Requirements ramp up in 2025 to Obama-era levels of a 5% annual increase in the mileage standard and a similar cut in emissions. They then go higher than that for model year 2026, one of the people said, perhaps in the range of 6% or 7%. Neither EPA nor the Transportation Department would comment on the proposal. The new standards aim to go partway in meeting the call from environmental groups, which had pushed for a more immediate return to at least the Obama-era standards. “We’re at the climate cliff, and the stakes are too high to aim low,” the Center for Biological Diversity will write in a full-page ad in The New York Times on Wednesday urging tough action. Dan Becker, director of the center's Safe Climate Transportation Campaign, on Tuesday said the administration's proposal is inadequate because it embraces two years of the California deal, which offered a number of exemptions.