In 2020, Trump cut CAFE to 40 mpg. Now he’s cut it again to just 35 mpg.
The federal government’s war on fuel efficiency claimed another victim today. The Department of Transportation released a new rule for the country’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, which, as expected, discourage the very idea of economical vehicles. Among the changes is a rollback to fuel economy numbers not seen in more than a decade, below even the low standards implemented in 2020, the last time Trump was in power. The new goal is just 34.9 mpg by model year 2031.
This is nothing if not expected. When Sean Duffy was installed as Transportation secretary last January, he immediately announced that any fuel efficiency standards put in place under the Biden administration were dead and buried. Those rules had a slower ramp up than some might have liked but would have required automakers to sell many more electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.
If they haven’t already, this is when Americans should finally realize that he and his family are being paid for by foreign actors. He is actively putting US business out of the world wide market. The US is going backwards while everyone else moves forward. Did China just hand him a huge pot of cash for putting the last nail in the US automotive industry’s coffin?