Although many hailed the new emissions regulations finalized Wednesday as significant progression toward decreasing pollution and boosting future sales of electric vehicles, the rules don’t drive enough action and are too week, wrote the Los Angeles Times’ Editorial Board.
The Biden administration caved to pressure, the Board continued, finalizing a “water-down plan that will allow automakers to build more gas-guzzling vehicles for longer and slow down urgently needed pollution cuts.” The plan requires automakers to increase production and sales of new zero-emission cars and light-duty trucks to more than 67% by 2032, compared to 7% today.
This plan plays out much more gradually than the regulations first proposed by the EPA, the Editorial Board stated, and the timeline matters. “The longer we wait to toughen these standards, the more cumulative carbon dioxide emissions we spew into the atmosphere.”
The Editorial Board believes that the weakening of the original rules is a concession to both the auto industry and labor unions during an election year. The United Auto Workers Union said that the finalizes rules were more feasible for the industry, protected the workers building the vehicles and provided a “path forward for automakers to implement the full range of automotive technologies to reduce emissions.”
