As pointed out in our report on electric truck progress, Ready for Work 2.0.
“A few years ago, electric vans, buses, and trucks were essentially concept vehicles—today, more than 70 models of zero-emission MHDVs are being put to work around the country thanks to investments spurred by EPA greenhouse gas emission standards and state zero-emission vehicle requirements.”
“The momentum behind zero-emission trucks has swelled over the past several years, with registrations of electric trucks reaching record levels each year. In 2019, there were fewer than 1,000 new zero-emission trucks, buses, and vans registered in the United States.”
Now there are 150,000 thousand electric medium and heavy-duty vehicles ranging from large pick-up trucks and delivery vans to a growing number of big rigs.
(Graphic: UCS/S&P Global Mobility 2025 including class 2b through class 8 vehicles.)
Reductions in heavy-duty truck emissions, fuel consumption, and the increasingly common sight of electric delivery trucks on our streets is no accident. It’s the result of policies like EPA’s vehicle standards.
Instead of trying to continue this success on reducing emissions, lowering consumer costs, and helping American automakers lead the global transition to clean vehicles, the Trump administration has moved to eliminate EPA actions that reduce climate pollution.
While some vehicle makers are guilty of fighting against state and federal vehicle standards so they can continue to wallow in global mediocrity, the oil industry is the one laughing all the way to the bank. For decades the oil industry has used fraud and deceit to avoid the realities of climate pollution, so it is no surprise they want to prolong the life of combustion vehicles as long as possible. They just scored big time in Trump’s tax bill, as my colleague details in their recent blog, and were already basking in the glow of Congress’ decision to pull the rug out from under the state clean car and truck standards and neutering the Department of Transportation’s fuel economy standards by eliminate compliance fines. Now they get another gift in in the elimination of EPA rules that would result in U.S. car and truck drivers spending billions more on gasoline and diesel than they would have otherwise. When Trump offered to payback oil industry donations with political favors, I don’t think oil executives themselves could have even dreamed up that this wishlist would be granted within seven months of his reentering the White House.
How much will the rest of us be paying to the oil industry, you ask? If all of these rollbacks take effect, there’s nothing stopping the auto industry from backsliding on the progress that’s been made. But just looking at the benefits of the rules that have yet to take effect gives a good idea. Owners of new passenger cars subject to the standards between 2027 and 2032 would have saved an estimated $6,000 over the life of the vehicle. Eliminating the Phase 3 heavy-duty truck GHG standards for model years 2027 through 2032 will increase net costs to truck drivers by $2 billion. These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.
The attack on logic, reason, and just plain common sense might be comic, if it wasn’t so serious as pointed out in my colleagues “danger season” blog post. The irony of this past week’s extreme heat event impacting more than 150 million Americans happening at the same time as the administration’s latest climate-denial move was painfully apparent in this Fox News clip.
This is the time to accelerate, not throw us into reverse. Instead, the White House is seeking to trash these vital protections, using the flimsiest and most self-serving of rationales, showing yet again it is willing to sacrifice public protections for polluters’ gain. For U.S. drivers, it means less choices at the dealership and more pain at the pump.
Privatization of public institutions has an observable record of raising prices for customers, diminishing service quality, and degrading working conditions.
At a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing earlier this month, former car salesman, wage thief, and current Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno said the U.S. government should stop funding Amtrak, and argued in favor of handing it over to the private sector. Moreno and his ilk—including former White House dog, Elon Musk—perpetuate an old and tired right-wing tradition that is at best confused and at worst conniving: bashing all that serves the public good and venerating all that transfers wealth to private moneyed interests.
One might be tempted to give Moreno, Musk, and other practitioners of the ancient religion of market worship the benefit of the doubt; perhaps they really believe what they say. Maybe they truly think concentrating wealth and institutional control in the hands of a few corporate masters is what’s best for everyone. If that is the case, they are both far too bewildered, their minds far too infantile, to be in any positions of power and influence.
On the other hand, if Moreno and Musk are not in fact confused, then they must be aware that what they say is completely false. Privatization of public institutions has an observable record of raising prices for customers, diminishing service quality, and degrading working conditions. They know privatization is not good for the public, but it is good for private moneyed interests, like Moreno’s wealthy campaign contributors and billionaires like Musk, and that is what matters most to them.
It is clear that if we want a passenger rail system that consistently, effectively, and conveniently serves the public, the last thing we should do is privatize Amtrak.
