Trump administration reveals plans to roll back Obama-era vehicle fuel economy standards

Anca Alexe 03/08/2018 | 07:50

The Trump administration has revealed a plan to roll back the ambitious targets for fuel economy and lower greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks previously imposed by the Obama White House, CNBC reports.

The White House also wants to strip California of its special right to set its own fuel economy levels for automobiles due to the fact that it has higher pollution levels than the rest of the country, which has led to a legal battle with individual states – shortly after the announcement on Thursday, 19 states and Washington D.C. said they would sue the administration over the plans.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and Environmental Protection Agency said they would reverse the strategies they developed during Barack Obama’s administration to reduce emissions.

Instead of requiring carmakers to steadily increase the fuel efficiency of their vehicles by 2025, Trump wants to freeze those levels after 2020. The change would mean that cars and light-duty trucks will only have to average about 37 mpg (miles per gallon) by 2026, instead of the almost 50 planned by the Obama administration, although the industry didn’t seek such drastic changes to the standards.