Obama Announces New Emissions and Mileage Standards

The new rules, which will begin to take effect in 2012, will increase fuel efficiency to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, an increase over today’s 27.5 requirement and four years before the government’s original target date of 2020, set in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

In 2005, California requested a waiver to allow the state the right to control greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. In early 2008, the request was denied by then-Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson, despite a long-standing history of EPA granting waivers to the state. Shortly after taking office, President Obama requested that EPA revisit the matter of the denial.

NLC, along with several other national state and local groups, joined in an amicus brief supporting state and local rights in the California v. EPA case.

The Clean Air Act gives EPA the authority to allow California to adopt its own emission standards for motor vehicles due to the seriousness of the state’s air pollution challenges and allows other states to subsequently adopt California’s requirements. A total of 18 states, representing 45 percent of the nation’s auto market, had either adopted or pledged to implement California’s proposed emissions rules.

The auto industry has long opposed the California waiver request, arguing that it would face a “patchwork” of regulations across the country that would make it harder for it to know what cars to develop. The President’s announcement brought support from the auto industry for a uniform, national standard, which brings the industry regulatory certainty and predictability over the next several years.

These new standards are in line with language in a comprehensive energy and climate change bill currently under consideration by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which calls on the Administration to “harmonize” federal fuel economy standards among the Department of Transportation (DOT), EPA and California.