Automakers are Clear: "We Want The EPA to Regulate Auto Emissions"

For as long as I can remember, it used to be that the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the EPA were at each other’s throats. They just never seemed to get along that well, and with good reason. Cars pollute, and the EPA’s job is to regulate and control pollution. Yin and Yang and all that.

But in a strange twist, the Auto Alliance is urging Congress not to block the EPA from setting limits on tailpipe emissions and declaring greenhouse gases a public health hazard. In fact, the Alliance has even been closely helping EPA and NHTSA to craft the bill over the last year. Even weirder is having the California Air Resource Board (CARB) on the same side as the EPA and the Alliance. Have we entered a new era of corporate cooperation? Or are the automakers just trying to salvage a deal between CARB and the White House?

If you haven’t heard of the California Air Resource Board, or CARB, it is essentially the Golden State’s own version of the EPA. For years now, California and 16 other states have adopted their own emissions standards that differ quite a bit from the federal guidelines. This means automakers have to sell different versions of the same car in different states, driving up the cost of production, and thus the car. I don’t much care for CARB, though I understand why they did what they did; California was gross. It is better now, but it is still one of the largest car markets in the world, and still one of the most polluted.

The White House and CARB struck a deal last year that would allow the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and CARB would back down from its own stringent emissions standards and adopt the federal guidelines for emissions. I think that is an awesome case of compromise, though CARB is still working on its own version of emissions standards for beyond 2016… just in case. Senator Lisa Murkowski, R.-Alaska, is standing in the way though. In a statement she says that the automakers were “pressured” to stand against measures that “that have been introduced to halt EPA climate regulations.” She thinks automakers can improve the efficiency of their cars without the EPA’s involvement.

Uh, what? By all accounts, the auto makers have stood behind and supported the new regulations for the better part of a year.

CAFE standards steadily increase fuel economy through the 1980′s, plateauing at 27.5 mpg in 1990. In the preceding two decades, we had Hummers and the SUV revolution and automakers just barely met the minimum fuel efficiency standards. Those standards did not budge for 20 years until George W. Bush called for a 35 mpg CAFE standard in 2020. President Obama has moved that goal up to 2016. Does the good Senator really think automakers are going to invest in making cars more fuel efficient if they don’t have a clear pathway to get there? I say they had their chance, let the EPA get involved. Besides, the automakers are getting something invaluable out of this too; a gentler slope to higher emissions standards and a universal standard across all the states. This kind of thing lets them plan for years in advance without having to worry about changing regulations. From a business perspective, regulatory stability leads to cost savings.

There is no doubt that car emissions are bad for the public health. Really, really bad. And they should be regulated. Technology has come very far in terms of emissions regulations, and cars are many times cleaner than they used to be… but they can still be even cleaner. Hell, even the United Auto Workers Union is behind letting the EPA regulate emissions, and they have less than two weeks to set limits before CARB can go back to setting its own standards.

Source: The Detroit News | Image: Steven Buss

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