Under the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill,’ Car Companies Won’t Be Fined for Failing To Hit Arbitrary Fuel Efficiency Goals
This week, the Senate passed its version of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in Trump’s signature nomenclature.
As with most modern spending bills, the proposal is a bloated mess, larded up with so many extraneous provisions that it not only funds the government but also adds trillions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade.
But the bill also effectively kills fuel economy standards for automakers. Even for those who support better gas mileage and lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, this is good news.
Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 after the oil embargo of 1973–74 caused gas shortages and price increases. In an attempt to lower U.S. dependence on foreign oil, the bill set corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for the first time, requiring new cars to get 27 miles per gallon by the 1985 model year.
In time, CAFE standards came to serve the secondary purpose of reducing GHG emissions. The Transportation Department most recently raised fuel efficiency standards in 2012, requiring passenger cars to average at least 55 miles per gallon by the 2025 model year, while complying with limits on tailpipe emissions set under the Clean Air Act.
No vehicle is currently anywhere close to meeting these standards: According to data from the Energy Department, motorcycles come closest, at just shy of 45 miles per gallon, while cars average less than 25 miles per gallon. But the standards are fleet-wide, meaning the average for all of an automaker’s output needs to fall below the minimum. In practice, this means manufacturers must rely heavily on low- or zero-emission vehicles, like battery-powered electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids, to get on the right side of the average.
Federal law says an automaker “is
Article from Reason.com
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