The Biden administration finalized its crackdown on gas cars Wednesday, with the Environmental Protection Agency announcing drastic climate regulations meant to ensure more than two-thirds of passenger cars and light-weight trucks sold by 2032 are electric or hybrid vehicles.
The EPA rule imposes strict limits on tailpipe pollution, limits the agency says can be met if 56% of recent vehicles sold within the US are electric by eight years from now, along with 13% which are plug-in hybrids or other partially electric cars.
That will be an enormous increase over current EV sales, which rose to 7.6% of recent vehicle sales last yr, up from 5.8% in 2022.
The rules unveiled Wednesday are a scaled-down version of regulations proposed last April and withdrawn after backlash from the auto industry, but still represent essentially the most aggressive attack on internal combustion of any country on the earth.
The brand new rule slows implementation of stricter pollution standards from 2027 through 2029, before ramping up to near the extent the EPA preferred by 2032.
“Our final rule delivers the identical, if not more, pollution reduction than we set out in our proposal,’’ EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters, adding the rules would prevent more than 7 billion tons of carbon emissions over the following three many years and supply nearly $100 billion in advantages including lower health care costs, and more than $60 billion in reduced annual costs for fuel, maintenance and repairs.
“These recent standards are so necessary,” he said, “for public health, for American jobs, for our economy and for our planet.”
Industry groups slammed the regulations, with the American Petroleum Institute saying they’d “make recent gas-powered vehicles unavailable or prohibitively expensive for many Americans. For them, this wildly unpopular policy goes to feel and performance like a ban.
“Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, Congress has to make a choice whether to protect consumer selection, US manufacturing employees and our hard-won energy security by overturning this deeply flawed regulation,” it added. “Short of that, our organizations are actually prepared to challenge it in court.”
“These regulations represent one more step toward an unrealistic transition to electric vehicles that Americans are not looking for and can’t afford,” added Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV).
As Biden faces a good re-election battle, he’s juggling his stated commitment to lowering greenhouse emissions while courting the auto manufacturing industry, whose voters are a key demographic in battleground states like Michigan.
Former President Donald Trump and Biden’s Republican opponents have accused the president of handing the economic advantage to China with the restrictions, since many electric vehicles are manufactured in America’s great geopolitical rival..
“He’s selling you out to China,” Trump told a crowd of Michigan auto employees in September. “He’s selling you out to the environmental extremists and the unconventional left.”