This morning the LA Times reported that Trump has rolled back one of Obama’s biggest climate change regulations by lowering Obama’s gas mileage economy demands on the auto industry from 5% increases per year to 1.5%:
The Trump administration on Tuesday weakened one of the nation’s most aggressive efforts to combat climate change, releasing new fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks that handed a victory to the oil and gas industry.
The new rule, from the Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department, will almost immediately be plunged into litigation as environmental groups and states with stricter standards, led by California, plan to challenge it.
If the administration’s policy survives those fights, it would spare automakers from having to meet ambitious gas mileage and emissions requirements put in place in 2012 under President Obama. It is among the biggest steps the administration has taken to reverse an existing environmental policy.
The proposal is a dialed-down version of the one the administration originally planned. Instead of proposing zero improvements in fuel efficiency in coming years, it would require automakers to increase fuel economy across their fleets by 1.5% a year, with a goal of achieving an average of 40 miles per gallon by 2026. That’s still a major departure from current rules, which mandate annual increases of 5%, reaching an average of 54 mpg by 2025.“We are delivering on President Trump’s promise to correct the current fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. The administration’s plan, he said, “strikes the right regulatory balance that protects our environment and sets reasonable targets for the auto industry.”
As you can imagine, Obama was not happy with this and took a shot at Trump over the coronavirus pandemic:
We’ve seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic. We can’t afford any more consequences of climate denial. All of us, especially young people, have to demand better of our government at every level and vote this fall.
We've seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic. We can't afford any more consequences of climate denial. All of us, especially young people, have to demand better of our government at every level and vote this fall. https://t.co/K8Ucu7iVDK
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 31, 2020
Ted Cruz just responded to Obama’s tweet, fixing it for him….
Bold: Obama calls for the overwhelming electoral defeat of Joe Biden & Nancy Pelosi, after they opposed & demagogued Trump’s China travel ban, which helped slow the coronavirus pandemic. https://t.co/DaRygnaMQb
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 31, 2020
Boom! And he’s exactly right. They were politicizing Trump’s response to the coronavirus from the start. And what’s hilarious is that just over a month ago Nancy Pelosi was playing down the coronavirus in San Francisco, telling people to go out and eat in their Chinatown district because there was no concern: