NYT: The Oil Industry’s Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules

[dgpcolorado]

New York Times: The Oil Industry’s Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules

When the Trump administration laid out a plan this year that would eventually allow cars to emit more pollution, automakers, the obvious winners from the proposal, balked. The changes, they said, went too far even for them.

But it turns out that there was a hidden beneficiary of the plan that was pushing for the changes all along: the nation’s oil industry.

In Congress, on Facebook and in statehouses nationwide, Marathon Petroleum, the country’s largest refiner, worked with powerful oil-industry groups and a conservative policy network financed by the billionaire industrialist Charles G. Koch to run a stealth campaign to roll back car emissions standards, a New York Times investigation has found...


...
In Dearborn, Mich., at a September meeting on the Trump fuel-efficiency rollbacks, Annie Patnaude of Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-funded group, spoke in favor. “This is a step in the right direction to protect consumers and workers against government mandates that would limit choice,” she said.

In Iowa, Americans for Prosperity joined the fight over whether to make it easier for gas stations to install chargers for electric vehicles. In Illinois, it discouraged state officials from considering subsidies for electric vehicles.

 

[NoPetrolDream]

Oilprice.com picked up on this story with interesting commentary at this link:

The U.S. Oil Industry’s Dirty Little Secret | OilPrice.com

Of note is the author’s comment regarding the dog catching the car, in that with the oil and auto industry’s push to weaken national efficiency standards, they are now left facing the vagaries of state standards, with California remaining the strictest. Meaning, in practical terms, automakers either have to produce different versions of the same vehicle to comply with specific state standards, or produce one copy that complies to the most strict standard, which would likely be higher than the CAFE standards they pushed against.

 

[Unpilot]

Oilprice.com picked up on this story with interesting commentary at this link:

The U.S. Oil Industry’s Dirty Little Secret | OilPrice.com

Of note is the author’s comment regarding the dog catching the car, in that with the oil and auto industry’s push to weaken national efficiency standards, they are now left facing the vagaries of state standards, with California remaining the strictest. Meaning, in practical terms, automakers either have to produce different versions of the same vehicle to comply with specific state standards, or produce one copy that complies to the most strict standard, which would likely be higher than the CAFE standards they pushed against.

The law of unintended consequences.

But I do think they are playing the long game and will try and change state standards as well.
Of course we (Humanity) don't really have time for the long game.

 

[dgpcolorado]

The oil industry and the Trump administration are trying to get the 1970s California exception to the Clean Air Act repealed so that California can no longer set its own more stringent standards for car fuel efficiency and pollution. I think that will be a tough sell in Congress. If they don't succeed, that leaves automakers needing to meet the California standards, which are also followed by something like thirteen to sixteen other states. It becomes the de facto national standard, hence the attempt by the oil industry to kill the California exception.

Trump may think that he can eliminate the California exception by executive order or regulatory change but he will find out that it won't work IMO.