Post by account_disabled on Feb 19, 2024 22:25:14 GMT -8
Recently, the American company that makes cars, trucks and engines, General Motors stated that it will no longer support the Trump administration in legal efforts to end California's right to set its own clean air standards. HuffPost noted that CEO Mary Barra said in a letter Monday to environmental groups that GM will withdraw from the lawsuit, and urged other automakers to do so. Barra said the company agrees with President-elect Joe Biden's plan to expand the use of electric vehicles. Last week, GM said it is testing a new battery chemistry that will reduce the costs of electric vehicles to those of gas vehicles within five years, while Barra sent the letter after a call with the Governor of California Gavin Newsom. We believe the president-elect's big electrification goals, California, and General Motors are aligned, to address climate change by dramatically reducing automobile emissions. Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors. For her part, Mary Nichols, head of the California Air Resources Board, called GM's announcement "good news," saying Barra told her as much in a phone call Monday morning. The board is the state's air pollution regulator. I am pleased to be in communication with Mary Barra again. It's been a while since we talked. Mary Nichols, head of the California Air Resources Board.
Adding to that, Dan Becker of the Center for Biological Diversity — one of the environmental groups Barra wrote to — said GM was wrong to try to prevent California from protecting its people from automobile pollution. Now other automakers must follow GM and withdraw their support for Trump's attack on clean cars. Dan Becker of the Center for Biological Diversity. The situation with Donald Trump Last year, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota and 10 small automakers sided with the Trump administration in a lawsuit over whether California has the right to set Europe Cell Phone Number List its own rules on greenhouse gas emissions and the economy. fuel. The companies said they would intervene in a lawsuit filed by the Environmental Defense Fund against the Trump administration, which has rolled back national pollution and gas mileage standards enacted while Barack Obama was president. The group called itself "The Coalition or Sustainable Automotive Regulation" and included Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Subaru, Isuzu, Suzuki, Maserati, McLaren, Aston-Martin and Ferrari. With our industry facing the prospect of multiple, overlapping and inconsistent regulations that increase costs and penalize consumers, we had an obligation to intervene. John Bozzella, CEO of Global Automakers and spokesman for the coalition.
The move put the automakers at odds with five other companies: BMW, Ford, Volkswagen, Volvo and Honda; who sided with California and backed stricter emissions and fuel economy standards than those proposed by the Trump administration. But the coalition's position was not so direct. For example, while he opposed California, he still wanted Trump and the state to commit to national regulation. In September 2019, Trump announced that his administration would seek to revoke the authority granted by Congress to California to set rules stricter than those issued by federal regulators. The move came after Ford, BMW, Honda and Volkswagen signed an agreement with the California Air Resources Board, which had been at odds with the Trump administration for months. Many automakers have said in the past that they support raising standards, but not as much as those stated in the waning days of the Obama administration in 2016. Under the Obama administration's requirements, the fleet of new vehicles would have to average 30 mpg in real-world driving by 2021, rising to 36 mpg in 2025. Those increases would be about 5% annually. The Trump administration's plan increased fuel savings by 1.5% per year, backing an earlier proposal to freeze requirements at 2021 levels. Automakers say that because buyers are switching to larger trucks and vans, many companies would not be able to meet the stricter standards.