The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday announced its intention to roll back rules on the pollutants cars can produce, part of a sweeping round of announcements. But nearly all details about the plan remain murky, as the EPA said little specific about any of its changes.
CNN explains, “The administration was announcing rollbacks and actions in such rapid succession — 31 in around two hours — there appeared to still be placeholders or typos in the news releases.”
The language in the announcement was dramatic, but its practical effects may be minor.
What the EPA Announced
The New York Times reports that the agency “said it would repeal dozens of the nation’s most significant environmental regulations” in press releases and a video posted to its website.
One press release promised to “reconsider the Model Year 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles regulation and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles.”
Under past administrations, government agencies rarely mentioned politicians by name in official communications. However, the agency specifically criticized the existing standards as “the foundation for the Biden-Harris electric vehicle mandate that takes away Americans’ ability to choose a safe and affordable car for their family and increases the cost of living on all products that trucks deliver.”
Why This Doesn’t Mean Much Yet
The EPA announced that it intends to change certain rules. It didn’t change them.
To do that, it must follow a specific legal process that takes months at its fastest. The agency acknowledged that in its press releases.
In a press release, Administrator Lee Zeldin said, “As far as rule making goes, it is important that I as administrator follow my obligations under the law and respect the rule of law. Understanding the Administrative Procedures Act, I don’t prejudge outcomes before we get to that part of the process of changing a rule.”
Laws, Regulations, How the Government Must Communicate With the Public
Federal regulations are specific legal documents. The law establishes a formal process for changing them. The Administrative Procedures Act outlines those steps.
Congress writes laws, which go into a body of documents called the United States Code that courts enforce.
When Congress writes new laws, it rarely delves into the technical aspects of how they’ll function. Instead, it directs federal agencies that work for the executive branch to do that.
When Congress created the EPA, for instance, It instructed it to write regulations that would limit air pollution. However, it did not specify how many milligrams per milliliter of non-methane organic gases (NMOG) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) a light-duty truck can emit during an emissions test, what machine should measure them, or how to certify that it works.
The EPA does that, through regulations. Regulations are the specific rules that cover how laws are enforced. When an agency wants to change a regulation, the act requires it to notify the public and collect public comments on what it should do. It must then publish a proposed new rule in something called the Federal Register.
The Federal Register is like the government’s newspaper — a daily list of every new change agencies made, major purchases, and federal court decisions that affect the public. It typically prints out to hundreds of pages per day.
The agency must then listen to public comments on its proposal, make any changes it wants to make in response, and publish a final rule once again in the Federal Register. Only then does a rule take effect. The process takes months at its fastest.
Though the EPA announced dozens of possible rule changes yesterday, it has not published any.
In other words, yesterday’s announcement was public relations. Legally, the agency has taken no action, and nothing has changed.
What We Expect (and Why It May Not Matter Much)
Until the EPA starts the rulemaking process, we won’t know what the agency plans to do with the Model Year 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles regulation and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles.
But Donald Trump has been president before. Trump’s first administration wrote a series of tailpipe emissions standards that weakened Obama-era rules but still required automakers to comply with certain pollution limits.
The Biden administration waited until very late in its term to change them. It wrote stricter rules in March of last year.
Should the Trump administration roll back standards to the levels it enacted last time, America will just go back to the tailpipe pollution rules it had a year ago today.
Industry’s Response Measured
The automotive industry had what CNN called “a measured response to the announcement.”
The industry’s main vehicle for talking to federal agencies is a trade group called the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. Most major automakers are dues-paying members of the AIA. Among other things, it lobbies federal agencies on their behalf.
In a statement, the AIA said, “It’s positive the new leadership at EPA intends to revisit current greenhouse gas emissions rules. A balanced approach to emissions in the U.S. is key to preserving vehicle choice, keeping the industry globally competitive and in a position to support the country’s economic and national security in the years ahead.”
The alliance also noted that the tailpipe emissions rules work together with many other federal regulations, which may or may not change. “Any changes to EPA’s standards will have to be coordinated with the other emissions rules overseen by the Departments of Transportation and Energy,” the group noted.
Those include federal MPG rules.
Possibly Limited Effects on EVs
The EPA titled its press release on its plans, “EPA Announces Action to Implement POTUS’s Termination of Biden-Harris Electric Vehicle Mandate.” POTUS is a Washington insider slang term for “President of the United States.”
On the campaign trail, Trump grew fond of calling Biden’s rules an “EV mandate.” But the rules didn’t require anyone to buy an electric vehicle (EV) or order automakers to make them.
Automakers chose to comply to emissions standards by building more electric vehicles. But they were already doing that before the Biden administration changed these rules last March.
Should the EPA return to the rules of a year ago, automakers are unlikely to abandon their plans. Automakers make product decisions on cycles of as long as 10 years and rarely make changes based on one presidential administration that will end in less than four.
The AIA also made a pointed observation when it referred to “keeping the industry globally competitive.” EV sales have increased worldwide, and American automakers already fear falling behind the soaring Chinese auto industry.
Thus, we expect short-term changes like the possible return of the HEMI V8 engine to Ram’s lineup later this year. We don’t expect automakers to abandon multi-billion-dollar, long-term plans to build more electric cars or close the many new EV factories under construction today.
Yesterday’s announcement may change the cars on offer to you this year. It’s unlikely to affect the ones you see in a decade.
