Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its rescission of the 2009 “endangerment finding” for greenhouse gasses (GHGs), which served as a prerequisite for regulating GHG emissions from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines. EPA now says that it lacks the statutory authority under the Clean Air Act to prescribe standards for GHG emissions or regulate GHG emissions from new motor vehicles.  

“Therefore, EPA also finalized the repeal of all subsequent GHG emission standards from its regulations for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty on-highway vehicles and engines,” EPA said in a press release. 

EPA said that as a result of these changes, engine and vehicle manufacturers no longer have any future obligations for the measurement, control and reporting of GHG emissions for any highway engine and vehicle, including model years manufactured prior to this final rule.  

“The EPA will still regulate pollutants in tailpipe emissions that hamper air quality, such as carbon monoxide, lead and ozone,” wrote NBC News. 

President Trump supported the move, saying: "We are repealing the ridiculous endangerment finding and terminating all additional green emissions standards imposed unnecessarily on vehicle models and engines between 2012 and 2027 and beyond.”  

NACS has long opposed the emission standards because they were too strict for any internal combustion engine to meet, effectively forcing a transition to electric vehicles (EVs) without accounting for factors like lifecycle emissions or consumer demand.  

In public comments to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in support of the rescission, NACS wrote: “The result of an arbitrary and capricious rulemaking, these standards ... amount to a national [EV] mandate that far exceeds EPA’s authority to regulate vehicular GHG emissions under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act.... For those reasons, they must be repealed. …From a regulatory policy perspective, the most effective way to manage vehicular emissions is by the adoption of truly technology-neutral standards that spur the deployment of capital for research and development in the competitive market.”