The Transportation Department said on Monday it has sent a rule “resetting” the vehicle fuel economy program to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for review.
DOT only vaguely described the action from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and OIRA’s website does not describe the rulemaking either. NHTSA declined to detail the rule’s content, saying only that more information will be available when it is published in the Federal Register in the coming weeks or months.
However, it is listed as a final rule that is not “economically significant,” and thus does not appear to be the Trump administration’s expected repeal of the Biden-era Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards themselves. That kind of rulemaking would have to go through public notice-and-comment rulemaking. Instead, DOT described the action as an “interpretive” rule.
“The Biden-Buttigieg administration illegally used CAFE standards as a backdoor electric vehicle mandate — driving the price of cars up,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. “Resetting CAFE standards as Congress’ intended will lower vehicle costs and ensure the American people can purchase the cars they want.”
