EPA finalizes rules for automakers to limit emissions

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced new rules for auto manufacturers that are aimed at accelerating the transition to electric vehicles. The goal is to reduce the target for greenhouse gas emissions from light vehicles by 56 percent between 2026 and 2032. President Joe Biden said in 2021 that half of new cars sold in 2030 should have no emissions. The EPA will still allow manufacturers to make higher-emission vehicles if they make enough low- or zero-emission vehicles to balance them out. The rules will start applying to the model year 2027.

What are the rules? The new rule increasingly limits the amount of tailpipe emissions allowed from vehicles, so that by 2030, more than half of new cars would have to be zero emissions to meet the regulations. The EPA says the new rule will prevent over 7 tons of carbon from being released into the atmosphere. Last year, a group of state attorney generals wrote a letter to the EPA, saying the proposed shift to electric vehicles was too aggressive, “unlawful, and misguided.”

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Muncy’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about electric vehicles in cold weather.