For all the talk about Amtrak’s inefficiency, the record tells a different tale. Even with inadequate federal funding, Amtrak has made significant accomplishments. For example, though rail travel decreased during the Covid-19 pandemic, Amtrak set all-time records for ridership and revenue in FY24. In fact, Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) ridership was 12% higher in FY24 than it was in FY19, before the pandemic struck, and the NEC’s FY24 operating cost recovery, at 123%, far exceeded the 100% statutory goal.
Speaking of efficiency—just how “efficient” is the private sector, anyway? Hack economists tell us that efficiency means getting the same or better results at a lower cost. A corporation gutting their workforce and skimping on maintenance to obtain higher profits is, by this logic, acting efficiently. The efficiency of a private business, therefore, depends on how much profit it can squeeze out of fewer workers, with cheaper materials, in worse conditions, and at greater risk to surrounding communities.
By laying off workers, cutting costs, neglecting maintenance, lengthening trains, and eschewing capacity expansion, the Class I railroads, with their Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) business model, must be sublimely efficient. After all, with after-tax profits in the billions, railroad corporations like Norfolk Southern, BNSF, and CSX must be doing something right. Just ask the folks in East Palestine, Ohio, how marvelously efficient Norfolk Southern is.
And there’s the rub. When priests of private enterprise like Moreno and Musk say public services should be privatized because the private sector is more efficient, they mean private entities deliver higher profits to their owners, not that they better serve the needs of the public. In fact, even when services and institutions are privatized, the public still pays for them in numerous ways—with lower wages and worse jobs, decreased or eliminated benefits, displacement, money siphoned away from communities into private pockets, and so on.
For example, a 2009 study showed that, following privatization and outsourcing, food service workers’ wages in New Jersey K-12 schools were cut by $4-6, and many workers completely lost their health insurance benefits. In 2011, privatization of nursing assistant jobs at a home for veterans in Michigan saw the starting wage lowered to $8.50 an hour with no health insurance or pension benefits. Public nursing assistants, on the other hand, received $15-20 an hour, health insurance, and pensions.
In regards to rail, one can simply look across the Atlantic to see the results of rail privatization. Margaret Thatcher, high priestess in the cult of the market, privatized various public services, including some connected to the rail system. Her successor, John Major, started the process of privatizing the British rail system in 1993-4, and by 1997 the U.K.’s national rail system was under corporate control.
If anything, we should be asking ourselves why so many critical industries, like the Class I freight railroads, remain in private hands when our needs would be better served if these industries were publicly owned and operated.
The privatization of British rail was disastrous. Higher fares, deteriorated service, rampant underbidding by franchisees who then abandoned agreements, and neglected infrastructure that cost people their lives. In the first three years after privatization, 38 people died in rail accidents, and in October 2000, four people died in a derailment that was entirely preventable. The private owners, Railtrack, knew about the cracked rail that caused the derailment, but refused to fix it. These people were sacrifices made at the altar of profit. Talk about “efficiency.”
Recognizing that these devastating events were caused largely by the egregious negligence of private owners, Britain renationalized its rail infrastructure in 2002. A 2012 GfK NOP poll revealed that 70% of the 1,000 Britons surveyed were in favor of returning the rail system to public ownership. In October 2022, YouGov reported that a majority of British voters, including Conservatives, believe that utilities such as rail, water, and energy should be in the public sector.
After decades of failure under the experiment of privatization, the U.K.’s Labour government is currently taking steps to renationalize the British rail system. In the United States, we should understand what happened across the pond as a case study for what not to do. Privatization, in terms of its service to the public, was a complete flop. There is no reason to believe the privatization of Amtrak would be less of a flop.
It is worth noting that while Elon Musk was castigating Amtrak at a tech conference earlier this year, he compared Amtrak unfavorably to China’s exceptional high-speed passenger trains. In calling for privatization of “anything that can be privatized” while at the same time praising a state-owned rail system (he even called China’s trains “epic”), Musk showed the disingenuousness, or incoherence, of the market religion he shares with Moreno and many other delirious practitioners.
With all this in mind, it is clear that if we want a passenger rail system that consistently, effectively, and conveniently serves the public, the last thing we should do is privatize Amtrak. With increased (and long overdue) federal funding, Amtrak can invest in infrastructure and equipment upgrades and repairs, create thousands of well-paying union jobs across the country, and better serve passengers.
