President Donald Trump at an event to announce the rollback of the 2009 Endangerment Finding. ]Anna Moneymaker/Getty
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This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The Trump administration claims its latest move to gut climate regulations and end all greenhouse gas standards for vehicles will save Americans money. But its own analysis indicates that the new rule will push up gas prices, and that the benefits of the rollback are unlikely to outweigh the costs.
On Thursday, the president and his environmental secretary, Lee Zeldin, announced the finalized repeal of the endangerment finding, a legal determination which underpins virtually all federal climate regulations. He claimed the rollback would save the US $1.3 trillion by 2055.
Late on Thursday night, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a regulatory impact analysis to back up that number. The savings will come from two places, the document says: some $1.1 trillion will stem from reduced vehicle prices, while another $200 billion will come from slashed electric vehicle purchases and lowered spending on charging infrastructure.
But a chart within the analysis indicates that the US will through 2055 incur $1.4 trillion in additional costs from increased fuel purchases, vehicle repair and maintenance, insurance, traffic congestion, and noise. An additional $40 billion in costs will come from reduced energy security, increased refueling time and lowered “drive value,” or costs associated with operating a vehicle.
In total, this means the repeal of the endangerment finding will impose an estimated costs of $1.5 trillion, overshadowing the projected $1.3 trillion in savings. And that’s before you take into account the huge social and climate costs.
“Their own analysis shows that the costs outweigh the benefits,” said Kathy Harris, who leads clean vehicle programming at the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.
In an emailed statement, an EPA spokesperson said: “The Trump EPA is following the law, ending the bogus overreach of previous administrations done by agenda-driven climate zealots.”
In a scenario that assumes severely lowered fuel prices, the benefits of the repeal would outweigh the costs, the analysis says.
That low fuel price case is based on report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). It was included in the document to properly account for the other “policies being implemented by President Trump that are intended to drive down the price of gasoline,” the authors write.
But that imagined circumstance is “not really realistic,” said Harris.
“That EIA’s low oil price [scenario] was never meant to show the effect of any policies that Trump would implement,” she said. “It’s designed to showcase the uncertainty and the volatility of domestic oil prices due to international forces on the global oil market that drives gas prices in the US and abroad.
“Like most actions within this administration, this decision lacks any regard for everyday people.”
The EPA also fails to provide evidence to support the claim that Donald Trump’s policy will “or even could” drive down fuel prices to the extent envisioned in that scenario, Harris said.
“They’re cooking the books here,” she added.
Trump has repeatedly pledged to lower gasoline prices for Americans. But when the analysis compares a case study in which vehicle regulations continue, versus one where they are repealed, it does not appear that promise will be met.
Eliminating the greenhouse gas standards, the regulatory impact analysis shows, will increase gasoline prices by some $0.75 per gallon by 2050.
“That’s about a 29 percent increase in gasoline prices compared to if we maintain the policies that are in place,” said Harris.
The administration’s analysis also fails to examine the additional costs that deregulation could create due to increased global warming, which experts say could be massive. “This is aligned with what we’ve been seeing from this administration, where they focus on the cost to industry while completely ignoring the costs to the health and climate costs,” said Harris.
Repealing the endangerment finding could increase the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by a stunning 10 percent by 2055, and impose up to $4.7 trillion in additional expenses tied to harmful climate and air pollution by that time, according to projections from advocacy group the Environmental Defense Fund.
Critics say the repeal will benefit Trump’s wealthy oil-boss donors while harming the working class and vulnerable Americans.
“Like most actions within this administration, this decision lacks any regard for everyday people and seems to be a play to deepen its loyalty to fossil fuel companies and billionaires who have proven that they are willing to take actions that endanger human life,” said Abre’ Conner, the director of climate and environmental justice at the NAACP.
The EPA spokesperson said: “These activists picked winners and losers and regulated our economy to the tune of trillions at the expense of the American people with zero measurable environmental impact to show for it. The people who are expressing outrage now are simply upset that their preferred ideology can no longer bypass Congress and the will of the people to dictate how Americans live, work, and drive.”
The person did not address questions about the agency’s economic analysis.
