Negotiations Over National Fuel Economy Standards Have Broken Down

If you were hoping that the Environmental Protection Agency, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the California Air Resources Board would be able to come to a compromise on fuel economy standards, we have some bad news. That’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Bloomberg reports that according to three people familiar with the talks, negotiations involving the EPA, NHTSA, and CARB have broken down. The two federal agencies had reportedly hoped to finalize a new standard that would replace the previous administration’s requirements by April at the latest, but that now looks unlikely. Though California joining 12 other states in a lawsuit to block the president from using his emergency powers to build a wall on the southern border probably won’t help the situation, it sounds like the negotiations broke down a while ago.

“The administration broke off communications before Christmas and never responded to our suggested areas of compromise—or offered any compromise proposal at all,” a CARB spokesperson told Bloomberg in an email. “We concluded at that point that they were never serious about negotiating, and their public comments about California since then seem to underscore that point.”

As for the future of the negotiations, it’s hard to guess what will happen next. Neither side has shown any interest in backing down, and Bloomberg reports that no additional meetings have been scheduled. Automakers, however, are said to have encouraged the administration to compromise in the interest of regulatory uniformity. As it stands now, 13 states and the District of Columbia also follow CARB standards. Failure to reach an agreement could put automakers in a tough position trying to meet two different requirements.

Source: Bloomberg

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