Carmakers Get One Year to Argue for Lower Fuel Economy Goals

President Donald Trump says carmakers will have another year to make a case for easing a regulation that requires their cars to average more than 50 mpg in by 2025.

Trump delivered the news in a speech at the American Center for Mobility under construction outside Ypsilanti, Mich. His wide-ranging comments, heavily focused on is aim to restore jobs in the U.S., were aimed squarely at enthusiastic union workers in the audience.

Just before Trump took office in January, the Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency rushed through an assessment of the target, which had been set in 2011. EPA concluded the goal remains “feasible, practical and appropriate.”

Under terms of the current fuel economy standard, EPA had until April 2018 to complete its review of the standard. Trump’s rollback cancels the agency’s January assessment and restores the statutory deadline.

Carmakers complain that EPA’s January assessment is “riddled with indefensible assumptions, inadequate analysis and a failure to engage with contrary evidence.”

They insist the 2025 target—which would hike average fuel economy for cars about 40% from this year’s 38.5-mpg average—would hurt the U.S. economy and be financially ruinous to them. They also argue that an unexpectedly strong shift in consumer preferences from cars to SUVs, crossovers and pickup trucks has made the 6-year-old standard no longer realistic.