The Transportation Department is expected to weaken fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles soon, in yet another blow to former President Joe Biden’s pro-electric-vehicle policies.
The final rule revising the so-called corporate average fuel economy standards for model years 2022 through 2031 finished White House review Wednesday. DOT declined to say when or how it would be released.
The draft rule DOT released last year would require carmakers to achieve fleetwide fuel economy averages of 34.5 mpg by 2031. That greatly decreases the stringency of the standards compared with the Biden-era rule, which demanded 50.4 mpg on average by 2031.
Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the Trump revision really represented business as usual for U.S. carmakers.
