• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says July 4, 2022
‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation July 4, 2022
Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History July 4, 2022
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Demand & Distribution Auto & Alternative Vehicles

EPA Disputes Trump Claim That Fuel Economy Rollback Will Boost Highway Safety

August 19, 2018
Reading time: 2 minutes

mccready/Flickr

mccready/Flickr

 

Career officials within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are disputing the Trump administration claim that rolling back fuel economy standards will reduce the death rate from roadway collisions, according to internal documents released last week.

“The Transportation Department said in its August 2 joint proposal with EPA that freezing the fuel standards would save at least 12,700 traffic fatalities by reducing the price of new vehicles and prodding people to buy newer, safer vehicles more quickly, or up to 1,000 deaths per year in the initial years that the rules are in place,” Reuters recalls.

But now, “EPA staff said they believed the plan would increase traffic deaths by 17 a year from 2036 through 2045 because of an increase in vehicle travel, rather than reduce deaths by 150 per year over that time as the Transportation Department contended,” the news agency notes. “The documents could give ammunition to environmental critics and states that oppose freezing the requirements.”

“New evidence of an internal dispute will probably strengthen the hand of California and other states suing over the proposed changes,” the Washington Post agrees.

Internal emails showed the EPA and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) disagreeing “over estimates about the future size of the U.S. vehicle fleet, total vehicle miles driven, automaker compliance costs, as well as how long it would take consumers to recoup costs of buying fuel-efficient models,” Reuters states. EPA officials called NHTSA’s model “indefensible” and its assumptions “unrealistic”, and concluded the rollback would produce net societal costs of US$83 billion, rather than the $49 billion in net benefits claimed by NHTSA, with 27,000 to 35,000 job losses per year.

The Post says EPA technical expert William Charmley went so far as to ask that his agency’s name and logo be removed from the proposal. “EPA’s technical issues have not been addressed, and the analysis performed…does not represent what EPA considers to be the best, or the most up-to-date, information available to EPA,” he wrote, less than two months before the plan was published. “This Preliminary RIA is a work product of DOT and NHTSA, and was not authored by EPA,” he added several weeks later.

EPA’s critical assessment prompted Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) to conclude the DOT plan is “based on bogus science and fundamentally flawed assumptions. The administration’s own EPA itemized its technical concerns about the plan’s baseless claims, but DOT and the White House seems to have willfully ignored much of it.”

A 60-day comment period on the rollback was expected to begin this week, with publication of the August 2 proposal in the Federal Register.



in Auto & Alternative Vehicles, Energy Politics, Health & Safety, Legal & Regulatory, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

United Nations
Air & Marine

Time Running Out, Canada Hanging Back on Emergency Plan to Avert $20B Oil Spill Disaster

July 7, 2022
1
Calgary Climate Hub
Cities & Communities

Calgary Adopts Net-Zero Climate Strategy, Ottawa Endorses Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

July 7, 2022
2
Staplegunther/Wikimedia Commons
UK & Europe

EU Adds Gas, Nuclear to Green Finance Taxonomy, Reversing Earlier Vote

July 7, 2022
2

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Wikimedia Commons

BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says

July 4, 2022
135
Keith Weller/Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Methane Plan Gives Big Ag a Free Pass

July 4, 2022
40
opinion polling gender green recovery climate action

Conservative Women Far More Likely Than Men to Support Green Transition, EcoAnalytics Research Finds

July 4, 2022
88
angela n./flickr

‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation

July 4, 2022
126
François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

June 29, 2022
271
Keith Hirsche

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

July 3, 2022
480

Recent Posts

United Nations

Time Running Out, Canada Hanging Back on Emergency Plan to Avert $20B Oil Spill Disaster

July 7, 2022
1
Calgary Climate Hub

Calgary Adopts Net-Zero Climate Strategy, Ottawa Endorses Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

July 7, 2022
2
Staplegunther/Wikimedia Commons

EU Adds Gas, Nuclear to Green Finance Taxonomy, Reversing Earlier Vote

July 7, 2022
2
Andrea Schaffer/wikimedia commons

Australia’s New Government Plans Legislated Emissions Cut, EV Incentives

July 7, 2022
1
NatureServe/Flickr

Nature Restoration Without Fossil Phaseout ‘Only Marginally’ Reduces Global Warming

July 7, 2022
1
skeeze / Pixabay

U.S. Looks to Other Options After Supreme Court Undercuts EPA Carbon Rules

July 7, 2022
1
Next Post
Vikramdeep Sidhu/Flickr

Trump Subsidies Could Hit $70 Billion, But Won’t Save Declining Coal, Nuclear Industries

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}