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As teased earlier today, the Trump administration has announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is rescinding its 2016 finding that greenhouse gases present a threat to public health. That finding was the basis for Obama- and Biden-era emissions standards that the administration blames for rising automobile prices. In walking back its previous finding, the administration is effectively vacating all policies and procedures that were based on it, going back as far as 2012.
“The Endangerment Finding has been the source of 16 years of consumer choice restrictions and trillions of dollars in hidden costs for Americans,” EPA Administrator Zeldin said in the agency’s public announcement. “Referred to by some as the ‘Holy Grail’ of the ‘climate change religion,’ the Endangerment Finding is now eliminated.”
“The Trump EPA is strictly following the letter of the law, returning commonsense to policy, delivering consumer choice to Americans and advancing the American Dream,” Zeldin continued. “As an added bonus, the off-cycle credit for the almost universally despised start-stop feature on vehicles has been removed.”
The EPA claims this “single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history” will save U.S. taxpayers over $1.3 trillion—spread between “reduced costs for new vehicles and avoided costs of purchasing equipment related to EVs.” Look at that, they saved you money you didn’t even know you were going to spend. Wasn’t that considerate of them?
With this move, the Trump administration has now effectively eliminated any federal restrictions on consumer tailpipe emissions in the United States. It’s the consummation of several smaller initiatives the administration launched last year. The first major component was the rollback of CAFE standards, which eliminated the government’s authority to enforce penalties on manufacturers that exceeded standards. More recently, the EPA announced that it would no longer pursue charges against tuners for tampering with OBDII-based emissions equipment.
Both changes took away the government’s enforcement mechanisms; by walking back the greenhouse gas finding, the administration has now effectively eliminated the framework that necessitated them.
“Today’s action is only related to GHG emissions and does not affect regulations that combat criteria pollutants and air toxics,” the announcement further said.
“The Trump EPA’s final rule dismantles the tactics and legal fictions used by the Obama and Biden Administrations to backdoor their ideological agendas on the American people,” it went on.
So far, automakers have shown reluctance to commit to removing emissions equipment from their U.S. models. State emissions regulations are still in play (though the administration has promised to once again challenge them in court and has support from several automakers).
Much of that same equipment is also required to meet emissions regulations overseas, and would cost automakers a great deal of money to remove. Automakers are also sensitive to the volatility of the current political situation in America. If the tide turns again in two years—or perhaps sooner, depending on the outcome of the U.S. midterm elections—automakers could once again be caught with their pants down.
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Byron is an editor at The Drive with a keen eye for infrastructure, sales and regulatory stories.
