Trump administration’s fuel efficiency rollback ‘deeply flawed’, says new study

The Trump administration’s move earlier this year to roll back fuel efficiency standards was based on a “deeply flawed” analysis that went against evidence and basic economic theory, US scientists said Thursday. In August, the Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed relaxing the tough standards favored by former president Barack Obama, saying they “are no longer appropriate and reasonable” beyond 2020.

The Trump administration said less strict efficiency standards -- freezing standards at model year 2020 levels through 2025 -- would have a “negligeable” effect on air quality. Meanwhile, they argued that the Obama-era mandate to double fuel efficiency between 2012 and 2025 would add $2,340 to the cost of owning a new car, thereby forcing more people to drive older cars and risk dying in traffic accidents.

“If adopted, the proposed rule’s preferred alternative would save more than $500 billion in societal costs and reduce highway fatalities by 12,700 lives,” said the NHTSA. But when Antonio Bento, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Southern California and colleagues examined that logic, they found several holes. “It appears federal officials cherry-picked data to support a predetermined conclusion that the clean-car standards will lead to too many highway deaths,” said Bento, lead author of the study published in the journal Science.

“We do not support that conclusion and the data does not support that conclusion.” The Trump administration’s analysis “mistakenly concludes that relaxation of the rule will shrink the vehicle fleet by six million cars by 2029, which greatly skews the bottom line,” said the report. The revision “is simply inconsistent with basic economic theory,” the study said.