While you're distracted

The Trump administration on Tuesday rolled back an Obama-era law that pushes automakers to produce more fuel efficient vehicles, severely limiting a rule designed to decrease pollution from transportation in the face of climate change.

The new rule cuts the year-over-year improvements expected from the auto industry, slashing standards that require automakers to produce fleets that average nearly 55 mpg by 2025. Instead, the Trump rule would bring that number down to about 40 mpg by 2026, bringing mileage below what automakers have said is possible for them to achieve.

The Trump administration has argued that cutting Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards will allow automakers to produce cheaper cars, something they say will save 3,300 lives as lower prices spur consumers to upgrade to new vehicles with better safety features that guzzle less gas than older models.

  The Hill

That's absolute bullshit. The Department of Transportation has already put out a report that it's too late to do anything about climate change, so there's no reason to put restraints on auto makers. *

They're in grab it all while you can mode.

They tried to roll back the Obama law a year ago. We weren't coping with a pandemic then.

*

One startling example of this attitude can be seen in July’s US Department of Transportation’s draft environmental impact statement on future vehicle emission standards, which acknowledged the scientific consensus that without significant action,global temperatures by 2100 will be 4 degree C higher than preindustrial levels. Instead of framing the accepted science as a call to radical action, it used the stark numbers to justify no policy change, reasoning that the inevitable temperature rise was so great that increasing fuel efficiency standards would make little difference. Leaving aside the absurd circular logic of justifying doing nothing because not enough is being done, the Dept. of Transportation report demonstrates that the IPCC report won’t change any politician’s mind who simply does not care about the future: 1.5 degrees, 2 degrees, 4 degrees, it’s all inevitable to the Trump administration and doesn’t mean we have to do anything.

  MIT Press