Setting its own fuel economy standards. California reached agreements with several automakers that were stricter than federal regulations. This is 30 minutes. Thank you all so much for being here. Administrator wheeler and i are pleased to announce a major step forward in trumps plan to ensure that more americans have access to safer, more affordable and cleaner new cars that meet their familys needs. 2 1 2 years ago President Trump spoke with auto workers in michigan and said that we would review and revise the last administrations unattainable economy regulations. Those rules were making cars more expensive and impeding safety, because consumers were being priced out of newer, safer vehicles. Our team of experts have been jointly working together, conducting a long, thoughtful and detailed review of these rules. And todays action is an important down payment on the president s commitment. The one National Program that we are announcing today will ensure that there is one and only one set of National Fuel economy standards as Congress Mandated and intended. No state has the authority to opt out of the nations rules and no state has the right to impose its policies on everybody else in our whole country. To do otherwise harms consumers. And damages the american economy. It should be noted that this rule only applies to fuel economy. It will not affect californias ability to refocus its efforts on fighting the worst air pollution in the country and comply with existing regulations. In the coming weeks, well also be publishing the second part of the safe vehicles rule, which will set new National Standards, fuel economy standards, and while the second part is not yet finalized, i can say that the updated standards will be reasonable. And for the sake of the american worker, the whole entire work force, american i mean, let me say that over again. For the sake of american workers, american car buyers, and the economy, the rule will not force automakers to spend billions of dollars developing cars that consumers do not want to buy or drive. The new standards will help make new vehicles more affordable and will ensure that the American Consumer still has a variety of choices when selecting vehicles that best suit their familys needs. The new standards will save our country billions of dollars, they will strengthen our domestic Manufacturing Base by adding millions of new car sales and, of course, supporting goodpaying american jobs. And most importantly, because newer cars are safer, the standards will save thousands of lives and prevent tens of thousands of serious injuries. So with todays one National Program rule, the administration is standing up for all americans, their needs and their right to choose. We will not let political agendas in a single state be forced upon the other 49. And we will always put safety first. Thanks so much. [applause] thank you very much, secretary chao. It is now my privilege to introduce andrew wheeler. Thanks to administrator wheelers leadership, e. P. A. Is delivering on President Trumps agenda to grow the economy and improve lives, while at the same time protecting the environment and human health. Todays action is the latest in a long line of a very important regulatory reforms at e. P. A. , and i know that he will continue to keep me and my team very busy. Please join me in welcoming administrator andrew wheeler. [applause] thank you. I want to thank your whole team. Thank you, secretary chao. I want to thank your team in particular. Our teams together worked long and hard over the last months to get this proposal where it is. And i want to thank you and for the professionalism of your staff and everything that weve done together. President trump promised the American Public that his administration would address and fix the current fuel economy and Greenhouse Gas emissions standards. Today, we were delivering on a critical element of the president s commitment. E. P. A. And d. O. T. Are issuing a final action that will establish one set of National Fuel economy standards. Let me be clear. Our goal from the beginning was a 50state solution. I met with carb three times since taking the lead at e. P. A. Over a year ago. But despite our best efforts, we could not reach a solution. We embrace federalism and the role of states, but federalism does not mean that one state can dictate standards for the entire country. To borrow from Louisiana Attorney general jeff landry, cafe does not stand for california assumes federal empowerment. So we are moving forward with one National Fuel economy standard. We believe the law is clear. No state has the authority to opt out of National Fuel economy standards, and no state has the authority to set its own fuel economy standards that impact human safety, the environment, and commerce for the rest of the country. One National Standard will provide muchneeded certainty to the automotive industry, and it sets the stage for President Trumps ultimate objective, a final safe rule that will save lives and strengthen the economy by reducing the price of new vehicles and helping more americans purchase newer, cleaner, and safer cars and trucks. This is good for Public Safety, good for the economy, and good for the environment. Heres how todays action works. Under the Energy Policy and conservation act, d. O. T. Sets cafe standards. Efca expressly provides that the federal government regulate fuel economy, not the states. Since theres a direct scientific link between a cars Greenhouse Gas emissions and its fuel economy, d. O. T. Is determining that epka determine vehicle emission programs. Thats one basis on which e. P. A. Intends to withdraw the 2013 waiver for californias state g. H. G. And z. E. V. Programs. Separate and aproprietor from that, e. P. A. Is withdrawing the waiver based on our interpretation and application of one of the criteria for denying a waiver. Does the state need its standards to meet, quote, compelling and extraordinary conditions . Understood in its origin and context, the California Waiver Authority exists because