Trump’s plan to revoke California’s car pollution waiver makes a mockery of conservative principles

Earlier this week, Bloomberg broke the news that the Trump administration plans to press ahead with its plans to roll back the new national fuel economy standards established under President Obama and to freeze standards at current levels through 2030. That’s not all. The White House also plans to try to nullify the waiver California has under the Clean Air Act to set its own standards — effectively forcing the state, and the dozen states that have aligned their standards with it, to roll back their standards back as well.This is the most aggressive position the administration could possibly take, which seems to be its default mode. If successful, the plan would wipe out one of Obama’s biggest accomplishments on both air pollution and greenhouse gases. As I described in more detail in this post, the fuel economy of the US fleet would virtually stagnate through 2030. And according to new research from Energy Innovation, it would cost American consumers hundreds of billions of dollars.