Washington, DC—The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy released the following statement from Shruti Vaidyanathan, its transportation program director, in response to the Environmental Protection Agency proposing updated standards for light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles:
“The Biden administration has taken a major step toward tackling pollution from transportation.
“These proposed standards will help fight climate change, cut fueling costs, and reduce smog-forming pollution. But these standards should be strengthened to help achieve the president’s economy-wide climate goals.
“These are strong proposals, yet they do not give us as much progress as climate circumstances demand. We need to move to electrified vehicles as rapidly as possible while continuing to reduce emissions from conventional vehicles, and these proposals need to be improved to get us there.
“For cars, the strongest proposed option would take us to more than half of new vehicles being electric by 2030, exceeding the president’s commitments. But recently expanded incentives for electric vehicles make greater ambition possible, and the agency should consider targeting two-thirds electric sales by the end of the decade in its final rule. In addition, the agency should ensure its final standards encourage electric cars to be more efficient by accounting for emissions from power plants that help fuel them.
“For trucks, the strongest proposed option puts us on a path to more than half of new sales being electric by 2035, yet it requires little progress on emissions from diesel trucks. Improving diesel truck efficiency will be crucial for reducing emissions, particularly from long-haul tractors—by far the biggest consumers of fuel and likely the last to electrify. Significant continued improvements to diesel trucks should be required in the final rule.”
