New EPA head: Obama ‘jumped the gun’ on vehicle emissions standards

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler has confirmed that a new agency proposal set for formal release as early as next week will propose lowering vehicle emissions standards, saying the previous administration “jumped the gun” on stronger regulations.

In an interview with USA Today released on Friday, Wheeler said that former President Obama acted prematurely when he increased the fuel efficiency standards cars must meet before leaving office in 2016.

{mosads}”It was a political attempt to try to move up the process, and what we’re doing is taking the deliberative process of looking at the midyear review the way it was originally intended to be done,” Wheeler said of the EPA’s decision to change the rule. 

Obama submitted his recommendations to raise the standards more than a year before the planned midyear review set for April 2018, which was the date to look at how car companies were coping with regulations and adjust standards for the next phase to be hit by 2021.

This April, the EPA announced that they would be lessening the regulations for 2021 after determining that the standards would be too stringent and fearing they would cause sale loses in the auto industry.

This coming week, the EPA is expected to make a joint announcement with the Department of Transportation to offer an official alternative to the Obama-era rule.

Car companies are split over the outcome. While most prefer lowered standards, the industry also fears a rule that could enrage California, a state with the highest auto sales and one that prefers more stringent standards to fight its smog pollution.

It’s expected that any rule from the EPA could lead to high-profile legal battle. In May, California led 16 other states in suing the federal government over its decision to roll-back the rule.

Wheeler said the EPA will be proposing many options.

“We’re proposing a list of options. We have a preferred option but I don’t want to get ahead of the actual proposal before it goes out,” he said.