California Drops 50% Fuel Reduction Plan

California's State Assembly has abandoned a proposal that would require new motor vehicles to slash their consumption of petroleum-based fuels 50% by 2030 compared with 1990, Reuters reports.

"We could not cut through the multi-million-dollar smoke screen created by a single interest group with a singular motive and a bottomless war chest," grumped Sen. Kevin De Leon, author of the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015, which contained the proposal.

The measure would have directed the California Air Resources Board to come up with a plan by 2017 to achieve the 50% reduction. Current CARB regulations require a 20% cut by 2030.

The oil and gas industry lobbied strongly against the fuel consumption provision. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers also opposed it, saying the plan would knock the state's law out of alignment with federal standards. AAM also contends that adopting the proposal would prejudice the government's plan to review the viability of its 54.5-mpg average fuel economy target for 2025.

The federal review is scheduled to begin next year and must be completed by April 2018. A study by the National Research Council released in June said auto industry efforts to achieve the federal target are "on time, using known technologies and at reasonable cost."