(Washington, DC – March 21, 2023) A massive coalition of health, environmental and civic groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund, presented a full defense of the EPA’s clean car standards in a brief filed today to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
“EPA’s clean car standards protect people from the climate crisis and unhealthy air pollution, while creating jobs and saving people money at the gas pump,” said Andy Su , EDF’s clean transport lawyer. “The Clean Car Standards continue EPA’s decades of work to protect people from transportation pollution, as required by Congress, and have a rock-solid foundation in the clean air laws of the our country”.
The EPA finalized the clean car protection standards in December 2021. The standards, which correct harmful actions of the last administration, apply to new cars and passenger trucks from the 2023 to 2026 model years .They will help America address the climate crisis, provide healthier air to our communities, create new manufacturing jobs, and become global leaders in the race to zero-emission vehicles. A group of states – led by the Texas attorney general – and fossil fuel companies filed a lawsuit challenging them. EDF intervened in the case in defense of the rules.
Today EDF joined other parties in the case: the American Lung Association, Clean Air Council, clean wisconsin, Conservation Law Foundation, Center for Environmental Law and Policy, Association for the Conservation of National ParksNNatural Resources Defense Council, Public Citizen, Serra Clubi Union of Concerned Scientistsas well as 22 states and cities with whom we presented a joint statement of intervention – and a wide and varied group of organizations and experts – on American Thoracic Society, American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Association for Respiratory Care, Climate Psychiatry Alliance, American College of Physicians, American College of Chest Physicians, Academic Association of Pediatrics, American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, Center for Constitutional Responsibility, Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, Senator Tom Carper and US Representative Frank Pallone, Jr., Margo Oge and John Hannonthe National League of Cities and the United States Conference of Mayors, Consumer Reportsand the International Council for Clean Transport – who filed amicus briefs in support of the EPA’s clean car standards.
The joint intervening brief argues that EPA’s clean car standards are “a straightforward exercise of EPA’s authority under section 202(a)” (brief, page 6) and says:
“Since 1965, federal motor vehicle standards under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act have been a cornerstone of Congress’s efforts to prevent hazardous air pollution. Section 202 directs EPA to regulate new motor vehicles, one of the nation’s largest sources of air pollution, and has empowered the EPA to eliminate billions of tons of smog precursors, soot and greenhouse gases from the nation’s air by encouraging the application of cost-effective products. emission control technologies. The emissions standards at issue here continue this work using long-standing legally authorized regulatory approaches.” (Summary, page 1)
The summary below details how:
- EPA’s clean car standards for model year 2023 through 2026 passenger cars and trucks conform “squarely to the authority of EPA Section 202(a)” (Summary, page 6 )
- Section 202(a) is “one of the most significant and frequently exercised authorizations in the Clean Air Act” (brief, page 20)
- EPA’s clean car standards are “consistent with the agency’s long-standing regulatory practice and core experience” (Brief, page 21)
- Congress provided clear authorization for the standards (Summary, page 28)
Other parties in the case also filed briefs in support of the clean car standards today, including the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a group that represents the manufacturers of 98 percent of the vehicles regulated by the EPA’s standards. The letter from the Alliance expresses the opinion of the manufacturers that:
“Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act gives EPA significant discretion to set emissions standards and include regulatory provisions to incentivize game-changing technologies, such as electric vehicles, that do not have a widespread market adoption The EPA has exercised this discretion for more than a decade in setting greenhouse gas standards, and other than an increase in the stringency of the standards, no There are prominent differences between the Final Rule and its predecessors. Indeed, the features of the Final Rule to which petitioners most vociferously object—its use of averaging and its application to electric vehicles—are long date and are fully supported by [section] 202(a) plain meaning.” (Alliance for Automotive Innovation, page 1)
Clean cars and trucks have already launched an auto manufacturing renaissance in the U.S. A new report from EDF and WSP found more than $120 billion in investments and 143,000 new U.S. jobs announced in net transport in the last eight years. You can read that report here.
You can find all the legal briefs in this case, and other cases challenging the clean car and truck standards, on the EDF website.
