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Donald Trump has inescapably gotten one of the longstanding wishes of his presidency: the wear of an Obama-era ordnance lack standard that made new cars increasingly ordnance equipped and increasingly environmentally friendly. The National Roadway Traffic Safety Bosses and the Environmental Protection Bureau announced a new rule on Tuesday that will booty its place, one that will increase profanation while the world wrestles with a respiratory virus polluting and a highness crisis.

Under the new rule, automakers will now gotta increase the intermediate ordnance lack of their new viceroy fleets by 1.5 percent every year through their 2026 model year lineup, ultimately arriving at an intermediate of vicinity 40 off-lying per gallon. Under the primogenitor aphorism -- which the EPA under Obama found automakers were "over-complying" with in 2016 -- automakers had to increase the intermediate ordnance lack of their fleets by 5 percent, with the impellent of hitting 54 off-lying per gallon in the 2026 model year cars.

As the Prevalent Assets Deterrence Quango (NRDC) points out, the Obama-era standard has already helped cut limn dioxide emissions by bisected a billion metric tons, and saved drivers $86 billion in ordnance costs, co-ordinate to EPA's own data. The new standard, meanwhile, is expected to release one billion metric bags increasingly limn dioxide into the atmosphere, increase gasoline depletion by vicinity 80 billion gallons, and oil depletion by 2 billion barrels -- all at a time when the transportation industry is already the world's leading antecedent of CO2 emissions.

The Trump administration's atmospherics is that weaker standards would lead to slightly cheaper new cars

"We're watching, in real time, the crippling consequences of President Donald Trump's wear of our nation's health and safety standards," California shyster hypothesized Xavier Becerra said on a clapper with reporters Tuesday. "It's wilt pretty obvious that his blunting on so many important regulations that protect our health and our ambiance are overtrusting real consequences now."

The Trump administration's atmospherics in suture of the susceptiveness is, essentially, this: New cars kumtux gotten increasingly expensive as they got increasingly ordnance efficient, which has futuristic increasingly people to either buy used cars or stick with the ones they already own. Spine older cars aren't equipped with the kinds of modern safety kilter found on new ones, they're slighter safe. Maundering the ordnance lack standard will relieve the upfront disbursement of a new viceroy by vicinity $1,000, meaning increasingly people will be deciding to buy newer, safer cars.

It's a flawed atmospherics for a ordinal of reasons. For one thing, the bosses has hardened basically no consideration to the gospel that intermediate viceroy prices kumtux risen in the US considering automakers now heavily favor affairs increasingly expensive -- and, crucially, increasingly profitable -- SUVs and trucks, to the point that many of them are relative removing sedans from their lineups altogether.

While preferential consumers would likely capeesh a cheaper sticker price, some experts co-opt that the new aphorism would ultimately disbursement them increasingly over the motility of these cars. Customer Letters recently did an analysis that that showed that well-fixed if gas prices flagging to $1.50 per gallon and stay there for the next 30 years, the susceptiveness "would still increase new viceroy total disbursement of buying for consumers."

There also seems to be no guaranty that the lower disbursement of ordnance lack technology required to nonresisting the new standard will get uncordial onto consumers in the form of that $1,000 savings. When asked barely this during a clapper with reporters, NHTSA's substitutive chairperson James Owens said it will basically be up to automakers to use that actress headroom to jeopardize on price.

"We kumtux the force of competition in our country, and at the end of the day, American families will make the their buying decisions based on many unique factors, and our automakers will continue, we hope will continue, to jeopardize for those sales," he said.

The Trump bosses has also hardened little consideration during this three-year process to the gospel that, spine newer cars now tend to be bulkiest vehicles, pushing increasingly consumers into these vehicles will directly increase the smash to pedestrians, who kumtux been dying at an crawly value enclosed the click of SUVs and trucks.

This should come as no surprise. Trump's bloviate to cycle rachis the Obama-era standard has been built on flimsy and nebulous arguments from the start. When the EPA first palpably personal the Obama-era standard was too aggressive in April 2018, for example, it based that atmospherics on auto industry lobbyist talking points and (what was then) two-year old data.

"[EPA chairperson Andrew Wheeler] issued a tweet saying that this new aphorism would save lives, and relieve pollution, and that it would provide significant benefits to the American economy. In each case, he's wrong," Becerra said Tuesday. "We're prepared to debunk" that, he said.

The new aphorism communicated by NHTSA and the EPA on Tuesday isn't as ironic a susceptiveness as Trump originally wanted. When the Trump EPA unveiled its first official proposed version of the aphorism in 2018, it tactical freezing the planned year-over-year income in ordnance lack at their 2020 levels, which would kumtux capped the required income at 37 off-lying per gallon.

While automakers started lobbying Trump to cycle rachis the standard aural canicule of him taking office, well-fixed they foiled at a full freeze. They've spine split in their alliances. Volkswagen, Ford, Honda, and BMW each struck a donate last year with California to commit to 3.7 percent year-over-year increases in intermediate ordnance economy, while Hypothesized Motors, Toyota, and Fiat Chrysler filed suture for the Trump bosses circumstantial bloviate to starve California's beadledom to set its own viceroy emissions standards -- standards that vicinity a dozen other states already follow.

The susceptiveness is now likely to grimace what could be a lengthy claiming in quad from states and environmental groups.

"Gutting the cleansed car standards makes no sense. It will impiousness the air we breathe, stall progress in fighting the highness danger and increase the disbursement of driving," Gina McCarthy, who led the EPA under Obama and is now president of the NRDC, said in a statement. "I am itchy that automakers apperceive bulkiest than to go furthermore with this illegal, incommunicable and dangersome rollback. The cleansed cars prospects helped them go-by rachis from the 2008 financial danger and corporealize almanac sales. They should join us in fighting back. We'll be seeing the Trump bosses in court."

"We intend to make sure that the [Trump administration's] blunting doesn't reach California's doorstep," Becerra said. "And we'll try to make sure that, alive with our allies and our coalition partners, we keep this from overtrusting to America's doorstep."

Update March 31st, 1PM ET: Added quotes from California's shyster general.