127 Groups Tell Congress to Defend Vehicle Standards
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A group of 127 wide-ranging organizations urged Congress to reject measures that would undermine standards California put in place to curb pollution from cars and trucks in a new letter sent today.
The groups, which include those in health, business, labor, the environment, and consumer protection, say these measures are an unprecedented attack on states' authority to protect their residents.
House Republicans have introduced Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions that aim to overturn the waivers the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted California for three sets of emissions standards, one for cars, pickup trucks and SUVs, and two for heavy-duty trucks.
“Using the CRA on these standards is an unprecedented and reckless attack on state sovereignty and allows the EPA to avoid any accountability by bypassing explaining and defending its action to the public and the courts,” the groups write in their letter. “If Congress overrides these state standards, people across the country will face severe health, economic, and environmental consequences.”
Congress specifically gave California the right to set stronger tailpipe emissions standards when it passed the Clean Air Act more than five decades ago, contingent on a waiver from the EPA. Lawmakers have never voted to halt an EPA waiver decision.
Since 1967, when Congress established California’s authority to set vehicle standards as part of the Clean Air Act, the EPA has granted California more than 75 waivers, including multiple times since the early 1990s for its zero-emission vehicle rules. The waivers being challenged now are for Advanced Clean Cars II, Advanced Clean Trucks, and Heavy-Duty Omnibus.
Blocking these measures would have grave consequences for consumers, public health, and the economy, the letter notes:
- It would cost consumers more than $89 billion in additional fuel costs through 2040—more than $55 billion in net costs.
- Preventing enforcement of these rules would allow more than 1,500,000 metric tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides, 17,700 metric tons of fine particles, and 1.6 billion metric tons of carbon emissions to be spewed into the air. More pollution means more children suffering asthma attacks and missing school, more grandparents dying prematurely, and more death and destruction from extreme weather.
- It would kneecap companies that are investing in new job-creating factories—primarily in states like North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona. U.S. companies led the world auto industry for a century, and they should be leading the global clean vehicle transition now underway.
If leaders in other states don’t want to adopt these stronger standards, the simple answer is that they don’t have to. But Congress shouldn’t intervene to block state leaders from protecting their residents from dangerous pollution.
“Congress should leave this issue to the states, which are free at any time to change course and go back to federal standards,” the letter concludes.
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd).