If California thought President Trump was not serious, they’re about to get a dose of reality.
For some reason, the EPA under President Obama granted California a special waiver when it comes to its national standards.
And what has happened is California has become a heavy burden on the rest of the country by following it’s own different standards than the ones that apply to the rest of the country.
For anyone in business or manufacturing, you know that you typically have to deal with special standards in California, and even though they only apply there, you have to run your whole nation-wide business based on the strict and unreasonable standards set forth by California.
Well the Trump Administration is once again brining sanity back to the world and ending this ridiculous double-standard permitted by the Obama Administration!
The Trump EPA had initially tried to negotiate with California, but after several unsuccessful attempts, they’ve now said they’re done negotiating!
In other words: REVOKED!
Take a look:
The Hill had more on the developing story:
The Trump administration says it has cut off negotiations with California officials over the future of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency rules for cars.
In a joint statement, the White House, Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said the talks with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) had not been fruitful, adding that the Trump administration will move forward with its plan to roll back the pollution standards.
“Despite the administration’s best efforts to reach a common-sense solution, it is time to acknowledge that CARB has failed to put forward a productive alternative since the SAFE Vehicles Rule was proposed,” the administration officials said, referring to the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicle Rule, the proposal last year to repeal plans to increase the stringency of efficiency and emissions standards for newly built vehicles.
“Accordingly, the administration is moving forward to finalize a rule later this year with the goal of promoting safer, cleaner, and more affordable vehicles,” the officials said.
Acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler told Bloomberg Television this month that the parties were “far apart” in negotiations.
“We certainly hope to have a 50-state solution but at the end of the day we have to move forward with regulation,” he said. “California is an important player — an important part of this — but this is not a two-sided negotiation for a national standard.”
Last year’s proposal would freeze vehicle standards next year, canceling plans to make them more stringent through 2026. Those standards envisioned new cars getting an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2026.
The auto industry has endorsed the attempts by the EPA and DOT to weaken standards set by the Obama administration, saying that they are not achievable at an affordable cost.
But automakers also object to completely freezing the standards, saying that they should continue to get stronger, just not at the previously set rate.
California has the authority to set its own greenhouse gas rules for cars under the Clean Air Act and a waiver granted by the Obama administration. Thirteen states follow California’s standards for cars sold in their borders, representing about 40 percent of the nation's vehicle market.
California is aligned with the current federal rules, thanks to regulators’ previous negotiations.
But last year’s proposal to roll back the the standards would have ended California’s waiver, under the argument that it is illegal.
State officials have threatened to sue if the proposal was finalized. Meanwhile, they and the Trump administration have been negotiating for months toward a middle ground that would avoid California attempting to set its own stricter standards or a lawsuit from the Golden State that could take years to resolve — both outcomes that the auto industry wants to avoid.
California officials slammed the Thursday announcement, and accused the Trump administration of being disingenuous in its talks.
Bloomberg explained more:
U.S. and California officials agreed Monday on one thing about auto emissions standards: they’re still miles from an agreement, with a crucial deadline just two months away.
In separate comments, Sacramento and Washington’s top environmental regulators said they’ve yet to overcome a long-running impasse over the Trump administration’s proposal to cap auto emissions and fuel economy standards after 2020 and strip California of its authority to regulate tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions.
“We certainly hope to have a 50-state solution but at the end of the day we have to move forward with regulation,” Environmental Protection AgencyActing Administrator Andrew Wheeler told Bloomberg Television in an interview Monday, saying the agency and the state remain “pretty far apart” on the issue. “California is an important player -- an important part of this -- but this is not a two-sided negotiation for a national standard.”
After briefly meeting with Wheeler in San Francisco on Monday, California Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols said the two sides remain at odds over the proposal and that a fundamental philosophical disagreement exists over the federal proposal to unwind California’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from autos.
Legal Disagreement
“That disagreement may turn into a legal disagreement at some point,” Nichols said during remarks at the BloombergNEF Summit San Francisco. “I think it’s also correct to say that we have some reason to hope that we could possibly reach a resolution, not so much because I think we’re going to change their minds through the force of our arguments, as that the auto industry itself has made it very clear that they don’t want this fight. ”
The dueling statements highlight the standoff between the Trump administration and California officials over fuel economy and tailpipe carbon emissions standards for automobiles, one of former President Barack Obama’s signature policies to ward off climate change.
Wheeler said he would prefer to reach a deal with California, but said the state shouldn’t be able to dictate the requirements. The EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have already proposed stripping California of its authority to set its own tailpipe greenhouse gas emission limits for new cars and trucks, a potent bargaining chip to extract concessions from the largest state for U.S. auto sales.
California’s Waiver
In the interview, Wheeler said California should not have that authority.
“That’s why we would love to have a 50-state solution so we wouldn’t have to pull that trigger,” Wheeler said.
He dismissed an earlier counteroffer by California to extend the timeline of the existing requirements, saying it would not lower vehicle prices and improve road safety enough.
The dispute began last August, when the EPA and NHTSA proposed capping efficiency standards at a roughly 37-mile-per-gallon fleet average from 2020 through 2026 -- instead of allowing them to rise to almost 50 miles per gallon by 2025 under the existing rules written by the Obama administration.
“But we do have some hard deadlines,” he said, adding “and we are pretty far apart.”
Wheeler gave no hint of a middle ground before his meeting with Nichols. The administration argues that freezing future fuel economy increases after 2020 would cut car prices and encourage more people to buy newer, safer and cleaner cars.
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