EPA Vehicle Emissions Rules Here To Save Planet, Make You Wear Birkenstocks
Doesn't actually 'mandate' EVs, but to meet the rules, companies will have to clean up their fleets.
The Environmental Protection Agency rolled out its long-anticipated stricter emissions standards for cars and light trucks yesterday, a key part of the Biden administration’s plans for fighing global warming. The rules will effectively force the auto industry to make electric vehicles an increasingly large portion of their fleets, since there’ll be no way to meet the final limits on carbon emissions and still sell many gas-powered vehicles. The new regulations begin with the 2027 model year, so effectively, late 2026, and ramp up through 2032, by which time we’ll either toughen ‘em again or be murdering each other in a postapocalyptic hellscape, depending on the breaks.
Tougher emissions standards are kind of a big deal for climate, since as the Washington Post points out (gift link), cars and trucks emit about one fifth of all US carbon dioxide emissions, which cause global warming. In addition to cutting carbon, the rules also require reductions of other pollutants that are bad for everyone’s health, especially particulates and nitrogen oxides (the later of which are “indirect” greenhouse gases as well).
As the administration signaled earlier this year, the phase-in of the toughest limits on emissions is being moved back a skosh to allow automakers a bit more time to retool. Under the rule the EPA first proposed last year, about two-thirds of new cars sold in the US would have had to be electric by 2032, although as Heatmap News explains,
Although this was just one potential scenario, it was widely interpreted as a target or even a mandate — particularly by Biden’s political opponents.
On Tuesday, administration officials said that the two-thirds finding had been based on limited data. The EPA now estimates that EVs may make up anywhere between 30% and 56% of new light-duty sales from model years 2030 to 2032.
The final emissions reductions goal remains the same, but instead of requiring sharp emissions reductions in the first three years of the plan, starting in 2026, the final rule allows a more gradual reduction. Those energy boffins at Heatmap News even made a nice little chart showing how that will work:
As the Post ‘splains, the total reductions will be noteworthy, about half of expected 2026 vehicle emissions:
The final rule will still prevent 7.2 billion metric tons of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere through 2055, according to the EPA. It will also reduce fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, preventing up to 2,500 premature deaths from air pollution annually starting in 2055, the agency said.
“Our final rule delivers the same — if not more — pollution reduction than we set out at proposal,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said on a call with reporters Tuesday previewing the announcement.
Heatmap News adds that the EPA estimates Americans will save up to $62 billion annually on fuel and maintenance, since EVs have fewer parts and need less regular maintenance — no oil changes, no timing chains, no transmission fluid. That’s for your full EVs, of course, since hybrids still have a gasoline engine along with the electric drivetrain.
Speaking of which, the final regulations will allow car companies to meet the standard by increasing sales of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), which run only on battery power for the first 30 to 50 miles, then operate like a regular hybrid after that. Since most Americans seldom drive more than that daily, PHEVs are an okay interim choice that will ease people into EVs while the charging infrastructure gets built out, and quite a few plug-ins already qualify for the federal EV tax credit. (Long-term, they’ll eventually go the way of the Nash Metropolitan since they still have those gas engines.)
As we always like to remind you, the benefits of getting off the fossil-fuel teat — not only with EVs but also by transitioning to renewable energy in every sector of the world’s economy by the middle of this century — aren’t just limited to keeping the planet habitable for large mammals like you, me, and adorable baby goats. Getting all that nasty gunk out of the air will also have huge health benefits, since air pollution causes heart and lung diseases and all sorts of other health problems, especially in low-income communities that for some reason tend to be closest to major sources of pollution. The EPA says the new fuel standards should bring America about $13 billion a year in public health benefits.
Not surprisingly, The Usual Suspects are expected to bring lawsuits attempting to block the rules. In February, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), a dirty energy lobbying group, jumped into the 2024 election campaign with an ad blitz that lies to swing state voters, claiming the EPA is “rushing to ban new gasoline cars,” which of course is a scare tactic: The rules would still allow up to a third of vehicle fleets to be gas powered (but not filthy), and more when you include PHEVs.
No Green New Deal Gazpacho Police will be coming to rip your beloved gas guzzler out of your weeping arms (you should have that looked at). Nobody’s coming to take away your gas stove or your cheeseburgers either. But if you want to build a liquified natural gas export terminal, we do have some bad news for you there.
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[EPA / WaPo (gift link) / Heatmap News / NPR / Photo: Reddit, r/WeirdWheels]
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Know what's better than EVs? Not needing a car. I'd like to not need a car.
A buried clause in the rule requires all owners of F-950 Toxic Masculinity trucks with angry-white-man stickers to report for mandatory castration.