[Vision2020] 4-2-18 "Auto Alliance Pushed Climate Denial to Get Trump Admin to Abandon Obama Fuel Efficiency Standards"

[Ted Moffett]

Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/02/auto-alliance-pushes-climate-denial-trump-epa-obama-cafe-standards?utm_source=dsb%20newsletter
Auto Alliance Pushed Climate Denial to Get Trump Admin to Abandon Obama
Fuel Efficiency Standards

Ben Jervey <https://www.desmogblog.com/user/ben-jervey> | April 2, 2018

The Trump administration officially announced Monday that it will scrap
fuel economy and emissions targets
<https://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/1028129/breaking-epa-rolls-back-obama-auto-emissions-standards?nl_pk=029391da-03ba-437d-a51c-c08c630a1792&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=environmental>
for cars and light-duty trucks sold in the United States and set new weaker
standards, effectively undermining one of the federal government’s most
effective policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

As the New York Times
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/climate/epa-cafe-auto-pollution-rollback.html>
and the Los Angeles Times
<http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-mileage-epa-rule-20180329-story.html>
anticipated late last week, the two agencies responsible for auto standards
— the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — both claimed that their internal
reviews have found the Obama-era standards to be too strict, and that the
agencies would go back to the drawing board to revise standards for model
years 2022-2025.

The weaker standards, expected to be revealed in coming months and reported
to be well below the current targets of 54.5 miles per gallon
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-automakers/epa-locks-in-2025-fuel-efficiency-rules-idUSKBN14X1Q6>
(or roughly 35 miles per gallon in real-world driving conditions), will be
celebrated as a victory for the automakers, which have been lobbying the
Trump administration since the day after the presidential election and
which used a major trade group to peddle climate science denial in support
of the rollback.

“The Obama administration's determination was wrong,” EPA administrator Scott
Pruitt <https://www.desmogblog.com/scott-pruitt> said in a statement.
“Obama’s EPA cut the Midterm Evaluation process short with politically
charged expediency, made assumptions about the standards that didn’t
comport with reality, and set the standards too high.”

Many argue, however, that weakened standards will hurt the average driver,
who will have to pay more for gasoline to fuel the less efficient vehicles.
Energy Innovation’s peer-reviewed modeling simulator
<https://www.energypolicy.solutions/>, for instance, shows how a rollback
on emissions standards would cause nearly $400 billion in increased
consumer costs between now and 2050.

Furthermore, weakening mileage and emissions standards will set up a fight
with California, which has a unique authority under the Clean Air Act to
set its own emissions standards for vehicles, and state authorities are
signaling that they have no intention of chasing the federal government in
a race to the bottom. Notably, over recent weeks, Pruitt has been publicly
critical of California’s authority to set its own standards, leading many
to speculate that the EPA might attempt to revoke California’s waiver under
the Clean Air Act.

“California is not the arbiter of these issues,” Pruitt told Bloomberg TV
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-13/epa-chief-signals-showdown-with-california-on-tailpipe-standards>.
The state, he said, “shouldn’t and can’t dictate to the rest of the country
what these levels are going to be.”

On Monday, a so-called conservative coalition sent a letter to Pruitt and
Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao
<https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/daily-on-energy-epa-ready-to-scrap-obamas-fuel-efficiency-rules-this-week>
applauding the decision, which had yet to be formally announced. Organized
by Tom Pyle <http://www.kochvsclean.com/thomas-pyle/> of the Koch-funded
Institute for Energy Research
<http://www.kochvsclean.com/institute-for-energy-research/>, and signed by
Michael Needham of Heritage Action
<https://www.desmogblog.com/heritage-foundation>, Brent Gardner
<https://americansforprosperity.org/brent-gardner/> of Americans for
Prosperity
<https://www.desmogblog.com/americans-prosperity-history-research-background-funding>,
Myron Ebell <https://www.desmogblog.com/myron-ebell> of the Competitive
Enterprise Institute
<https://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute>, and Grover
Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform
<https://www.desmogblog.com/americans-tax-reform>, the letter goes so far
as to say that “we believe repealing the entire program is appropriate
and warranted.”
The Auto Alliance Used Climate Denial to Push its Agenda

Most automakers selling cars in the United States have been actively
lobbying President Trump and the respective agencies to rewrite and weaken
the rules. This is despite the fact that, in the wake of the financial
crisis and $80 billion bailout of Detroit, the car companies helped design
these regulations and publicly accepted the mileage and pollution standards
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/obama-administration-auto-industry-strike-deal-on-vehicle-fuel-efficiency/2011/07/27/gIQA72mKdI_story.html?utm_term=.c898d6a7ee07>
.

