"White House and other administration officials told the Environmental Protection Agency that its industry-backed plan for tightening auto emissions limits was too lax, but the agency rebuffed those warnings and released the proposal with provisions that could lessen its bite.
The discord was revealed in thousands of pages of correspondence, analysis and drafts newly released from an interagency review of the measure the EPA unveiled earlier this month and is set to finalize by the end of the year. The correspondence highlights tension within the administration over how aggressively to wield regulations to fight climate change, especially when the efforts are opposed by industry.
“This makes clear that numerous officials in the Biden administration believed that EPA should have proposed stronger clean car standards that are more effective at fighting climate change,” Amit Narang, a regulatory expert with Public Citizen, said in an interview.
At issue is the EPA’s proposal to tighten federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks, which had been weakened under President Donald Trump. The new measure aligns closely with a far-tougher auto emissions plan chartered under President Barack Obama in 2012. By model year 2026, the new EPA proposal would translate to the most stringent-yet federal greenhouse gas emissions limits on the passenger cars and light trucks."
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