Hot air: on Donald Trump and environmental issues

Donald Trump is trying to turn back the clock on environmental issues

As part of his continuing assault on science, U.S. President Donald Trump revoked a foundational guideline of the American environment regulator that allowed it to control the transportation sector’s emission of greenhouse gases. The repeal of the ‘endangerment finding’ was the final, formal blow following a series of actions by the U.S.’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in weakening Obama-era administration fuel economy and greenhouse gas (GHG) standards for vehicle model years 2021-26 and loosening fuel efficiency norms. The ‘endangerment finding’ emerged after the US Supreme Court’s 2007 decision, in Massachusetts vs EPA, which held that greenhouse gases qualify as “air pollutants” and required the EPA to determine whether they endanger public health or welfare. In December 2009, the EPA concluded that six greenhouse gases — including carbon dioxide and methane — “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger” health and welfare, drawing heavily on assessments by the IPCC and U.S. scientific bodies. The EPA’s action had a seismic impact on the American automotive industry, setting in motion the first federal greenhouse gas standards, set in 2010, for cars and light trucks (2012-16), later extended through 2025. Manufacturers accelerated fuel-efficiency improvements, invested in hybrid systems, lightweight materials, and, eventually, battery-electric vehicles. Regulatory credit markets emerged, benefiting firms such as Tesla, Inc. and resulting in the popularity of electric vehicles globally, including in India.

Though indirect, the stricter greenhouse gas emission norms also influenced a world-wide shift away from the ‘small car’ to the mid-sized Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV) with car markers improving the SUV’s emissions profile. Mr. Trump seems to believe that doing away with the EPA regulations will revive America’s ‘gas guzzler’ era, boost American manufacturing jobs, and somehow tie in with his administration’s rediscovery of Venezuelan oil. These are pipedreams. Auto-manufacturing production lines today are optimised around electrification, hybridisation and emissions controls. With China dominating most of the production value chain, it is unlikely that auto-manufacturers, who have invested over a multi-decadal horizon into clean vehicles — and with the intention to export to countries where emissions norms are only getting stricter by the day — will change tack to a regress. At best, the norms will be a speed bump to electric vehicle rollout and could win Mr. Trump some brownie points with his voter base. The real danger lies in automakers in India citing such regulation as a pretext to weaken fuel efficiency standards. Although India’s standards do not yet connect climate goals with cars, the domestic automotive sector should view them as a lodestar.