california has uniquely bad problems with smogforming pollutants. Theres a direct and tight link between california cars and their emission of criteria pollutants, the local concentrations of those emissions, and the impacts they have on california due to the states extraordinary perfect storm of features like population, traffic, temperature, wind, ocean currents, and topography. But for Greenhouse Gases, the tight and direct link isnt there. California cars have no closer link to california climate impacts than do cars on the road in japan or anywhere else in the world. And californias climate impacts are not extraordinarily distinct from those felt in other states in the same way that its smog impacts are. It makes sense that congress carved out Waiver Authority for california to address its unique local problems. It does not make sense to use that authority to try to address national and global issues like Greenhouse Gas emissions. Its time to put californias waiver back in its box. The box that congress always intended it to stay in. Californias unique, extraordinary criteria air pollutant issues. Todays action does not impact a number of other california programs, including its lowemission Vehicle Program designed to address harmful ozone and other forms of air pollution. This will allow the state to focus on addressing its air quality problems and finally achieving compliance with e. P. A. s National Ambient air quality standards. California has the worst air quality in the united states. It has 82 nonattainment areas and 34 Million People living in areas that do not meet the max standards. Thats more than twice as many people as any other state in the country. We hope that the state will focus on these issues, rather than trying to set fuel economy standards for the entire country. Todays action also clears the way for our final safe rule, our proposed safe rule reflects what is we believe is the right approach to National Fuel economy standards. Right for Public Safety and the environment. Ill give four reasons why. First, revising the standards will reduce the price of new vehicles. The average Sticker Price of a new vehicle reached 39,500 in the first half of this year. This is simply out of reach for Many American families. The current trajectory of the standards is one of the factors driving costs higher. In order to comply with the obama standards, automakers need to sell many more electric vehicles. By some counts they will need to produce lineups that are 50 electric or more over the next seven years. However, electric vehicles cost 12,000 more to make than the average vehicle, according to mckenzie analysis. Those costs are passed on to the consumers. Which is one reason why electric vehicles are still, despite billions of dollars in subsidies, less than 2 of new vehicle sales. But one way for automakers to meet the standards is to lower the price of electric vehicles and raise the price of other, more popular vehicles, such as s. U. V. s and trucks. In other words, American Families are paying more for s. U. V. s and trucks so that automakers can sell e. V. s at a cheaper price. Its one thing for the American Public to directly subsidize electric vehicles through tax incentives, its another thing to use the nations vehicle emissions standards to prop up a product that has minimal impact on the environment and only the wealthy can afford. Of the roughly 57,000 households that receive the e. V. Tax credit in 2016, nearly 80 made over 100,000. If these people want to buy an e. V. , i think they can afford one without asking low and middleincome americans to help pay for it. Compared to keeping the 2012 standards in place, the preferred option in our safe proposal would reduce the price of new vehicles by thousands of dollars. Which leads directly to my second point. Revising the standards and reducing the price of new vehicles will save lives. Research shows the passengers are more likely to be killed in older vehicles compared to newer ones. According to the study, a driver of the vehicle 8 to 11 years old, thats the vehicle, not the driver, is nearly 20 more likely to be fatally injured than the driver of a vehicle that was 3 years old or less. The driver of a vehicle thats 12 to 14 years old is 32 more likely to die in an accident and the driver of a vehicle thats 15 to 17 years old is 50 more likely to be fatally injured. By revising standards and reducing the price of new vehicles, we will help americans purchase newer and safer cars and trucks. We estimate that our proposed advised standards to the safe rule could save thousands of lives. We are revising the standards in a manner that will have a measurable impact on the environment compared to the current stands. Two important facts, first, even the most stringent vehicle standards imaginable will only have a minimal impact on Global Temperatures. According to the obama administrations 2012 analysis, even a much more stringent version of their rule than the one they eventually finalized would have only lowered Global Temperatures by. 02 of a gree a degree celsius by 2100. We are talking about changes in the hundreds of degree celsius by 2100. Heres the second fact. Most auto makers cannot comply with the trajectory of the current standards. For model year 2016 domestic passenger Vehicle Manufacturers pay more than 7 million million for noncompliance. And model year 2017, only three large manufacturers complied based on the Technology Levels of their vehicles alone. Most large manufacturers used bank credits along with Technology Improvements to maintain splines. Compliance. The most recent department of transportation data on credits and the shortfall between the completes and cafe compliance suggest that is this figure may rise dramatically due to the increasing stringency of the obama standards. For example, the tote am short fall and cafe credits for model year 2018 is the equivalent of almost 1. 