Fuel efficiency laws to be relaxed in the US

• Published On: 6 April 2018
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US President Donald Trump’s policy of ‘business first’ has prompted the change.

The current US government is looking at rolling back fuel efficiency laws, put in place during the Obama era. This change is part of President Donald Trump’s ‘business first’ policy. The earlier rules said that carmakers need to achieve efficiency of 27.8kpl by 2025. The guidelines were introduced in the final days of Barack Obama’s presidency.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, stated that those standards were ‘not appropriate'. “The Obama administration’s determination was wrong,” he said. The change is part of President Trump’s ‘business first’ policy drive. Currently, the state of California has been granted a waiver to impose its own, stricter standards for how much a vehicle can emit, but Pruitt has said that this is also being looked at.

Pruitt said, “Cooperative federalism doesn’t mean that one state can dictate standards for the rest of the country. The EPA will set a national standard for greenhouse gas emissions that allows manufacturers to make cars that people both want and can afford, while still expanding the environmental and safety benefits of new cars.” California governor Edmund Brown Jr in response to the move said, “This cynical and meretricious abuse of power will poison our air and jeopardise the health of all Americans.”