CA: Trump wants to cut environmental standards

US-President Donald Trump wants to deny California the right to set its environmental standards for cars. Following reports last year, Trump has now announced this himself via Twitter.

An official announcement by the US EPA is imminent. On the other side of the country, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom has already announced resistance. “we will fight this latest attempt and defend our clean car standards,” he said in a first reaction. While the White House has abandoned any responsibility to the world to reduce emissions and combat global warming, California has increased its commitment.

Trump, on the other hand, argues via Twitter that the exemption must be stopped “> to produce far less expensive cars for the consumer, while at the same time making the cars substantially SAFER”. He stated that would be very little difference in emissions between the California standard and the new US standard, but many more cars will be produced under the new and uniform standard – “meaning significantly more JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, JOBS,” Trump claims.

The largest automobile trade group in the USA, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which includes GM, Toyota, Volkswagen, Ford and others, declined to comment on Trumps newest scheme, preferring to wait it out and “to get the full picture of how this impacts automakers, our workers and our customers”.

Concerning vehicle emissions, California has voluntarily relied on much more ambitious regulations than the federal government for years. In early 2018, for example, California’s previous governor Jerry Brown signed a decree obliging all state agencies to take measures to bring at least five million electric vehicles onto the state’s roads by 2030. Against this backdrop, the governor also launched an eight-year, $2.5 billion programme to continue government subsidies for electric vehicles and build a total of 200 hydrogen refuelling stations and 250,000 charging stations (including 10,000 DC fast chargers) by 2025. Previously, California officially had the goal of bringing 1.5 million electric vehicles into service by 2025.

California’s current governor, Gavin Newsom, states that it was not until July that he reached “groundbreaking voluntary agreements” with four major automakers to reduce vehicle emissions and counter Washington’s policy of increasingly softening environmental standards. California’s special route began as early as 1970, against the backdrop of high smog levels in Los Angeles. If necessary, Newson wants to go to the Supreme Court to defend the Golden State standards.

reuters.com, greencarcongress.com, twitter.com (Trump), gov.ca.gov (Newsom)