Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy immediately moved to roll back fuel efficiency standards moments after being sworn in Tuesday.
Duffy released a memo ordering the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to review a Biden era rule that requires cars to be 2 percent more fuel efficient each year.
Duffy’s memo claims that by rolling back fuel efficiency standards, cars will become more affordable.
“The memorandum signed today specifically reduces the burdensome and overly restrictive fuel standards that have needlessly driven up the cost of a car in order to push a radical Green New Deal agenda,” Duffy said in a statement. “The American people should not be forced to sacrifice choice and affordability when purchasing a new car.”
The memo also attacked state laws on vehicle emissions and electric cars, calling the Biden administration’s push for electric vehicle subsidies an “ill-conceived government-imposed market distortion” making cars unaffordable.
Though states aren’t allowed to enact their own emission standards on new cars, the Environmental Protection Agency granted California a waiver from the rule. California, along with 17 other states, sets stricter air pollution regulations then the federal government.
Duffy called on the waiver to be terminated, echoing Trump’s executive order from last week that attacked California’s pollution regulations.
During his first term, Trump focused on dismantling fuel efficiency and car pollution regulations, which were slowly brought back under the Biden administration.
Duffy’s memo will not immediately reverse Biden’s fuel efficiency rule, but will likely kick off a years-long battle to rewrite or scrap the rule.
Read it at Ars Technica