On Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced his intention to roll back former President Biden’s changes to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards in a move that oil industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute have been lobbying for months.
“Today, we’re taking one more step to kill the ‘Green New Scam,’” Trump said in a press briefing on Wednesday afternoon. “We’re officially terminating Joe Biden’s ridiculously burdensome, horrible actually, CAFE standards that impose expensive restrictions, and all sorts of problems to automakers.”
Last year, Biden tightened some of the requirements in the CAFE standards that have determined the average fuel economy targets for new vehicles for roughly 50 years, making it so that automakers had to achieve an average of roughly 50 miles per gallon fuel efficiency for new vehicles by 2031. The move was part of the Biden administration’s push to boost the electric vehicle industry on the road to a net-zero carbon economy by 2050, as the stricter controls made it so that automakers had to invest in more electric vehicles to meet the average efficiency requirements across their fleet.
Now, those requirements will be considerably cut back to an average of 34.5 miles per gallon by 2031, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The proposed rules, which would affect 2022-2031 model-year vehicles, are set to make it much easier for automakers to refocus on selling gas guzzlers that deeply alarm environmentalists and climate change activists.
The move comes months after Trump relieved automakers from all penalties for not heeding the CAFE standards in their 2022 model cars. Stellantis has had to pay more than $425 million in fines since 2022 for failing to meet the CAFE requirements.
It’s also just the latest in a string of attacks by the Trump administration against pro-clean energy policy. Since taking office, Trump has gotten rid of the electric vehicle tax credit and canceled billions of dollars’ worth of clean energy projects.
Joining Trump in announcing the new measures were Ford CEO Jim Farley and Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa (Yes, the same Stellantis that had to pay all of those fines). Farley called the new measures “a victory,” while Filosa reiterated the multinational company’s recent commitment to invest $13 billion in U.S. manufacturing operations.
“That’s because we believe in what you, Senator Duffy, and all your team is doing in this country. We believe in growth, and we are ready to invest even more,” Filosa said.
Somewhat of a sliver of hope for environmentalists amidst all of this is that not all auto giants are excitedly waiting to take full advantage of this rollback.
General Motors is seemingly one of them, despite previously supporting the elimination of CAFE fines. Speaking at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit earlier on Wednesday, GM CEO Mary Barra said that the company would continue its current investments in “significant” fuel economy and emissions improvements for every new vehicle.
But she stopped short of reiterating GM’s previous commitment to having all its new cars be electric vehicles by 2035.
“I think it’s hard to say exactly where we’ll be in 2035, but what I can tell you is we’re going to be guided by the consumer,” Barra said. “The world is transforming. I do believe fundamentally EVs have better performance, but there’s work that needs to be done.”
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