July 14, 2019—Nearly two dozen U.S. state governors, including those of California and New York, urged the Trump administration on Tuesday to abandon a proposal to freeze fuel-efficiency standards at 2020 levels through 2026, reported Reuters.
The governors, representing 52 percent of the U.S. population and 57 percent of the economy, said they want “continuous, meaningful annual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and criteria pollutants while saving consumers money,” and that they “support preserving state authority to protect our residents from vehicle pollution.”
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota and others, said on Tuesday: “It is untenable to face a marketplace with different standards in different states, but it is also untenable to face standards that rise so high that only a handful of electric cars can achieve them.”
The Trump administration plan aims to roll back emission standards set by former President Barack Obama.
The Obama-era rules called for a fleetwide fuel-efficiency average of 46.7 miles per gallon by 2026, compared with 37 mpg under the Trump administration’s preferred option.
