Trump's Trials - President Trump announces plan to roll back fuel economy standards

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

The Trump administration continues to pivot away from electric vehicles and cleaner gas cars, with President Trump announcing Wednesday a plan to roll back the clock on fuel economy standards.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's Terms from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. We're under invasion from within. If you're not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will. We all serve at the pleasure of the president. The golden age of America is upon us. We are in the golden age. Every episode of Trump's terms, we bring you NPR's latest coverage of the 47th president.

With a focus on actions and policies he is pursuing on his own terms and in the process, taking the presidency into uncharted territory. Today's story starts right after this. I'm Michelle Martin. The Trump administration continues to remove incentives for electric vehicles and cleaner gas cars. The latest plan is to change fuel economy standards. Those are the rules that push automakers to produce cars with better gas mileage. NPR's Camilla Dominovsky reports.

Fuel economy standards have been on a bit of a roller coaster over the last few presidencies. The Obama White House made them much more strict than the first. Trump White House rolled them back. The Biden presidency, with its focus on fighting climate change and reducing the use of oil, made them more ambitious again. Not really a surprise what happened yesterday. Here's President Trump sitting next to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in the Oval Office. Now under the new rules being issued today by Secretary Duffy,

the Department of Transportation will rescind the Biden fuel economy prices. And I hate to say that because they were really not economy. I mean, they were really, they were anti-economy. These rules require automakers to make new cars more efficient every year, or face fines. The proposed new rules would reset standards to where they were in 2022, and then instead of requiring 2% improvements in efficiency each year, they'd require just half a percent. Environmental and public health groups have called this a step backward for human health and the environment.

President Trump framed it as a win for affordability. He argues that the technology needed to make cars more efficient drives up prices. They were horrible what they were doing to costs and actually making the car much worse. Different types of clean car technology can cost more up front, but economic analyses have found that's outweighed by how much drivers save on gasoline. This is still a proposal, now in the public comment phase. Once finalized, this policy shift is likely to boost the bottom lines of automakers who could sell as many big pickup as they like without worrying about penalties. Although, actually, the Trump administration already eased that worry.

This summer, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, erased all the penalties for companies that fell short of these fuel economy standards. So in that sense, the rules were already irrelevant. So why change them? Well, the Trump administration is trying multiple tactics to make sure the policy changes stick even after a change in presidents, anticipating another twist. list of the roller coaster. Camila Dominovsky, NPR News. And a quick word before we go. This week at NPR is a special one.

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