The Trump administration is expected on Tuesday to announce its final rule to rollback Obama-era automobile fuel efficiency standards, relaxing efforts to limit climate-warming tailpipe pollution and virtually undoing the government’s biggest effort to combat climate change. The new standard would lead to nearly a billion more tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide released and the consumption of about 80 billion more gallons of gasoline over the lifetime of the vehicles built during the terms of the rule, according to a recent draft of the plan. Completing the rollback of the Obama-era climate change policy caps a three-year effort to weaken or undo nearly 100 rules and regulations that had limited industrial pollution of smog, toxic chemicals, greenhouse gases and water contaminants. The legal status of the new Trump rule remains unclear; about 20 states are expected to sue the administration to undo it in a case expected to be resolved by the Supreme Court in the coming years.
By Coral Davenport. New York Times. March 30, 2020.