Through the powerful Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers (or Auto
Alliance) <https://autoalliance.org/> trade group, which counts Toyota,
Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, BMW, Mercedes, and Volkswagen
among its members, the automakers sent a letter to President Trump days
after the presidential election
<http://fortune.com/2016/11/10/auto-trade-group-trump-emissions/>, and
then another
near-identical one to Pruitt after he was confirmed to lead EPA
<https://www.law360.com/transportation/articles/894519/automakers-push-epa-to-withdraw-obama-emissions-rules>
.

In the year since, pressure from the group has increased, and the Alliance
has resorted to a disinformation campaign founded in climate science denial
and cherry-picked data.

In February, as NHTSA was reviewing the Obama standards, the Alliance sent
a report to the agency
<https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=NHTSA-2017-0069-0176> that
presented a number of studies and resources intended to undermine the
current standards and present the case for rolling back the targets. The
report was written by an industry-connected team from Air Improvement
Resources, Inc <http://www.airimprovement.com/>, along with Joseph D’Aleo
<https://www.desmogblog.com/joseph-d-aleo>, a policy adviser to the Heartland
Institute <https://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute>, a fountainhead
of climate denial.

Despite its name, Air Improvement Resources is a for-profit consultancy
with a long history of combating environmental regulations. Their client
tally includes a long list of organizations found in Desmog’s Climate
Disinformation Database
<https://www.desmogblog.com/global-warming-denier-database>, including
the American
Petroleum Institute
<https://www.desmogblog.com/american-petroleum-institute>, the American
Coal Council <https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Coal_Council>,
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
<https://www.desmogblog.com/us-chamber-commerce>, and the American
Enterprise Institute
<https://www.desmogblog.com/american-enterprise-institute>.

The report itself relies heavily on comments from the automakers and on
papers that were paid for by the industry or fossil fuel interests. Perhaps
the most striking example is the citation of a study by Anthony Cox, Jr.
<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408444.2017.1311838> that
questions the health impacts of fine particulate air pollution (such as
smog), a study that was directly funded by the American Petroleum Institute
<https://apps.publicintegrity.org/united-states-of-petroleum/venue-of-last-resort/>
.

The Alliance's report also promotes outright climate science denial
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/climate/climate-change-sylvia-earle.html>,
with an entire section dedicated to questioning climate models. Other
sections cherry-pick lines from studies to undermine the scientific
consensus linking the burning of fossil fuels with more extreme droughts
and floods, hurricanes, ocean acidification, and wildfires.
The Auto Alliance Wants You to Think It's Serious About Selling Cleaner Cars

Meanwhile, last week at the New York International Auto Show, the Auto
Alliance, along with the Association of Global Automakers and more than a
dozen automakers announced a new marketing campaign
<https://driveelectricus.com/about-us/> to “to increase electric car use
throughout the Northeast.”

According to the campaign's website: *“*Drive Change. Drive Electric.
represents a unique public-private partnership between auto manufacturers
and Northeast states to advance consumer awareness, understanding,
consideration, and adoption of electric cars, including battery electric,
plug-in hybrid electric, and fuel cell electric vehicles. By showcasing to
drivers and passengers the convenience, affordability, technology,
sustainability, and power performance of electric vehicles, Drive Change.
Drive Electric. aims to put more electric cars on the road than
ever before.”

However, the effort is coming at precisely the same time that the Auto
Alliance and its members has been actively lobbying for looser emissions
standards, which would lower car companies' incentives for selling more
electric vehicles.

As Fred Lambert writes
<https://electrek.co/2018/03/30/automakers-electric-vehicle-marketing-effort-northeast/>
on the popular electric car enthusiast site Electrek:

“They are launching this just as the EPA is about to release its decision
over the fuel consumption standard that those same organizations have been
pressuring them to lower.

If it does get lower, they wouldn’t have to mass produce electric vehicles
for a few more years and continue to focus on smaller numbers of EVs
[electric vehicles] in CARB [California Air Resources Board] states, like
in the Northeast.”

California May Save the Auto Industry From Itself

The announcement opens the door for a new weakening of efficiency and
pollution standards, but automakers will have to wait months before they
know what targets they will have to achieve by 2022. Further complicating
matters is California’s unique authority under the Clean Air Act to set its
own air pollution standards. Publicly, California officials have offered
firm resolve in sticking with the existing, stricter standards.

