The change in Presidential Administrations brought with it a flurry of executive orders, one of which touches on subjects that we’ve blogged about before: vehicle emission standards and the transition to electric vehicles, which are important for air quality because vehicle emissions are one of the largest sources of air pollution.
More specifically, President Trump’s Executive Order 14148 revokes President Biden’s 2021 Executive Order 14037, which directed the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Secretary of Transportation to “consider beginning work on” rulemakings to establish vehicle emission standards and vehicle fleet mileage requirements, respectively.
Those standards and requirements were to be drafted with the goal that fifty percent of all new passenger cars and light duty trucks “sold in 2030 be zero-emission vehicles.” EPA finished work on its rulemaking by the April 2024 deadline.
As we blogged, EPA published new emission standards for model years 2027-32, under which roughly two-thirds of all model year 2032 cars and light-duty vehicles sold will effectively be required to be electric vehicles - we say “effectively” because given existing technology that is the only way for automakers to meet the standards. Thus, although the rule was not written as a mandate, it will function as one.
The Department of Transportation followed suit in June of 2024, finalizing a rule that would require “an industry-wide fleet average of approximately 50.4 miles per gallon” for passenger cars and light-duty trucks by model year 2031.
So, what does Trump’s executive order mean for the transition to electric vehicles? By itself, not very much. The regulations that implement the electric vehicles standards remain on the books and have the force of law.
“In that sense, many of the reports regarding Trump’s Executive Order were overblown,” GASP senior attorney John Baillie said.
However, it bears noting that a former administration’s rulemakings are always subject to reconsideration by a new administration – as we have seen before (and more than once!) -- and the rulemakings for the electric vehicle standards are no exception.
Such a reconsideration could be based on a new or different finding of any of the facts that undergird the standards. For example, if the earlier rulemaking did not take into account costs attendant to its implementation or overstated the benefits it would likely produce.
Indeed, the Department of Transportation has already announced its plans to rewrite the existing fuel efficiency standards.
“That announcement came as no surprise,” Baillie said. “Whether or not the government is able to stop or even slow the transition to electric vehicles is another question entirely, one to be decided by the market.”
We will continue to follow development on this front, and report on them as they occur.