For once, the big American automakers and the president agree on how much they should be required to limit greenhouse gas emissions from their vehicles.

But as climate change worsens to the point that international scientists are calling it a “code red for humanity,” some of the country’s leading environmental organizations are pushing the administration to go further.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the League of Conservation Voters and others are calling on the Biden administration to finalize stricter rules than those proposed at the start of the last month, and eliminate what they argue these are loopholes that would allow the auto industry to continue creating gasoline and diesel vehicles into the future.

“What we are urging the administration to do is keep the president’s promises that he will make the climate a priority,” said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity.

President Joe Biden has set the goal of achieving net zero emissions across the economy by 2050. Many conservationists argue that to achieve this goal, the latest gasoline and diesel cars must be sold by 2030, as vehicles remain on the road for around 20 years.

“So the simple math leads us to fear that the standards proposed by the president are far too low,” Becker said.

The public’s opportunity to weigh in on the rules ends Monday, when loud comments on the administration’s proposed rules are expected to flow into the federal registry. But groups offered a snapshot over a two-day period in late August, when a majority of commentators urged the administration to implement the strictest rules possible.

“I certainly think there is an opportunity for the proposal to change” as a result of those comments, said Dave Cooke, senior vehicle analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ clean transportation program.

“We will continue to push for the stronger alternative.”

Moving targets

In 2010, President Barack Obama put in place new rules to reduce transportation emissions by 5% per year until model year 2025. Towards the end of his presidency in 2020, Donald Trump finalized a rule that reduced those standards to an annual emission reduction of 1.5%, arguing that this would lower vehicle costs for manufacturers and consumers.

When he came to power, Biden promised to change those standards again to make them more stringent. Environmentalists saw the Biden presidency as an opportunity to make big strides in slowing climate change while automakers signaled they were ready for bigger emissions cuts anyway, with big investments in them. electric vehicles and, for some, an agreement with California to meet stricter standards.

In early August, the administration released a proposal that would eventually exceed Obama’s standards, but not right away.

Under the rule proposed by the EPA, emissions reductions are expected to increase by 10% in the 2023 model year, according to the EPA. Then it would follow the Obama-era model of cutting emissions by 5% per year until model year 2026. The administration plans to revise the rules after that to potentially make them even stricter.

The EPA says the rule regulators have landed on strikes the balance between significantly reducing emissions while proving “technologically feasible at a reasonable cost” for automakers.

“We are at a pivotal moment in the history of the light transport sector – a transition to zero-emission vehicle technologies is already underway, and it has great potential for dramatic reductions in GHG emissions and key pollutants. longer term, ”the EPA said in the proposal.

But the EPA also came up with two alternatives to its rule and asked the public what they think about it: a less stringent alternative that would come close to the 2.5% annual reduction in emissions from a deal struck between the state. of California and several automakers, and another more stringent. this would immediately revert to Obama-era standards for model year 2023 and extend to model year 2026.

Climate fears

Most environmentalists are pushing the administration to go as far as possible by adopting the second alternative plus a further reduction in emissions of 10 grams per mile.

They are also asking the EPA to remove additional incentives for automakers to help them comply with the rules, arguing that they will only allow companies to continue selling for-profit gasoline and diesel vehicles only to them. years to come. Automakers would be allowed to carry over credits generated in the past four years, obtain additional credits for electric vehicles and other “advanced technologies”, obtain credits for hybrids or full-size electric pickups and obtain more credits for “off-cycle” efficiency improvements. .

“We don’t want to see any loopholes that give automakers extra credit for electric vehicles,” said Katherine García, interim director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign.

These incentives were designed under Obama to help automakers switch to electric vehicles, she and others said. But now that major automakers have invested billions in electrified technology and the Detroit Three have said they aim to sell 40-50% electric vehicles by the end of the decade, that may not be necessary anymore. .

“There is a way to meet our climate goals and make sure we have vehicles produced in the United States, and the answer is clean, zero emission vehicles,” García said. “This settlement will help us get there – if it is a strong settlement, it will help us get there as quickly as necessary.”

Environmentalists also argue that the off-cycle credit program has been abused to reward automakers for technology that doesn’t have such a big impact on emission reductions or that is difficult to measure, like thermal controls in the air. interior of the cockpit.

“It turns out that a lot of manufacturers basically ticked the boxes and said ‘yes, my technology qualifies’,” Cooke said. The EPA acknowledges in the proposal that the current program does not adequately test the claims and says it will change those definitions.

“So that’s a real concern for us. There is a lot of evidence that this off-cycle credit program is already leading to undue credits for manufacturers,” he said. “And on top of that, the EPA is proposing to increase the number of credits that can be earned in the system.”

Most automakers have failed to meet federal standards or earn net greenhouse gas credits in recent years. In the latest EPA report available on the 2019 model year, only five automakers met the standards, and the Detroit Three were not among them.

Instead, automakers rely on these extra credits and credit trading systems to comply. This is especially important for Tesla Inc., the automaker that regularly accumulates credits and is dedicated to selling them to competitors. The company has pushed federal regulators to increase civil penalties for automakers who fail to comply.

Adding credits to systems would only continue this trend by giving automakers the credits they need to save time and avoid compliance, several environmental groups have argued.

“This is all very wrong. Yet automakers love it because they don’t actually have to cut emissions,” Becker said. “It’s so much horse hockey.”

Automakers note that they may be investing heavily in EVs, but that’s not a safe bet: EVs only account for around 2% of new car sales, and although vehicle sales electrics are expected to skyrocket in the coming years, their sales targets of 40-50% by 2030 still seem ambitious to many in the industry.

“A significant amount of new technology electrifying vehicles will be needed to meet these standards,” said John Bozzella, CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an advocacy group representing most automakers selling vehicles in the United States. . “So it’s really important that the ruler has the tools to encourage and accelerate this technological change.”

The Alliance has testified before the EPA that it supports the rule – a big change from the more adversarial relationship between automakers and the administration as Obama developed emissions standards a decade ago. But automakers still say the industry needs help from the government to achieve what’s called for as it shifts to a more electrified fleet.

“At the same time (as we invest in electrification), we need to make sure that the gasoline vehicles we continue to produce are also more efficient and produce lower emissions than the vehicles they replaced,” Bozzella said.

“We have to be able to do both, and a balanced rule will encourage us to do both. That’s really what we’re talking about.”