Inside Climate News: “The First Casualty of Trump’s Climate Action Repeal: The U.S. EV Transition”
This article in Inside Climate News quoted RFF Senior Fellow Joshua Linn on the impact on US automakers from the US Enivronmental Protection Agency’s decision to repeal the endangerment finding.
“Joshua Linn, an economics professor at the University of Maryland and a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, a think tank that studies energy and the environment, said the auto industry wants ‘a consistent set of standards over time, because that’s going to make planning much easier.’”
“Linn said that the Biden administration’s tailpipe standards, which targeted a 50 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 2026 levels by 2032, likely would have been difficult for automakers to meet, especially in the later years, when deeper greenhouse gas emissions cuts were being required. The Trump administration could have addressed those concerns by easing the rules, but this action is much more extreme, Linn said, and it goes beyond what would be best both for automakers and consumers.”
“Stringent standards likely would help U.S. automakers to develop vehicles that could be sold in international markets where there are strong emissions requirements, Linn said. Instead, those markets are being dominated by Chinese competitors that are making high-tech, affordable EVs, especially BYD, which in 2025 surpassed Ford to become the world’s sixth-largest automaker, with 4.6 million vehicles sold.”
“’Consumers are worse off,’” Linn said.”
