White House Begins Final Review of Nation's Fleetwide Fuel Economy Rules
By Scott Doggett March 10, 2010
The White House has begun its final review of new auto standards that would increase the nation's fleetwide fuel economy and create the first-ever greenhouse-gas standard for cars and trucks.
The Office of Management and Budget received the final joint rulemaking from U.S. EPA and the Transportation Department on Monday, according to OMB's Web site. By law, the administration has until April 1 to set the standards that will govern model year 2012 cars and trucks, which are slated to arrive in dealer showrooms at the start of October 2011.
The proposed auto standards represent a White House-brokered compromise between carmakers and more than a dozen states that had pushed to create their own emission standards for cars and trucks.
The auto industry had long challenged such state efforts in federal court, arguing they would create a "regulatory patchwork" that would depress overall sales and put some dealers at a competitive disadvantage. But the litigation was unsuccessful and the automakers ultimately agreed to drop their legal challenges in exchange for a single set of federal emissions standards for cars and trucks.
The rules would kick in for model year 2012 and push the nation's fleetwide fuel economy average to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, four years ahead of the schedule Congress laid out in a 2007 energy law.
DOT has said that an effort led by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to block EPA from enforcing greenhouse-gas regulations would not directly affect DOT's ability to set fuel economy rules. Still, the agency is warning that it would leave the department scrambling to decouple the joint rulemaking in time to meet the April deadline.
Auto dealers have backed the Murkowski resolution, saying that it would further streamline the auto rules and give automakers clearer targets.
Meanwhile, EPA is moving forward with other components of its regulatory framework to address climate change.
Earlier this month, the agency sent the White House its final reconsideration of the George W. Bush administration's policy about when the government must begin to regulate industrial facilities' greenhouse-gas emissions.
That decision is seen as a critical policy to have in place before the agency issues its final tailpipe rule because once greenhouse gases are "subject to regulation" under the Clean Air Act, EPA will also be required to regulate stationary sources of the emissions.
The Obama EPA's "tailoring" rule is also due out this month. That rule is expected to significantly increase the threshold that determines which sources are subject to permitting requirements.
The Clean Air Act's current thresholds for regulating harmful pollutants are 100 or 250 tons per year. But while those limits are appropriate for pollutants like lead, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, EPA says, they are not feasible for greenhouse gases, which are emitted in much larger quantities.
LEAVE A COMMENT