“We are not going to go backward,” California Attorney General Xavier
Becerra told the
<http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-mileage-epa-rule-20180329-story.html>Los
Angeles Times
<http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-mileage-epa-rule-20180329-story.html>.
“We
are not interested in a race to the bottom … We are prepared to take
whatever action, legal or otherwise, we have to to protect our health and
our economy.”

Twelve other states and the District of Columbia have adopted California’s
standards, meaning that roughly 40 percent of the light-duty vehicles sold
<https://www.mjbradley.com/sites/default/files/MJB%26A_IssueBrief_CA%20Vehicle%20Emissions%20Waiver_2017-04-25.pdf>
nationally will still have to comply with current standards.

Automakers do not want to have to produce two different types of vehicles
within the American market, and have repeatedly argued on behalf of one
national standard.

California officials will have plenty of support from the other states, as
well as from many business groups and even automobile parts manufacturers.
In March, a group of 46 businesses
<https://www.ceres.org/sites/default/files/Fact%20Sheets%20or%20misc%20files/March%2015%20S177%20Letter%201.pdf>
—
including major employers like Kellogg, Levi Strauss, Nike, and Unilever —
sent a letter to Pruitt warning against a rollback of emissions standards.

Meanwhile, vehicle parts manufacturers boast that the Obama standards have
created jobs in the auto industry. In March, the Motor & Equipment
Manufacturers Association, the Manufacturers of Emission Controls
Association, and the Aluminum Association all announced they are joining
forces as the Automotive Technology Leadership Group
<https://www.axios.com/a-new-voice-in-the-auto-emissions-standards-debate-1519911471-fae3b6ff-da99-4c3c-a0d1-29eae5efe879.html>,
with a goal of advocating for continuing current fuel economy standards and
reducing emissions
<http://www.autonews.com/article/20180301/OEM10/180309785/supplier-alliance-lobbying-emissions-regulations-cafe>
.

“Do not slow down the pace on CAFE [Corporate Average Fuel Economy]
standards,” said James Verrier
<http://www.thedrive.com/tech/7724/not-all-auto-execs-want-trump-to-roll-back-epa-fuel-standards>,
president and CEO of Borg Warner, a major auto equipment manufacturer.
“We’ve come a long way as an industry and we need to keep going forward.
Don’t go backwards and don’t slow down.”

Meanwhile, in Europe
<https://www.theicct.org/publications/role-standards-reducing-co2-emissions-passenger-cars-eu>
and China
<https://www.theicct.org/publications/chinas-stage-6-emission-standard-new-light-duty-vehicles-final-rule>
—
the world's other two largest auto markets — carmakers are complying with
ever-stricter standards, and any rollback of U.S. regulations would make
American companies laggards globally. Chinese officials have even signaled
a plan to end
<https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/13/16293258/ev-revolution>
all sales of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles. “I don’t really know if
the auto industry wants what this administration might be doing,” Harvard
law professor Jody Freeman told the New York Times
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/climate/epa-cafe-auto-pollution-rollback.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news>.
“It might be like the dog that caught the car.”

A lesson could be learned from the last time that the auto industry
resisted fuel efficiency improvements. For nearly two decades, the fuel
efficiency standards, known as CAFE, held mostly static around 25 miles per
gallon
<http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheets/2011/04/20/driving-to-545-mpg-the-history-of-fuel-economy>.
By 2008, when the financial crisis struck, American demand for cars dropped
considerably, and demand for gas-guzzling SUVs plummeted even faster.
Combined with high gas prices, the 20-plus year run of flat fuel efficiency
ended in a massive bailout of Detroit's Big Three automakers as American
car companies lost market share to more fuel-efficient German and
Japanese cars.

The Auto Alliance's own marketing claims that many electric cars
<https://driveelectricus.com/learn-the-facts/affordability/> are already
cheaper to own than gas-guzzling alternatives. Meanwhile, a whopping 87
percent of American drivers
<https://consumersunion.org/news/2017-fuel-economy-survey/> want better
fuel economy out of their cars, and 73 percent think the government should
raise standards to get it.

Instead, the Trump administration has announced its intention to weaken
standards, relying on misinformation provided by the Auto Alliance and its
members, which will make it more expensive for Americans to drive and makes
the entire auto industry less competitive globally.

*Main image: Rolling back fuel efficiency standards in the U.S. could cost
drivers an additional $370 billion by 2050. Credit: Oak Ridge National Labs
<https://www.ornl.gov/content/fueleconomygov>, public domain*
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