Attorney General Rayfield Takes Action to Stop Trump Administration from Gutting Fuel Economy Standards

Rollback would cost drivers nearly $220 billion at the pump

“When gas prices are at an all-time high, it’s astonishing that the Trump Administration would want to roll back fuel efficiency standards,” said Attorney General Rayfield. “The administration’s actions would cost families and small businesses billions of dollars, increase air pollution, and lead to even hotter summers.”

For nearly 50 years, federal fuel economy standards have done something simple: they’ve required new cars to go farther on a gallon of gas. That’s saved families money, helped keep gas prices in check, made the country less vulnerable to oil price spikes overseas, and cut down on pollution. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has now weakened those standards so much that, for the next five years, new cars would be held to a lower bar than the cars Americans were already driving in 2021.

In a lawsuit filed today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, AG Rayfield and a coalition of other attorneys general argue the agency’s new rules break federal law and that NHTSA ignored the job Congress gave it.

Congress passed a law in 1975 requiring the federal government to set fuel economy standards as high as automakers can realistically achieve. To figure out that number, NHTSA looks at the cars already on the road and determines where to set efficiency standards for new cars.

Now, though, the NHTSA has changed its calculations, reducing standards by removing electric cars from the equation. The result will be higher fuel costs for drivers and worsening climate chaos.

The lawsuit argues that the Trump Administration: