Global Automakers: EPA Should Withdraw Fuel Economy Proposed Determination

Today, in a not unexpected move, the Global Automakers called upon EPA either to withdraw its proposed determination on MY 2022-2025 light duty vehicle GHG standards or to extend the comment period 120 days. As noted here, last week EPA announced a proposed determination that the standards as originally proposed in 2012 and following the mid-term review process earlier this year should remain in place as is. The determination is open for public comment until December 30, and the final decision will be made after that. The deadline for making a final determination is April 2017. I reproduce relevant parts of the letter here:

“Seemingly inexplicably, the EPA has changed course dramatically, and has issued its Proposed Determination: (a) far ahead of the previously-established schedule, (b) separately from NHTSA’s fuel economy rulemaking, and (c) with a truncated, less than 30-day comment period following publication in the Federal Register. 6 In doing so, the agency has seriously prejudiced our ability to provide meaningful input on the Proposed Determination.

 

Global Automakers believes that the EPA’s acceleration of its proposed determination process so that it no longer aligns with NHTSA’s rulemaking was improper and contrary to the spirit and intent of the joint national fuel economy/GHG program. The EPA should issue its proposed determination at the same time that NHTSA releases its notice of proposed rulemaking on the MY 2022-2025 CAFE standards (which we expect in the summer of 2017), and the two agencies should then jointly issue the final rule/determination. Doing so will ensure that the actions of both agencies are coordinated and harmonized to the greatest extent possible. Divorcing the rulemaking processes of the two agencies (as the EPA has done) raises the risk that each will come to different conclusions concerning the appropriate stringency of the standards and the specific compliance mechanisms automakers can employ to achieve the standards…

 

… We note that the 30-day comment period provided in the Proposed Determination is unprecedented in a regulatory action of this significance. For example, the proposed rule on the original joint fuel economy/greenhouse gas emission regulations promulgated by the EPA and NHTSA in 2009 provided for a 60-day comment period, which commenced after publication in the Federal Register (which was 2 weeks after the notice of proposed rulemaking was signed). The 2012 rulemaking also followed a 60-day comment period after publication in the Federal Register. EPA’s determination on the MY2022-2025 GHG emission standards is just as complex and significant as the prior rulemakings (if not more so), and there is no reason at all for such an abbreviated comment period.

 

Finally, we are concerned that the EPA’s actions in rushing out the Proposed Determination and the abbreviated 30-day comment period will impact our ability to rely on detailed technical analyses that are currently underway. Based on the agencies’ previous statements about the timing of the Midterm Evaluation, Global Automakers and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (Auto Alliance) commissioned several studies that are in-process and will not be completed by December 30, 2016. We informed the EPA of this work in our comments on the draft TAR, and the EPA had previously committed to considering such relevant information submitted after the close of the comment period on the draft TAR, as we confirmed in a follow-up letter. Global Automakers and the Auto Alliance have committed significant resources to these studies based on the expectation that the agencies, including the EPA, would take them into account in the final determination/rulemaking—which was to take place in the 2017 to 2018 time period.”