New Jersey Must Stand with California for Clean Air Against Trump

California’s California Air Resources Board has decided to push ahead with stricter emissions standards for cars and trucks, which goes against Trump’s plans to rollback regulations. The tailpipe pollution regulations were among President Obama’s major initiatives to reduce global warming. They would force automakers to build passenger cars that achieve an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, compared with about 36 miles per gallon today. Eventually achieving those targets would have drastically reduced the nation’s vehicle tailpipe pollution, which accounts for about a third of the United States’ total greenhouse gas emissions. After Trump withdraws the Obama administration’s requirement for model years 2022 through 2025, the administration will have a year to put forth an alternative set of efficiency standards, which will likely rollback the standards significantly.

“New Jersey must stand with California to fight back against President Trump’s attack on our lungs. While the President is rolling back federal regulations on pollution and climate change, California is coming out against him and standing up for clean air. Instead of developing a cleaner economy with electric vehicles and green jobs, Trump’s actions will make our country suffer from more pollution, climate impacts, and less jobs. It is important California is moving forward with these stricter emissions standards because under New Jersey law, we must do the same,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Trump rolling back emission standards will directly impact public health because cars and trucks are the biggest sources of air pollution in our state. This will create more asthma and respiratory problems, less green jobs, while we pay more to fuel our vehicles at the pump. That is why it is important California is adopting these stricter standards so New Jersey can follow their rules and fight back against Trump.”

In 2016, U.S. EV sales rose 37 percent over 2015, with well over half a million Americans now driving plug-in cars. According to the American Lung Association, every year, pollution from passenger vehicles collectively costs the 10 ZEV states about $24 billion in health, including 220,000 lost work days, 109,000 asthma exacerbations, hundreds of thousands of other respiratory health impacts, and 2,580 premature deaths. In New Jersey, the Zero Electric Vehicle (ZEV) program saves our state $4.6 billion in health care costs associated with smog and soot pollution caused by passenger vehicles.

“Now that California is standing up to President Trump’s attacks on our environment, New Jersey must do the same. Without these requirements, now the emissions coming out of our tailpipes will be dirtier and auto makers won’t have any incentive to make electric and hybrid vehicles. That is why companies that have invested money in these standards as well as states must fight back,” said Jeff Tittel. “What Trump is doing is taking the side of the oil industry and some in the car industry who rather make more profits selling giant SUVs than fuel efficient cars. By rolling back emissions standards, it will mean we will spend more money at the pump because vehicles are less fuel efficient, it will require us to buy more gasoline. This will then raise the price which be a double whammy on our wallets.”

As a result of California’s vote, the Trump Administration could choose to revoke California’s waiver, which would begin legal proceedings. California sued the George W. Bush administration after it challenged California’s waiver in 2007. President Obama reversed the federal challenge. This will directly impact New Jersey because we are one of fourteen states that use the same standards of tail pipe emissions as California along with states like New York, Massachusetts and Maryland.

“If Trump tries to get rid of the waiver for states to have cleaner air, we must stand together with states like New York and California stop him. Since states using the California standard are the largest and wealthiest with a lot of vehicle sales, the auto industry had been making more fuel efficient vehicles based on their standard. Now states like New Jersey who are part of that coalition must sue against these changes. If Governor Christie doesn’t, the legislature needs to intervene. With the lawsuits against Trump’s attacks, it could help delay these bad rules or help overturn them all together,” said Jeff Tittel.

Trump’s actions would heavily increase our depends on oil, gas, and coal over things like solar and wind. By continuing to extract and use fossil fuel we end up undermining renewable energy and any chance of combating climate change. Pipelines and power plants produce greenhouse gasses such as CO2 and methane. As long we give Big Oil & Gas free range to continue to drill for fossil fuels, we will see climate change and its effects such as sea level rise escalate.

“New Jersey as well as the rest of the country needs to move forward with clean car technology and fuel efficiency, but instead Trump is siding with Ford and GMC to move us backwards. Without these requirements, auto makers won’t have any incentive to make electric and hybrid vehicles. Instead of embracing the future of clean cars like plugins whose sales have tripled and are getting cheaper, Trump is preventing economic growth and green jobs,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Trump’s actions are clearly an attack on electric vehicles so some companies in the auto industry can continue to sell gas guzzlers like the GMC Denali and the Ford Expedition. That is why our state must fight back to protect our clean air and stop Trump from rolling back environmental protections.”