What you need to know about Biden’s new clean car regulation
The Biden administration’s new regulations limiting tailpipe emissions from cars and light trucks would transform the U.S. auto market and chart a course away from the internal combustion engine and toward a future of electric cars and hybrids.
This is what you need to know about the measure.
It is a major problem in the fight against climate change
In terms of reducing emissions that are warming the planet, this regulation does more than any other climate rule issued by the federal government, and more than any measure planned for the remainder of Biden’s first term.
That’s partly because transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gases generated by the United States. It is also because the rule is objectively ambitious. The rule is expected to remove more than seven billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next thirty years, more than all the greenhouse gases produced by the entire U.S. economy in one year. And because the United States is a huge auto market, analysts predict that companies that make cleaner cars in the United States will start selling them on the global market as other governments adopt or pursue similar standards.
The rule is not a ban on petrol vehicles
The rule does not mandate the sale of electric vehicles, and consumers can still buy and drive gas-powered cars. Rather, it requires automakers to meet stringent new average emissions limits across their entire product lines; it is up to manufacturers to decide how to meet these limits.
Under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency can limit the pollution caused by the total number of cars each year. EPA officials said that as long as automakers adhere to emissions rules, they can sell a mix of gasoline cars, hybrids, electric cars or other types of vehicles, such as those that run on hydrogen.
The rule does not apply to the sale of used vehicles.
It penalizes automakers, not consumers, for noncompliance
Beginning in model year 2027, when the rule takes effect, auto companies will report to the EPA the average emissions associated with all passenger cars they sell. Emission limits will start modestly and increase slowly in the early years of the program, before rising sharply after 2030. Companies that don’t meet emissions limits would have to pay fines that could run into billions of dollars.
Success depends on consumer behavior
Whether America’s roads fill with non-polluting vehicles depends on a central question: Will motorists buy them? Early adopters flocked to electric vehicles, but sales have cooled and automakers worry they need more time to develop the market. That’s one reason why the EPA postponed strict emissions requirements for car sales until after 2030, so manufacturers could improve designs and develop more affordable models, and to build charging infrastructure.
Trump could reverse the rule, but not quickly or easily
Trump has vowed to “end” the Biden administration’s climate rules “on Day 1.” But now that the car rule is final, it will be more difficult and time-consuming, but not impossible, for a future administration to roll back this rule. And even if it were, the Clean Air Act requires it to be replaced with another rule that controls greenhouse gas pollution from vehicles.
The Supreme Court will likely decide his fate
The rules are expected to face immediate legal challenges from a coalition of fossil fuel companies and Republican attorneys general, complaints that will likely make their way to the Supreme Court. The court’s six-to-three conservative majority has taken steps in recent years to limit the EPA’s authority. In a 2022 decision on another major EPA climate rule, the court sharply limited, but did not overturn, EPA’s authority. limit greenhouse gas pollution from power plants.