The official is also taking steps to end several policies within the Department of Transportation.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said on Jan. 29 that his department is taking action to remove stringent fossil fuel emission standards passed by the Biden administration.
In December 2023, the Department of Transport’s Federal Highway Administration finalized a rule establishing a method to measure and report transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.
The rule required state-level agencies to establish targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles traveling on national highways. These emission targets were intended to decrease over time, and agencies were required to report on their progress in meeting them. The rule did not specify how low the targets should be but allowed agencies the discretion to set goals appropriate for their communities.
The rule was set up to “confront the increasingly urgent climate crisis,” according to the executive summary, and was expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. This was part of a plan to reach “net-zero emissions by no later than 2050,” according to a 2021 White House fact sheet.
On Wednesday, Duffy approved a proposal to rescind the rule.
“The rescission reflects the Administration’s commitment to unleashing American energy and eliminating unlawful regulatory burdens,” the Department of Transportation (DOT) said in a Jan. 29 statement.
Duffy also issued a memorandum on Jan. 28 related to “fixing the CAFE program.” The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA’s) Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards regulate the distance vehicles are required to travel per gallon of fuel.
In the memo, Duffy said that during the prior administration, NHTSA finalized two sets of fuel economy standards for several model years of light-duty vehicles and medium-duty work trucks.
“These fuel economy standards are set at such aggressive levels that automakers cannot, as a practical matter, satisfy the standards without rapidly shifting production away from internal-combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to alternative electric technologies,” he said.
Duffy said that “artificially high” fuel economy standards imposed considerably large costs which rendered “many new vehicle models unaffordable for the average American family and small business owner.”
Duffy directed the NHTSA to immediately begin reviewing and reconsidering all existing fuel economy standards applicable to model year 2022 and forward. He proposed rescinding or replacing any fuel economy standard to bring the CAFE program into compliance with the Trump administration’s policies.
