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The potential dangerous consequences of #TRUMPS auto emissions rollback..GOOD READ..
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https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-potential-consequences-of-the-auto-emissions-rollback
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The potential consequences of the auto emissions rollback
Apr 4, 2020 4:56 PM EDT
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Earlier this week, in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration relaxed automobile fuel efficiency standards that were put in place under the Obama administration to combat climate change. Coral Davenport, energy and environment policy reporter for The New York Times, joins Hari Sreenivasan for more on the potential consequences of the decision.
Read the Full Transcript
Hari Sreenivasan:
Earlier this week, in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration relaxed automobile fuel efficiency standards which were put in place under the Obama administration to combat climate change.I spoke with Coral Davenport, energy and environment policy reporter for The New York Times about the potential consequences of this ruling.
Coral Davenport:
This is a rollback of the largest, the federal government's largest regulation on climate change ever. It was the first and largest regulation on climate change. It was something that President Trump has been working on since his first days in office. Already, the Trump administration has rolled back over a hundred environmental regulations in his first term. But this is by far the most consequential in terms of what the United States has done for climate change. And I think that is why it broke through.
Hari Sreenivasan:
Did the auto industry immediately push back when it went into effect or when the plans rolled out?
Coral Davenport:
Well, the auto industry has been kind of muted on this, in part because it's just been completely slammed with both the economic impact, of course, of the coronavirus and the fact that companies are sort of wrangling with the White House over whether or not they're going to build ventilators. But there are now five major auto companies that have actually sided directly sided against the administration.
Hari Sreenivasan:
Is this because the auto manufacturers feel like, listen, I'm already planning on this, or is this the sort of California exception?
Coral Davenport:
So here's what's going on with the auto companies. Several auto companies came to President Trump in the first days of his administration and said, look, the Obama administration has put in place this aggressive regulation on vehicle emissions. It's too hard for us to meet. We want some kind of relief from that. But what the auto companies were asking for was things like an extension of the deadlines or flexibility to kind of get credits for some of the things they were already doing. The Trump administration, President Trump said, 'OK, what I'm going to do is basically roll this whole thing back. ' And the auto companies actually pushed back over the past few years and said, 'no, no, we're not asking for that.' Please do not roll the whole thing back. And here's why. They anticipated, correctly, that California and several other states which have moved forward aggressively in having state level emissions plans were going to sue the federal government. And there was a good chance that they would win. And if they did, what the auto companies could end up with is sort of a scenario, a scenario where the federal, the federal government has one set of vehicle pollution regulations and several states have a different set of vehicle pollution regulations. And that is the auto companies absolute nightmare scenario. That would give so much regulatory uncertainty, a complete different patchwork of different state and federal standards that they had to meet. And they're kind of looking down the barrel of that happening right now. So four companies joined with the state of California and said, 'look, we're just going to agree to meet these California standards. We don't want to do what the Trump administration is doing. We don't want to sort of, you know, head down a couple years of legal limbo while that, until this hits the Supreme Court and then not know what's going to happen and know that there's like a pretty decent chance that the Trump administration could end up losing and they could end up with this sort of nightmare split state regulatory regulatory scenario.'
Hari Sreenivasan:
What are the health consequences of this?
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