Trump’s ‘can’t do’ spirit when it comes to clean cars

Every day we’re seeing new examples of what climate change looks like. There are devastating wildfires from California to Greece, and record-breaking heat waves from Arizona to Algeria. Even north of the Arctic Circle, thermometers have hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit, melting glaciers and putting imperiled wildlife at risk.

In its infernal and infuriating proposal this week to halt fuel-efficiency and low emission standards for cars and trucks, the Trump administration offered one surprising concession to this reality: It reaffirmed that climate change is a danger to public health and welfare. But then it came up with the absurd argument that these clean car rules alone won’t have a large impact on the emissions blamed for global warming — and so they should be scrapped.

{mosads}It’s hard to imagine a more cynical, defeatist response.

President Donald Trump is turning his back on a trajectory of innovation that will create jobs, save consumers money at the pump, spur technological breakthroughs and, yes, help us address the looming threat of climate change. It’s not the only thing we need to do, but it’s a major, important step to address the nation’s largest source of carbon pollution.

This reversal doesn’t make sense for anyone but the oil industry. Over the past six years, American auto buyers and American automakers have been in a golden age. Today’s vehicles are more reliable and better to drive than ever before. They’re also more efficient. New cars, SUVs and pickup trucks get, on average, 25 miles per gallon, about 23 percent more than a decade ago.

At the same time, as anyone who has looked in their rearview camera or tapped their anti-lock brakes knows, automobiles are getting safer. As one dramatic example, the nation’s most popular vehicle, the Ford F-150, slimmed down by 700 pounds as the automaker switched to high-end aluminum and made other upgrades. The truck still garnered the insurance industry’s top safety rating.

And through all of this, the industry has been able to sell lots of cars and make lots and lots of money. The vehicle makers have had robust sales in recent years, and that’s likely to continue if the current standards, which they helped negotiate, stay in place.

Instead, with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) moving to halt any progress on clean cars or fuel efficiency, the auto industry faces years of legal uncertainty. And that means the U.S. industry could cede the lead on innovation to competitors in China or Europe.

Gutting the rules is bad news for workers and consumers, too. There are roughly 300,000 workers in companies that are making cars cleaner and more efficient; by the administration’s own estimate there will be 60,000 fewer of those jobs in 2030 if its plan goes into effect. And it would make it more expensive for car owners by increasing the frequency they need to fill up at the pump. Based on the agency’s estimate of additional gasoline demand from this rollback, drivers will shell out an additional $170 billion at the pump at current prices. If oil prices spike, so will the costs.

You see, while many of the oil industry’s allies try to obfuscate it, cleaning up our air is good for business and consumers. It’s also one thing we can do to start tackling the risks of climate change. In its analysis, the administration made much of the fact that halting these improvements alone will have a small impact on overall global emissions more than 80 years hence. And so, it argued, we should do nothing more to improve fuel efficiency. Literally.  

This is not the American spirit. We are a nation that confronts its challenges head on. When I served in the Navy, we — like soldiers and sailors today — didn’t balk when faced with a mission to support our great nation. We set sail to meet the challenge.

If this administration really thinks the existing clean cars standards aren’t going to do enough to curtail carbon emissions, well, we should talk. My colleagues have loads of ideas for how we could improve efficiency standards, boost the infrastructure for electric vehicles, spur more installations of wind and solar power and curtail dangerous methane leaks in oil fields. No one of these actions alone will solve the climate crisis, but together they all will help.

This could all be sad and discouraging. It shouldn’t be. As White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders herself emphasized, this plan is just a proposal. It will be months or years before the administration can finalize it and until then we are going to be doing all we can to fight. We can tell EPA and NHTSA why this is a dumb idea, ask our lawmakers to push legislation to halt this harmful process and make sure state leaders vow to fight this each step of the way, too.

President Trump and his buddies in the oil industry may be ready to give up on Americans’ ability to address our challenges, but we aren’t.

Luke Tonachel is the director of the Clean Vehicles and Fuels Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Before working at NRDC, he served as an engineering officer aboard a nuclear-powered U.S. Navy cruiser.