Automakers may not want to roll back fuel-economy standards after all

General Motors CEO Mary Barra provides an update on the ignition switch recall investigationAverting a showdown between 17 states and the federal government may take priority over industry-friendly fuel-economy targets. At least, that's what they're saying. Reports leading up to a May 11 meeting between leaders of America's automotive industry and President Donald Trump indicate that automakers may lobby the federal government to scale...

Deal between EPA, California on auto emissions may still be possible

National Plug-In Day 2012: San Francisco, with 60 Nissan Leafs in front of the Golden Gate BridgeOver the many months EPA administrator Scott Pruitt signaled his intention to revisit the Obama administration's emission limits for 2022 through 2025 vehicles, California warned that it would not go along with any reductions. The state has been allowed to set its own emission standards for decades, it noted, and it has every intention of sticking...

Pruitt’s EPA decision: 38-page intention vs 1,217 pages of analysis

Flooded CarWhile the name of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt is often preceded by "embattled" these days, his agency is now on record as rejecting its own recommendation of just 16 months ago. It concluded in July 2016 that the auto industry had handily met lower carbon-emission limits from 2012 through 2017—at lower cost and with more conventional...

EPA to ease emission limits, reports say, setting up clash with California

Chrome exhaust pipeThe omens have been accumulating for months, as bits of information dribble out of the regulatory rumor mill in Washington, D.C. Now we have the most concrete reports yet that the U.S. EPA plans to modify exhaust emission limits for vehicles in model years 2022 through 2025. The EPA delivered its draft Final Determination document to the Office of...

Automakers, electric utilities want electric-car tax credit extended

2018 Chevrolet Bolt EVWith Tesla likely to hit 200,000 electric cars sold in the U.S. later this year, it will begin a phasedown process during which the income-tax credits available to its buyers start to dwindle on a set schedule. General Motors is likely to hit the same cap a couple of quarters after Tesla. Now those two companies are lobbying for an expansion of...

CA attorney general: we will fight looser fuel-economy, emission rules

National Plug-In Day 2012: San Francisco, with 60 Nissan Leafs in front of the Golden Gate BridgeLast Tuesday, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said the agency does not intend to let California set the agenda for national emission limits on vehicles. He suggested to Bloomberg the EPA plans to cut emission rules aggressively to respond to carmakers' pleas for easing of the corporate average fuel economy rules for 2022 through 2025 that they had...

NHTSA could cite safety of heavier cars in slashing CAFE rules: reports

Gas pumpIt's been clear that under the Trump administration, the NHTSA and EPA plan to roll back linked fuel-economy rules and emission limits on new vehicles. Now a possible justification that will be used has emerged—and it's not the one many advocates had expected. According to a Bloomberg report on Monday, the fuel-economy proposal due March 30...

Maine to hit hybrids, electric cars with fees higher than gas tax?

2018 Toyota PriusMaine has become the latest in a growing string of states to propose adding registration fees for hybrid and electric cars to make up for tax revenue on the gasoline they don't use, or use less of. But it's also part of a much smaller group of those states in which the fees are punitive: drivers of those cars pay more than the gas taxes paid by...

Trump promised to save the coal industry; it hasn’t happened

Coal trains by Flickr user Kimon Berlin (Used under CC License)You may recall that President Donald Trump made some ambitious and audacious campaign promises about his plans to revive America's dwindling coal industry. Two weeks ago, The Washington Post fact-checked the president's delivery on those promises after his first year in office—in multiples of "Pinocchios," its measure of untruthfulness for...