moi, je dis non

LA Times:

EPA poised to scrap fuel economy targets that are key to curbing global warming — setting up clash with California

The Trump administration is poised to abandon America's pioneering fuel economy targets for cars and SUVs, a move that would undermine one of the world's most aggressive programs to confront climate change and invite another major confrontation with California.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce in the coming days that it will scrap mileage targets the Obama administration drafted in tandem with California that aim to boost average fuel economy for passenger cars and SUVs to 55 miles per gallon by 2025, according to people familiar with the plans.

The agency plans to replace those targets with a weaker standard that will be unveiled soon, according to the people, who did not want to be identified discussing the plan before it was announced.

EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said a draft determination was undergoing interagency review and a final decision would be made by Sunday.

EPA chief Scott Pruitt has previously suggested that he thinks the targets are too onerous for manufacturers and inhibit them from selling the vehicles most popular with Americans. A climate skeptic, Pruitt has questioned mainstream science on the warming caused by greenhouse gases such as auto emissions.

Whether Pruitt can weaken the rules for the entire country is an open question. California, with its history of smog problems and heightened vulnerability to climate change, has unique authority under the Clean Air Act to impose its own standard. The act also permits other states to adopt the California rules, and a dozen have.

Over the last decade, the federal government has worked with California to keep mileage targets uniform nationwide, folding the state's aggressive smog and anti-pollution goals into the national program. A single standard is crucial to automakers who don't want to contend with multiple production lines to comply with conflicting rules in states, particularly one as important to car sales as California.

It seems to me that car manufacturers can simply continue to make their cars according to current emissions standards. But personally, I'm against the removal of such standards for vehicles manufactured on American soil, as well as vehicles imported into the country. I may not come off as all that "green" to my readers, but I do subscribe to the basic tenet that it's better to live somewhere clean than somewhere dirty. Here in Korea, we've had horrific air quality for the past several days, despite how bright and beautiful the early spring has been. But when you're in a country where the simple of act of breathing now requires procedures like wearing a filter mask, you have to acknowledge that something is seriously wrong. Slacking off on emissions standards isn't going to help that situation at all. I think this is a mistake by the Trump administration.

I need to reread the article more carefully, but on a first read, it doesn't seem to make clear the connection between fuel economy and pollution. The connection appears to be assumed by the author. I'll check again and make an update later, if necessary.