CBD lawsuit challenges Obama's new fuel economy standards
The Obama administration recently announced new fuel economy standards, which would push average fuel economy requirements to 27.3 mpg for all vehicles. This represents only a 7% increase from 2010. Under the new regulations, passenger cars would have to reach 30.2 mpg and light trucks 24.1 mpg. This modest change was not enough for environmental group the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), which has challenged the requirements by filing a lawsuit against the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Department of Transportation in federal court.
CBD has asked the Ninth Circuit to find that the administration violated the Energy Policy and Conservation Act which requires that miles-per-gallon standards be set at the maximum feasible level. The CBD alleges that the Obama rule is much lower than current standards in Europe, Japan, China, and other countries, and is thus clearly not at the maximum feasible level.
According to the CBD, the standards are actually weaker than those proposed in 2008 by the Bush Administration. The lawsuit alleges that Obama administration officials used the same mathematical formula as the Bush administration and minimized the cost of carbon emissions. As a result of this decision, the Department of Transportation found that increasing gas mileage, to the extent now technologically and economically practical, would not reduce global warming. The transportation sector currently accounts for about one third of US greenhouse gas emissions.
Kassie Siegel, the director of the organization’s climate law project, stated, “These low standards, which ignore greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis, are illogical, illegal, and very disappointing from a president who has promised to make the United States a leader in the fight against global warming.” Deborah Sivas, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford Law School, who is representing the Center in the case, further commented, “The Obama standards keep the US in last place when it comes to fuel economy. This lawsuit will force the administration to live up to its promise to lead the way in technological innovation and greenhouse gas reductions.”
The current lawsuit echoes one brought in 2007 by the CBD that challenged the Bush administration’s 2006 fuel economy standards. The group was victorious in that lawsuit, in which the Ninth Circuit held that the Bush administration's fuel standards were invalid for light trucks and SUVs for the 2008 through 2011 model years.
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