3 billion. More than 10 times higher than the equivalent shortfall than model year 2011. This begs the question, why keep the standards that auto makers can a only comply with through credits and paying fees . We believe that the changes are needed and that the safe proposal seth forth our view of what changes are appropriate. Because our rule lee moves certain credits and fees, our standards would have a measurable impact on the environment compared to the current standards. Fourth and finally, revising the standards will help more americans purchase newer, cleaner, and safer cars. The average age of vehicles on the road today is a record high of 12 years. In 1990 the average age was eight years. Either consumers cannot afford the price of new vehicles or they are not interested in purchasing certain types of new vehicles. Either way, the lack of fleet turnover creates a host of problems, the most important of which is passenger safety. By revising the standards we will reduce the price of the vehicles. As prices fall, President Trumps vision becomes reality. More americans will be able to purchase newer, cleaner, and safer vehicles, vehicles they actually want to buy. The president knows that accelerating fleet turnover is good for the Auto Industry, its good for consumers, its good for Public Safety, and good for the environment. Thank you for your time today and for your attention. Thank you for joining us today. [applause] thank you very much, administrator wheeler. I would like to take this opportunity to invite congressman from the First District of california, congressman doug lamalfa, for your remarks, sir. Thank you. [applause] im delighted to be here today for this subject matter especially. In my real life im a farmer in northern california. Im very in touch with our constituents on what their automotive needs are. What we are talking about the bottom line here is auto choice. People in this country still like to have choices. When i saw this obamaera mandate coming down the line a few years ago, thinking how realistic by the year 2025 all automobiles in the fleet would have to average 55 miles per gallon . I cant even think of what a 55 Miles Per Hour gallon vehicle looks like right now. Especially what that means for the average buyer. Is that a mom needing to get her kids to school and off to do other chores . Or dad . Or people just might want to have a vehicle with better room because they have guys my size. I think what we are really seeing is that this administration i want to be very thankful to secretary chao, administrator wheeler. On listening to the people of this situation. California Resources Board for my constituents plead with me and my state legislative colleagues to say can we have some relief from the statest dream they have each month or each six months on a new mandate . I have legislation to make, for example, less costly to buy full size trucks for people to use in agriculture. If you got it, the truck brought it. Everything you have has been brought by a truck. We want to update trucks. Have them burn cleaner and better, but there is a punitive tax, federal excise tax, 15,000, on top of the other taxes to buy a new truck. We want to incentivize people we need to give people what they need and have the affordability. Same thing with automobiles. Administrator wheeler hit it out of the park from where i was sitting that this comes down to subsidizing other people into these electric vehicles. We know standing alone electric vehicles do not pay. And the electricity comes from somewhere. It doesnt just magically happen nearby. I have a lot of the power lines running from my district, from hydroelectric plants and other plants, many miles through my rice fields to go to the urban areas so people can feel good about themselves in plugging in their electric car. The reality is the better we can make our gasoline powered vehicles, the more efficient, and the tailpipe is still clean on all these cars, no matter what their size, m. P. G. We are talking about we are chasing co2 numbers here. The reality is is that our manufacturers are making better cars than ever on efficiency, on aerodynamics, and cars that you like to drive. Im a car enthusiastic myself, one of the manufacturers im not very happy with with cutting a deal with california, going behind the backs of the administration who is looking out for Consumer Choice in this country. At this point i hope we can keep going straight ahead. Ill support the efforts of administrator wheeler, e. P. A. , never thought i would be saying a lot about that. And secretary chao, and right home in my own district we are putting out a 54,000 acre forest fire. You want to talk about air quality, year after year, hundreds of thousands of acres of forest burn in the west. I realize thats a different building down the street with the usda and forest service. They are working on making things better. And also this migrant migratory emission that is come from other areas that affect our state, too. Forcing us into our little caves, our little tiny cars, is not going to change the situation for my constituents, for californians, and certainly to have the state of california and the california Resources Board dictatorial policies going towards the rest of the 50 states. Again, my people plead for relief from carb, put reasonable regulations back in place. I hope this administration does not give up at all on fighting carb thats all california seems to want to do is fight us here in congress and this administration. Every day they think up a new lawsuit to go after. We want to make jobs happen in this contry, not china. All these things have to be manufactured somewhere else to make these electric cars go. Why arent we mining the materials in this country we need for batteries, for high tech apparatus we need across the board . Instead we expect other countries to supply it to us. The manufacturing and raw materials. We are on the right track because we can do it better, more efficiently, more ecologically soundly if we are allowed. My thanks, administrator wheeler, assistant administrator idsal and secretary chao and everybody in this room that is being a part of this to give us our choices back for our constituents for what they need not what they need in sacramento. