California has struck a deal with four major automakers to boost their vehicles' fuel-emissions standards, escalating the state's standoff with the Trump administration over federal efforts to freeze such improvements.
The deal announced Thursday commits the automakers to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants from their cars and light-duty trucks. That will require an increase in overall mileage to roughly 50 miles per gallon by model year 2026, one year later than fuel-efficiency targets that had been set by President Barack Obama's administration, which the Trump administration is moving to roll back.
Ford, Honda, BMW of North America and Volkswagen Group of America signed on to the deal with the California Air Resources Board, promising to implement the targets across their entire fleet, regardless of what the federal government does.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said raising fuel efficiency for vehicles, which are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, is the most important step California can take to reach its ambitious goals to combat climate change.
"The Trump administration is hell-bent on rolling them back. They are in complete denialism about climate change," Newsom said on a conference call. "We see a future that is much brighter than the future the Trump administration is trying to paint."
The deal was negotiated as California remains embroiled in litigation with the Trump administration over its moves to undo the Obama administration's fuel-efficiency rules and remove California's authority to set its own higher standards.
President Trump moved last year to block the Obama administration's fuel-mileage targets for 2021 through 2025. Fuel economy would continue to increase to roughly 37 miles per gallon in 2020, but it would stop there, well short of the currently planned 47 mpg in 2025.
The Environmental Protection Agency also wants to repeal a waiver that has allowed California and 13 other states to set stricter standards for tailpipe emissions than the rest of the nation.
Administration officials contend their proposed fuel standards would reduce traffic deaths by about 1,000 a year. They say stricter emissions and fuel-efficiency standards would make new cars so expensive that many Americans would keep older, more dangerous cars and trucks.
California's deal with Honda, Ford, BMW and Volkswagen "is a PR stunt that does nothing to further the one national standard that will provide certainty and relief for American consumers," Michael Abboud, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement. "Despite our best efforts to reach a common-sense solution with (the California Air Resources Board), they continually refused to produce reasonable and responsible proposals."
Newsom said the four automakers approached the state last month after they sent a letter to the Trump administration asking the president to return to the negotiating table on the pollution standards. The industry has expressed concerns about the national automobile market being cleaved in two if California, where more cars are sold than in any other state, and its allies continue to pursue stricter emissions targets than the federal government.
With Trump declining to engage, Newsom said, California worked out its own arrangement with the automakers. The governor said the state is also talking with other companies, and that some could eventually join the four manufacturers that reached this week's deal. Those four account for about 30% of U.S. car sales.
"A 50-state solution has always been our preferred path forward, and we understand that any deal involves compromise," Honda, Ford, BMW and Volkswagen said in a statement. "These terms will provide our companies much-needed regulatory certainty by allowing us to meet both federal and state requirements with a single national fleet."
Under the agreement, the companies will have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their cars by almost 4% annually for five years. About a quarter of that mandate could be offset by credits for adopting cleaner technologies in the vehicle design, such as improved internal temperature controls, and by selling more electric or hybrid cars. California has previously committed to putting 5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030.
Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, said the state plans to honor the deal even if a Democrat is elected to the White House next year, providing automakers with certainty as they develop their future vehicle lineups.
"The car companies are already locking in their product plans that far out," she said. "What we are really doing here is maintaining the momentum."
Nichols said California's litigation against the Trump administration would continue, depending on the outcome of its final fuel-efficiency rule, which is expected by the end of the summer. The deal with auto manufacturers, she said, offers the president a way out of his plan to roll back the Obama administration standards.
"What we've shown them is that there's a way they can change positions, and we hope that they will take advantage of it," Nichols said.
"We will continue on the path that we're on," she added, "knowing that we'll now be able to count on four companies, and perhaps more, not to support what the administration is proposing to do."
In a statement, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that "every manufacturer is responsible for planning, designing and building as they find appropriate for their consumers." The agency said the federal government would continue working on its own fuel-economy standards "to which all vehicle manufacturers must comply."
Environmental groups celebrated the deal as a major victory against the Trump administration.
Luke Tonachel, director of clean vehicles and fuels at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the agreement signaled that Trump's efforts to undo the fuel-efficiency standards are "doomed."
"The administration should drop its senseless and harmful plan that would make cars pollute more and cost drivers more at the pump," Tonachel said in a statement.
Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement, "It is about time Ford and other automakers finally listened to the people and committed to moving forward on climate solutions."
(c)2019 the San Francisco Chronicle