If anything, we should be asking ourselves why so many critical industries, like the Class I freight railroads, remain in private hands when our needs would be better served if these industries were publicly owned and operated. Why not democratize these enterprises? Wouldn’t you like a say?
"These bipartisan investments need to start flowing immediately," the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee said of the GAO finding as a lawsuit over the funding got a boost from green groups.
Key congressional Democrats on Thursday welcomed a government watchdog's finding that the Trump administration unlawfully withheld appropriated funds for building electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the United States‚ a decision that came as advocacy groups joined a related lawsuit filed by state attorneys general.
Shortly after returning to office in January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing agencies to pause disbursement of funds appropriated under the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, specifically mentioning the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program.
In response, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and one of its agencies, the Federal Highway Administration, in February canceled previously issued guidance for the NEVI program and suspended plans that states had submitted for grant money—which led to calls for Congress to stand up to the administration's "illegal attempts to halt legally mandated funding."
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in its Thursday decision that the department violated the Impoundment Control Act: "DOT is not authorized to withhold these funds from expenditure and DOT must continue to carry out the statutory requirements of the program. While DOT cannot withhold these funds under the ICA, DOT could propose funds for rescission or otherwise propose legislation to make changes to the NEVI Formula Program for consideration by Congress."
"The Trump administration didn't just break the law—it shortchanged the American people."
Politico reported that "the GAO could issue similar rulings in the coming months, as the independent, nonpartisan watchdog agency works through at least 39 investigations into whether the Trump administration violated the Impoundment Control Act. GAO rulings are nonbinding but could influence Congress' response to... Trump's freezing of billions of dollars lawmakers intended to flow to specific programs and projects, as well as the many ongoing lawsuits challenging the president's tactics."
In a Thursday statement about the GAO findings, U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said, "This legal decision affirms what we've long known: The president is breaking the law to block funding Congress passed on a bipartisan basis and that is owed to the American people—simply because he disagrees with it. This plain fact is unacceptable—and it cannot stand any longer."
"Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law by wide margins and specifically provided funding for every state to build out a network of chargers for the electric vehicles that families are increasingly turning to and that are being made right here in America, she continued. "These investments should be getting out the door—creating new jobs and helping Americans get where they need to go without interruption—but President Trump has illegally choked this funding off."
"These bipartisan investments need to start flowing immediately—as do the hundreds of billions of dollars in other investments President Trump is holding up," she added, taking aim at his Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director. "I don't care about Russ Vought's personal interpretation of our spending laws; the Constitution is clear, and President Trump simply does not have the power of the purse—Congress does."
House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) released a similar statement welcoming the GAO's new legal opinion that "the Trump administration broke the law when it blocked funding that Congress had already approved."
"That money was supposed to build and maintain a nationwide EV charging network—and with it, create good-paying jobs in communities across the country," he stressed. "Instead, the administration stalled economic growth, delayed critical infrastructure, and undermined job creation—all without a shred of legal authority."
"This wasn't just a legal violation. It was an economic setback for American workers, and a direct hit to the communities counting on these investments," Boyle added. "The Trump administration didn't just break the law—it shortchanged the American people."
According to Politico, while the DOT could not be reached for comment, an OMB spokesperson called GAO's opinion "wrong" and said the department is "appropriately using the authority granted to it by statute to review state plans."
Standing up for cleaner vehicles and clean air. @sierraclub.org @climatesolutions.org @earthjustice.org and allies sue Trump Admin for illegally impounding funds that Congress appropriated for EV charging. www.sierraclub.org/press-releas...
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— Ross Macfarlane (@rossmacfarlane.bsky.social) May 22, 2025 at 3:53 PM
The attorneys general of 16 states and the District of Columbia disagree, and have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The Sierra Club, CleanAIRE N.C., Climate Solutions, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, Plug In America, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and the West End Revitalization Association joined that legal challenge on Thursday.
"Donald Trump is trying to cut jobs, increase pollution, and endanger our health. We refuse to let him," said Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous in a statement. "NEVI benefits everyone, whether you drive an EV or not, and the only people who benefit from blocking it are Big Oil and auto executives seeking to keep us hooked on fossil fuel-powered cars, while communities in every corner of the country lose out on infrastructure investments in our growing clean energy economy."
"The NEVI program is working and states are legally entitled to the money allocated to them by Congress," Jealous added. "Once again, we are taking the Trump administration to court over its reckless and illegal actions."