United States President Donald Trump has announced a proposal to weaken vehicle mileage rules for the auto industry, easing regulatory pressure on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and trucks.
The plan was announced on Wednesday. If finalized next year, it will significantly reduce fuel economy requirements, which set rules for how far new vehicles must travel on a gallon (3.8 liters) of gasoline in the 2031 model year.
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The rules will give Americans access to the full range of gasoline vehicles they need and can afford, officials said. The administration projects that the new standards will set an industry fleetwide average for light-duty vehicles at roughly 34.5 miles (65.5 km) per gallon by the 2031 model year. This frees up car makers to produce larger vehicles, such as sports utility vehicles, which are more profitable than smaller cars.
The move is a move by the Trump administration to reverse policies under former Democratic President Joe Biden that promoted cleaner-running cars and trucks, including electric vehicles (EVs). Burning gasoline for vehicles is a major contributor to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, and is the largest contributor in the US.
Trump announced the plan at a White House event that included top executives from the three largest US automakers, who praised the planned changes. The auto industry has complained that Biden-era regulations were harder to meet.
Since taking office in January, Trump has relaxed auto tailpipe emissions rules, eliminated fines for automakers that don’t meet federal mileage standards and canceled consumer credits of up to $7,500 for electric vehicle purchases.
split response
Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a statement that the planned rollback was “a win for consumers and common sense.”
“As America’s largest automaker, we appreciate President Trump’s leadership in aligning fuel economy standards with market realities. We can make real progress on carbon emissions and energy efficiency while providing customers with choice and affordability,” Farley said.
Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa said the automaker appreciates the administration’s actions to “realign” standards with “real-world market conditions.”
Environmentalists protested the decision.
“In one fell swoop, Trump is escalating three of our nation’s most pressing problems: the thirst for oil, high gas pump costs and global warming,” said Dan Baker, director of the Safe Climate Transportation Campaign for the Center for Biological Diversity.
“Cutting the (gasoline-mileage) program will cause cars to burn more gas and American families to burn more cash,” said Kathryn Garcia, director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All program.
“This rollback will set back the auto industry, keep polluting cars on our roads for years to come, and endanger the health of millions of Americans, especially children and the elderly,” she said.
Major carmakers will save more than $35bn in technology costs by 2031 under a sweeping rollback of vehicle fuel economy standards, the Trump administration has said.
General Motors will save $8.7bn from 2027 to 2031, while Ford and Chrysler-parent Stellar will save more than $5bn each, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Hyundai will save $4.6bn, Subaru $3.8bn and Toyota $2.3bn, it said.
But at the same time, fuel costs for drivers are expected to rise, and US drivers will have to pay $185 billion more by 2050, NHTSA reported.
False EV claims
Trump has vowed to end what he falsely called the EV “mandate,” misquoting Biden’s goal of half of all new vehicle sales being electric by 2030. According to Cox Automotive, EVs will account for about 8 percent of new vehicle sales in the US in 2024.
No federal policy requires auto companies to sell EVs, although California and other states have enacted regulations requiring all new passenger vehicles sold in the state to be zero-emissions by 2035. Trump and congressional Republicans blocked the California law earlier this year.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called on his agency to roll back the existing fuel economy requirement, known as the corporate average fuel economy, soon after taking office. In June, he said the standards set under Biden were illegal because they included the use of electric vehicles in their calculations. EVs do not run on petrol. Following the June revision of the rules, the Transportation Safety Agency was empowered to update the requirements.
Under Biden, automakers were required to average about 50 miles (81km) of gasoline per gallon for passenger cars by 2031, up from about 39 miles (63km) per gallon today.
The Biden administration increased fuel-economy requirements by 2 percent per year for each model year from 2027 to 2031 for light-duty vehicles, and by 2 percent per year for SUVs and other light trucks from 2029 to 2031. At the same time, it called for stricter tailpipe regulations to encourage EVs.
The 2024 standards would have saved 14 billion gallons of gasoline from burning by 2050, according to NHTSA’s 2024 calculations.
Abandoning them means that in 2035, cars could produce 22,111 tons of carbon dioxide per year under Biden-era regulations. That means an extra 90 tons of deadly soot particles a year and more than 4,870 tons a year of smog components — nitrogen oxides and volatile organic carbon — will be released into the air in the coming years.
Mileage regulations have been in place since the energy crisis of the 1970s, and over time, automakers have gradually increased the average efficiency of their vehicles.
Public comments are required for a period of 45 days before the proposal is finalized.