The newly confirmed transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, signed an order on Tuesday in search of to roll again key gas economic system requirements set by President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The order is the newest effort by the Trump administration to roll again initiatives launched by the Biden administration geared toward selling electrical autos and lowering greenhouse gasoline emissions.
In a memo to the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration, Mr. Duffy instructed the company to re-evaluate gas economic system guidelines for brand new automobiles and vehicles by the top of the last decade. The order got here as considered one of Mr. Duffy’s first acts as the pinnacle of the Division of Transportation.
The Biden gas economic system requirements require American automakers’ passenger automobiles to common 65 miles per gallon by 2031, up from 48.7 miles final 12 months. The common mileage for gentle vehicles, together with pickup vehicles and sport utility autos, must attain 45 miles per gallon, up from 35.1 miles per gallon.
Some automakers have criticized the rule as a expensive distortion of the market.
“Artificially excessive gas economic system requirements,” the transportation secretary’s memo mentioned, “impose giant prices that render many new automobile fashions unaffordable for the typical American household and small enterprise proprietor.”
Mr. Duffy, a former Wisconsin consultant, was confirmed earlier within the day regardless of a late wave of opposition from some Democrats upset concerning the Trump administration’s freeze on federal grants and loans. The ultimate vote was 77 to 22.
In his memo, Mr. Duffy expressed doubts about whether or not the present gas economic system requirements precisely replicate america’ ample oil reserves and refining capabilities. The memo states that these requirements might not have in mind the vulnerabilities of the U.S. electrical energy grid or the nationwide safety dangers of counting on international sources for supplies, significantly these utilized in electrical automobile batteries.
Mr. Duffy’s memo directs the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration to evaluation all gas economic system requirements for autos from the 2022 mannequin 12 months onward.