A legal battle awaits if the Trump administration attempts to nix California's ability to set vehicle tailpipe emissions standards that are higher than federal rules, California's top air regulator warned.
"I think you could say that there would be a war with many [states] lining up on California's side, not only states that have officially adopted our standards, but other states," Mary Nichols, head of the California Air Resources Board, or CARB, said Feb. 2 at Bloomberg New Energy Finance's Future of Mobility Summit in Palo Alto.
The comments come ahead of an April 1 deadline for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Transportation to complete their review of the Obama administration's boost in average fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon for cars and light-duty trucks by model year 2025, which is likely to be a significant driver for electric vehicles across the U.S. Observers believe that the Trump administration may seek to nullify a waiver allowing California to set its own standards under the Clean Air Act. A dozen states follow California's rules, representing roughly 30% of the country's new car sales, according to CARB.
"Our position is that, as far as California is concerned, we have a waiver, which is good through 2025, so the EPA would have to take a totally unprecedented legal action to try to revoke that waiver," Nichols said.
With Gov. Jerry Brown's new goal to put five million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030, California intends to remain "the harbinger of future federal standards," Nichols said. "In effect, the way it has worked is the industry has a few years to practice building cars that meet California standards, and pretty soon they start selling them elsewhere."
Global demand for higher-mileage and electric vehicles is making the "California versus the United States" struggle moot, she added. "The fact is that the U.S. market as a whole is a less significant market for the future of the industry than it was even a few years ago."
The U.S. accounted for just 18% of the roughly 1.1 million fully battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles sold worldwide in 2017, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, significantly trailing China, which accounted for about half of global electric vehicle sales. Europe made up about a quarter of 2017's electric vehicle sales.
