282,000 petitions to Obama administration: Clean up our cars!

Environment America

Washington, D.C.–Environment America and a dozen other environmental, conservation and consumer  groups delivered more than 280,000 thousand petitions to Administrator McCarthy of the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx today.  The petitions urged strengthening of vehicle efficiency and the corporate average fuel economy standards to cut carbon emissions and protect health.

The outpouring of public support came in response to the Draft Technical Assessment Report (TAR), released this summer which showed that the standards are not only achievable, but that many cost-effective technologies are available to meet the current standards, even with low gas prices.

 The transportation sector, which surpassed power plants earlier this year as the country’s largest source of global warming pollution, makes up nearly a third of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, with cars and trunks being the main contributor.

“Thanks to President Obama’s leadership, global warming pollution from power plants is on the decline,” said Aminah Zaghab, Global Warming Solutions advocate with Environment America. “But this highlights the importance of strengthening our vehicle standards to clean up the transportation sector and make our cars and trucks cleaner, faster.”

Environment America’s comments call for the administration to issue the strongest possible vehicle standards in the midterm evaluation, a review process included in the 2012 standards. The evaluation is a multi-step process which will require EPA to make a final determination about the existing MY 2022-2025 standards and the U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration must finalize the standards.

“After the hottest summer on record, we must do more to cut pollution from transportation. This is not an intractable problem,” said Zaghab. “We have the solutions, and by requiring cleaner cars not only will the climate benefit, but also our health, our economy, and our national security.”
 
 
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Environment America Research & Policy Center is the national federation of statewide advocacy organizations bringing people together for a cleaner, greener, healthier future.