New Blog on Trump’s Rollback of Vehicle Fuel Economy Standards
WASHINGTON, DC—Today, Resources for the Future (RFF) posted the third in a multi-part blog series about the Trump administration’s recent proposal to freeze federal fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards.
The new blog is called: Why and How Do New Vehicle Fuel Economy Standards Affect Consumer Vehicle Purchases? In it, co-authors RFF Senior Fellow Joshua Linn and University of Maryland researcher Xiaoya Dou begin by noting:
“The Trump administration claims that the Obama administration overstated the benefits and understated the costs of [federal fuel economy and greenhouse gas] standards. One of the key areas of contention is whether standards reduce total new vehicle sales and delay scrappage of older vehicles. These effects would reduce the fuel consumption and GHG savings of the standards, and potentially increase local air pollution and the costs of traffic accidents.
“In this blog post, we describe our recently released report, which shows the first direct evidence that tighter standards reduce total new vehicle sales, supporting one of the Trump administration’s claims. We explain why lower sales slightly reduce the benefits of tighter standards and substantially raise the costs—although the cost effect is short lived.”
Read today’s blog, the third in the series, in full: Why and How Do New Vehicle Fuel Economy Standards Affect Consumer Vehicle Purchases?
Read the second blog in the series: Why All the Talk about Gas Prices and Fuel Economy Standards?
Read the first blog in the series: Questions about the Trump Administration’s Cost-Benefit Analysis for its Proposal to Freeze the CAFE Standards.
Resources for the Future (RFF) is an independent, nonprofit research institution in Washington, DC. Its mission is to improve environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement. RFF is committed to being the most widely trusted source of research insights and policy solutions leading to a healthy environment and a thriving economy.
Unless otherwise stated, the views expressed here are those of the individual authors and may differ from those of other RFF experts, its officers, or its directors. RFF does not take positions on specific legislative proposals.
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