Trump 2.0 Won’t Stop Electric Car Sales From Accelerating

Speaking at the Republican convention, former President Trump did the impossible. It is“I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one.” Unfortunately, that rhetoric collides with reality—there is no federal mandate for electric vehicles.

No automaker is forced to sell electric vehicles and no consumer is forced to buy them. The Biden administration’s policies have given consumers the freedom to choose cleaner air and cheaper energy costs by driving electric cars. And no matter what he says, Trump cannot roll back existing environmental standards on his first day in office.

Unfortunately, Trump isn’t the only one lying about mandating electric cars. Oil company-funded television ads nationwide falsely claim that the Environmental Protection Agency’s standards mandate electric cars and impose a “ban” on gasoline-powered vehicles. This, too, is a lie, designed to keep consumers tied to volatile oil prices and pain at the pump. No EPA standard has ever banned the sale of gasoline or diesel vehicles. A quick visit to the dealership can dispel this myth.

Trump and oil industry ads likely to point to latest EPA report Car cleanliness standardsThese standards were released in March 2024. They set targets for reducing tailpipe emissions through 2032—the goal is to reduce tailpipe pollution so all Americans can breathe cleaner air. The standards may actually encourage electric vehicle sales, but they’re still not mandatory.

For decades, EPA regulations have been designed to allow automakers to develop a mix of cars and trucks in their fleet that meets clean air and emissions goals, including cleaner gasoline and diesel, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, fuel cell vehicles and electric vehicles. Allowing automakers to choose the technology they invest in fosters innovation and investment—for evidence, seebattery belt“From factories across the Southeast to the billions in electric vehicle manufacturing investments automakers are pumping into our communities. Promoting clean cars also reduces air pollution from America’s transportation sector, the nation’s largest source of planet-heating carbon emissions and a major contributor to toxic smog and soot.

Rolling back these clean-vehicle standards would have dire consequences for our economy and the air we all breathe. It would increase emissions, slow job and economic growth, undermine efforts to meet international climate commitments, and jeopardize public health and environmental sustainability. Fortunately, any attempt by Trump to repeal the EPA’s clean-vehicle program would face multiple obstacles.

First, repealing the clean car standard would face significant legal challenges from environmental groups, states including California—the nation’s largest auto market—and even automakers. Those legal battles would likely drag on for months or years, making it impractical to repeal them on day one.

Regardless of what Trump says, the EPA must also abide by the Clean Air Act. As the EPA’s senior administrator for transportation emissions, I led the EPA’s first set of regulations to address greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, so I know firsthand how rigorous the federal environmental regulation process is. It involves extensive research, stakeholder engagement, and public comment over many years. During the public comment period, stakeholders can submit written comments and attend hearings held across the country to testify in person. The EPA must take all of this public input into account in its final rule.

The EPA’s updated Clean Vehicle Program was designed using the same rigorous process, including thousands of pages of legal, engineering, and cost-benefit analyses. The total benefits of the new rules are estimated at $2.1 trillion, with consumers saving $1 trillion by using less oil and gas, which translates into fuel savings.

The bottom line is that reversing such regulatory standards is not as simple as signing an executive order. Any major regulatory change requires a similarly lengthy process of proposal, public comment, and finalization, all subject to legal scrutiny, and often several years.

It’s these long-standing processes that have helped prevent Trump from restoring clean energy and transportation to regulatory programs that the EPA had completed. In his first term, Trump’s proposed cuts to the EPA’s former clean car program were so drastic that even the automakers—the group Trump claimed to be helping—said they went too far. In fact, five major automakers agreed to meet California’s more ambitious clean car standards than those proposed by the Trump-controlled EPA.

The economic landscape has changed, and even if Trump is reelected and tries to roll back the EPA’s clean-car programs, forward-thinking automakers will once again join California in opposing him. Stellantis recently signed a deal with General Motors. Historic deal With California, I would encourage GM, Ford, and other forward-thinking automakers to follow Stellantis’ example and sign similar agreements with California.

Trump may imagine that the EPA’s authority in his second term will be curtailed by the Supreme Court’s recent Chevron decision, but that ruling is unlikely to affect the EPA’s clean car program in April 2024. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Chevron doctrine recognizes the importance of congressional delegation of discretion to agencies like the EPA, and in the case of the Clean Air Act, explicitly. For example, the Clean Air Act’s clean car program is specifically a delegation of discretion to the EPA. That means that the EPA’s new standards based on such careful consideration of the law and technical issues are precisely an exercise in congressional delegation of discretion to an agency that should be upheld by the Supreme Court’s recent ruling.

Aside from the legal constraints that Trump could face in any attempt to roll back environmental regulations, many elements of electric vehicle adoption are outside the federal government’s control. California has implemented strict emissions standards and electric vehicle adoption rules, 17 other states The United States is committed to adopting clean car programs. These states, which account for about 40% of new car sales in the United States, are likely to continue their efforts to clean up emissions regardless of any federal rollbacks. And consumers are increasingly choosing electric vehicles over gas-powered ones—electric car sales in the United States have fallen dramatically. It exceeded 10% of total car sales. Electric vehicles are expected to make up about 20% of all cars on U.S. roads by 2030.

Perhaps most importantly, eliminating existing clean-car programs now creates political risks in red, blue, and purple states alike. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 spurred more than $360 billion in investments in clean-tech manufacturing and infrastructure, creating nearly $1.5 trillion in U.S. GDP. 313 thousand jobs until June 2024Many of these jobs are in the electric vehicle sector, and many of them are in red states. It is certainly a huge political risk to eliminate these well-paying local manufacturing jobs simply because they are also good for the environment.

Reversing the momentum created by these massive federal investments in our country would be economically disruptive. Reversing current EV policies would create enormous uncertainty among automakers and suppliers about future investments. At the same time, competing countries like China and the European Union are financially supporting rapidly growing EV markets. Reducing EV subsidies would weaken America’s competitive position in this vital and growing industry.

President Trump’s promise to roll back Biden’s EV policies fails to acknowledge the complexities and challenges inherent in such an action. Rolling back existing regulations is neither quick nor simple, involving legal hurdles, state-level initiatives, and broader market trends toward electrification.

There is no doubt that the future of transportation is electric. The shift toward electric vehicles is driven by environmental imperatives, technological innovation, and economic opportunity. Rather than trying to reverse this progress, the next president should build on the foundations laid by current policies to ensure a sustainable and prosperous future for all.