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much for your remarks. That concludes our press event this morning. Well remain available to answer any questions you might have. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. [applause] questions . Ave administrator wheeler, california has sorry, chris, with august media. Californias gotten four automakers to say they are going to support their rules. How many have told you they are going to support the safe rule when it comes out . They are still waiting to see what the final numbers look like. We are talking to all the auto manufacturers, including the four that signed that agreement. I dont believe there is actually an agreement thats made public, but they have signed, i think its more in theory. We are sent a letter to california last week to ask what the Legal Authority is for this agreement. We are looking into that aspect. We expect at the end of the day when we release the second half of the safe proposal, the standards, that all the auto makers will look at it and see that it is feasible, the right thing to do, and i expect everybody will support it hopefully the state of california will put politics aside and support it as well. Tim, administrator wheeler, President Trump said last night that e. P. A. s going to be issuing some sort of notice of violation against San Francisco over something about Water Pollution and homelessness. Can you tell us anything more about that . I cant comment on potential enforcement actions. Sarah mark. Can you give us an update on the conversations you are having with the white house and usda about the renewable fuel standard and the waiver issue thats going on . We are continuing to have very good conversations. Thank you. Administrator wheeler, dave from reuters over here. Two part question. One, can you say definitively now whether the safe rule will not be the preferred option, whether it will increase the standards of some amount whether its half a percent, one half percent, and can you also address by revoking the waiver now as a separate rule, what does that do to the legal strategy . Do you think that speeds up the administrations court review of this issue . Do you think its feasible that you could see the Supreme Court take action or consider this before the end of the first term . Im going to defer to my general counsel on that second half. Trying to remember the first half of the question. We are looking at all the options right now. We have not made a final decision yet on what the standards will be. I think i have gone on record saying that the final will not look the same way we proposed it. We received a lot of comments from a lot of people during the Comment Period for the safe proposal. We take those comments very seriously. We are taking a look at what it will mean for the program and what makes the best sense. Again, to fulfill President Trumps objective of having cleaner, safer cars for the American Public, the American Public wants to purchase. Matt leopold, e. P. A. General counsel. I think that this is an issue we proposed to take action on. We are eager to get the opportunity to have this reviewed in the courts. We are ready to defend our interpretation of the waiver withdrawal along with department of transportations preemption theory. We are very confident that the courts will review that favorably. Thanks. Steve bradbury, acting deputy secretary of transportation and general counsel. The legal issues that are addressed in todays we like to call it the one National Program rule, part one of the safe vehicles rule, the preemption issues and the waiver revocation are separable from the standards that will be addressed in the rest of the safe vehicles rule later this fall. And these are very, very important. This is a very important first step in achieving one National Program. These legal issues really are the key to achieving what the Auto Industry and the entire automobile sector has long asked for, which is certainty and clarity on what will those one National Standards be, and how assured can we be that we will l standards be and how assured can we be that one have to build standards across the country. That is what this issue addresses in todays role in the fact that we are pulling it out of the larger safe vehicles rule and doing it first, we are ready to go on these determinations. To beule will be able challenged in court on its own if california so wishes, and we can accelerate the timetable for getting a definitive final judgment from the courts as to the fact that as we believe it is clear that Congress Mandated federal law should control in this area. Once we get those final determinations in court on these focused issues, we will get that certainty for the auto sector there and the entire nation. It is very important to take this first step. We have time for one more question. Question for administrator wheeler. I think i understood the first change would have a negligible environmental impact. I thought i heard you say it would also be good for the environment. Could you clarify how that happens . Sure. The average age of the car on the road today is 12 years. It used to be eight years. By decreasing the cost of the cars, we believe it will increase purchase of newer cars and get older cars off of the roads and the newer cars are better for the environment and Public Safety in there with the American Public wants to purchase. Thank you very much period have to go to the house science hearing. [applause] on monday, President Trump will talk about religious freedom at a global call to religious freedom at the United Nations in new york city. Vice president pence is also expected to attend. We will have live coverage at 11 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan. We want to welcome julia manchester, reporter and daniel o. Rauss from politic thank you both for being with us
vimarsana.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.