EPA staff concerns may fuel critics of rollback proposal

The Trump administration reopened the feasibility review for 2022-25 fuel economy standards in 2017 because it said the process conducted under President Barack Obama was rushed and politically motivated.

Now, critics of the new NHTSA-led proposal to freeze the standards at 2020 levels argue that it's the Trump administration that's playing politics as it tries to roll back its predecessors' policies.

They say the preliminary rulemaking issued this month was completed at warp speed with thin scientific evidence — claims that could undergird a coming wave of legal challenges to the proposal from states and environmental groups.

Their ammunition comes from an internal government document made public last week in which senior EPA staffers told the White House that many of NHTSA's predictions and justifications for the rollback were faulty read more »