General Motors and other automakers are debating whether to join a deal to keep clean car standards high in an agreement between the state of California and VW, Ford, BMW and Honda. The deal would stick closely to current Obama-era targets and would block a rollback being proposed by the Trump administration. Jim Doyle is president of Business Forward, a trade group representing 6,000 Michigan companies. He says the rollback would create uncertainty and ultimately cost auto-industry jobs in Michigan.
“It’s a bad idea, executed poorly. For Trump it’s a PR stunt. For the industry, it’s years of litigation. It’s going to have a bad impact on GM and Ford and Chrysler, and autoworkers in Michigan are going to pay a price.”
The current federal standard calls for an average fuel economy of 54 miles per gallon by 2024, but Trump wants to freeze them at 2021 levels and undermine states’ ability to require standards higher than those set by the EPA.
