Roughly 50 years ago, pollution was in American’s faces: Los Angeles and New York blanketed in thick gray smog. The Cuyahoga River on fire in Cleveland. Trash incinerators choking residents in Birmingham and New Orleans. But in December 1970, Congress authorized creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean our air and water, with one mandate: Improve the health of American citizens by protecting them from the negative impacts of pollution.
But even today the EPA’s job is far from done. As many as 350,000 premature deaths in the United States are still linked to fossil fuel pollution. Extreme weather events, fueled by rising global temperatures, are adding to the deaths and the cost of mitigation. Since 2017, 137 separate, “billion-dollar” disasters have killed 5,500 Americans.
Two years ago, President Biden described climate change as a “clear and present danger” to the U.S. and committed to act. Today, the EPA introduced clean car standards that will help combat this multi-sided threat by cleaning up the country’s largest source of climate pollution and reducing smog and soot.
By dramatically cutting pollution from the U.S. transportation sector, EPA’s new clean car rules will be the single most important climate pollution regulations in the nation’s history. They will make Americans healthier and help domestic companies compete across the globe, all while expanding the number of clean car options available to consumers.
The rule stands to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7.2 billion metric tons through 2055 by directly targeting the transportation sector, which accounts for 29% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. It will reduce greenhouse gas by 56% and significantly reduce nitrogen oxides and particulate matter emissions. That means the rule will help mitigate the worst impacts of climate change and Americans will suffer far less asthma cases, premature deaths, and respiratory illnesses.
The overall benefits of EPA’s new rules will amount to $2.1 trillion when the program is fully implemented by 2055. Consumers will save $1 trillion by using less oil and gas, which translates into savings at the pump.
But not everyone loves the rules. The oil industry, which EPA’s clean car rules as an existential risk, have already started running TV ads that deceptively suggest the new standards force a ban on gasoline vehicles and a mandate for electric vehicles. That is plain wrong. EPA standards are technology neutral, meaning they will not ban the sale of gasoline cars or even require a specific number of EV sales.
What the EPA standards do is require automakers to meet certain lower tailpipe emission standards by 2032. The car companies then design their own pathways and have eight years to invest in meeting the final targets. Rather than selecting any one strategy, the regulations give companies the flexibility to choose their strategies—including gasoline cars, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, fuel cell vehicles, and EVs.
However, automakers will likely rely heavily on EVs to meet these goals, because they will be the most cost-effective solution, both for consumers and manufacturers. Leasing an electric vehicle is already the cheapest way for American drivers to get into a new car and by 2027 EVs will be cheaper to produce than gas-powered vehicles. EPA’s cost-effective scenario modeling projects that industry will meet the standards with 56% of their sales being battery electric vehicles in 2032.
The industry’s EV enthusiasm is already apparent in existing investments. In the last three years, with, the U.S. has seen $167 billion in private EV manufacturing investments – more than any other region of the world and an amount that has more than tripled since 2021.
In 2023, domestic EV sales outpaced almost every prediction that industry experts made prior to that year. This is not the first time EV growth has defied conventional wisdom. In 2010 President Obama’s Energy Secretary and Nobel laureate Steven Chu’s assertion that EV sales would take off as battery costs dropped 10X was met with widespread skepticism. Since then, battery costs have fallen more than 90% and some 1.4 million EVs were sold in the U.S. in 2023 alone.
Outside of the U.S., EVs will be essential to domestic auto companies’ international competitiveness and financial health. The rapid transition to EVs is underway globally with nearly 14 million in sales in 2023. Although the U.S. is currently behind China and Europe in the transition to electrification, EPA’s new clean car rules will help accelerate innovation among domestic manufacturers. And these new rules have an important partner – the billions in investment catalyzed by the Inflation Reduction Act. The U.S. has created almost 200,000 jobs manufacturing EVs, batteries, and EV components over the past nine years. Far from making us more reliant on Chinese products—as critics have suggested—President Biden’s climate policies and EPA standards will help American companies lead in the domestic and global marketplace.
The goals of EPA’s new clean car rules are ambitious, but my decades at the agency left me confident that we can meet this moment. One of the most useful lessons from that time is how innovative and capable auto companies can be in making their products healthier for Americans. Rather than stifling development, regulatory actions can drive innovation. By creating a level playing field for all competitors to invest in, these clean car rules will once again catalyze healthy changes.
During my tenure at EPA, the automotive industry met and, at times, exceeded the required standards. So, I am optimistic that the auto industry will support these standards benefiting its customers, the country, and the planet. I am optimistic that most of the industry players will support them, and that we as a nation can come together to support them.
We owe it to our kids, our grandkids, and future generations to stand behind this important EPA clean car regulation that provide major reductions of greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter emissions. That will lead to healthier Americans, a healthier planet, and healthier domestic auto manufacturers – a rare win-win.
