PRESS RELEASE
“By cooking the books on its review of national auto emissions standards, the Trump Administration is putting special interests ahead of New Yorkers’ health and wallets.
“This illegal rollback of achievable, common sense fuel efficiency and pollution standards for cars will result in higher fuel costs and more dangerous air pollution, including the carbon dioxide that drives climate change – creating real, direct, and damaging impacts on New Yorkers and our environment.
“We stand ready to take legal action to block the Trump administration’s reckless and illegal efforts to reverse these critical standards and the gains we’ve made in ensuring cars are more fuel-efficient and less polluting.”
Background
In 2012, EPA and the National Highway Safety and Transportation Administration jointly adopted national greenhouse gas emissions/fuel economy standards for cars to be sold in 2017-2025. Because of the standards’ long time horizon, EPA agreed to perform a midterm evaluation for the standards for 2022-2025 to confirm that the standards remain achievable. Based on an exhaustive record that included state-of-the-art research, input from stakeholders, and published literature and studies, EPA concluded in January 2017 that the 2022-25 standards are feasible at reasonable cost, will achieve significant carbon dioxide emissions reductions, and will provide significant economic and environmental benefits to consumers. But today, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that EPA will revise the standards.
Attorney General Schneiderman has been a leader in forcing the federal government to follow its duty under the federal Clean Air Act to ensure the adoption and implementation of national standards that make cars more fuel-efficient and less polluting. In response to Administrator Pruitt’s May 2017 letter to California Governor Jerry Brown contending that the midterm evaluation process was legally flawed, Attorney General Schneiderman led a coalition of Attorneys General who vowed to pursue legal action if necessary. Likewise, during EPA’s rulemaking process to reconsider the midterm evaluation, Attorney General Schneiderman led a similar group in submitting a comment demonstrating that the administrative record supports strengthening, not weakening, the standards.
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