EPA
IG
Largely Clears EPA Staff In Dispute Over ‘Glider’ Truck Emission Tests. According
to Inside EPA, “EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is largely exonerating agency staff from claims by some House Republicans that they improperly coordinated with new truck manufacturers in conducting tests of ‘glider’ trucks, which combine used engines
with new chassis, that showed high emissions from the vehicles. OIG’s July 31 report is a victory for those that support continued restrictions on gliders, given that the agency tests showed the vehicles can emit air pollution on the order of 40 times that
of new trucks, undercutting a long-stalled Trump EPA proposal to raise production limits on gliders. ‘EPA’s selection and testing of the donated glider vehicles in 2017 was consistent with Clean Air Act authority, standard EPA practices, and relevant policies
and procedures,’ the report says. Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) staff ‘obtained approval before planning and conducting glider vehicle testing and followed normal procedures in submitting the test report to the rulemaking docket,’ the report
adds, noting OIG found no evidence that staff improperly deleted records related to the testing or that a former OTAQ center director committed ethics violations related to the work.” [Inside EPA,
7/31/19
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EPA
Glider Study Clears Watchdog's Audit. According
to Politico, “EPA’s inspector general today gave a clean bill of health to the agency’s 2017 study that concluded ‘glider’ trucks pollute much more than trucks with new engines. ‘EPA’s selection and testing of the donated glider vehicles in 2017 was consistent
with Clean Air Act authority, standard EPA practices, and relevant policies and procedures,’ the OIG wrote in its report. EPA examined glider emissions at its Ann Arbor vehicle lab in fall 2017 in response to a now-discredited study backed by a major glider
manufacturer, Fitzgerald, that said emissions from gliders — refurbished engines placed in new housing — are the same as new vehicles. EPA’s study instead found gliders emit dozens or even hundreds of times as much pollution. Several Republican lawmakers asked
EPA’s inspector general to audit that study, arguing that Volvo, which helped EPA obtain gliders for testing, had influenced the study. ‘The OIG did not find any evidence that the development of the EPA’s glider test plan was unduly influenced by external
parties,’ the report said. The tests conducted were consistent with past testing on other vehicles. EPA previously said the testing was not influenced by ‘unsolicited’ suggestions from Volvo.” [Politico,
7/31/19
(=)]
EPA
Followed Procedures On High-Emission Trucks — IG. According
to E&E News, “EPA did not violate any standard procedures when it tested high-emission trucks known as glider kits in 2017, the agency’s internal watchdog said in a report today. The highly anticipated report from EPA’s Office of Inspector General comes in
response to Republican concerns on Capitol Hill about EPA’s testing of the trucks. Glider kits, also known as gliders, are new truck cabs with refurbished diesel engines. They emerged as a contentious issue in 2017 under then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
On Nov. 20, 2017, EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality published a study showing that gliders release significantly more air pollution than trucks with modern emissions controls. In particular, the study found that gliders emit 450 times as much
particulate matter and up to 43 times as much nitrogen oxides. Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee responded by questioning the scientific integrity of the study. In a letter to EPA last year, GOP members of the panel raised concern
that Volvo had supplied gliders to EPA for testing purposes. Volvo, a truck manufacturer, is in competition with the glider industry (E&E Daily, July 13, 2018). The letter strongly implied that staffers at EPA’s testing facility in Ann Arbor, Mich., had colluded
with Volvo to influence the study’s outcome.” [E&E News, 7/31/19
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States
MidAmerican
Says A New Network Of 15 Fast-Charging Stations Could Jump-Start Iowa Electric Car Sales.
According
to the Des Moines Register, “MidAmerican Energy says it will invest $3.75 million to build 15 fast-charging stations across Iowa, helping to relieve ‘range anxiety’ that can keep Iowans from buying electric cars and trucks. The Des Moines-based, investor-owned
utility says studies show most U.S. consumers like the environmental benefits of electric vehicles, but concerns over price and the availability of chargers along U.S. roads and highways deters purchases. A new network of fast-charging stations along U.S.
Highway 20 from Sioux City to Waterloo, and Interstate 80 from Avoca to Davenport should help alleviate that. The fast-charging, direct-current stations let electric vehicle owners recharge within 20 to 45 minutes. ‘Car owners and potential buyers tell us
access to charging stations within reach of the routes they drive will improve their confidence the electric vehicle will meet their needs,’ said Nick Nation, MidAmerican’s electric operations general manager. ‘We’ve come up with a plan to address the range
anxiety issue by building an infrastructure of 15 fast-charging stations across Iowa that should be within roughly 50 miles of each other,’ Nation said.” [Des Moines Register,
7/31/19
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Oil-Backed
Group Attacks Legality Of Colorado ZEV Deal With Automakers. According
to Inside EPA, “The Freedom to Drive (FTD) Coalition, an alliance of oil and other industry groups, is challenging the major agreement inked between Colorado officials and two key automaker groups implementing California’s zero emission vehicle (ZEV) sales
mandate in the state, charging it is unlawful because it amends California’s program. The group offers its arguments in a July 29 rebuttal filed to the state’s rulemaking docket, but it is unlikely to sway the Colorado Air Quality Commission from formally
adopting the ZEV program as expected Aug. 16. The deal to adopt California’s ZEV mandate was announced late July 29 between the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the Association of Global Automakers and the Colorado Department of Public Health’s Air Pollution
Control Division, along with other state agencies. The ZEV agreement is seen as another indication that automakers support California’s unique Clean Air Act authority that allows it to set stricter vehicle emission requirements than the federal government,
even though the Trump administration is seeking to preempt that authority for greenhouse gases and ZEVs. Under the air law, states can choose to adopt California’s vehicle rules; 13 have done so for the GHG standards and nearly all of those have also adopted
the ZEV rules.” [Inside EPA, 7/31/19
(-)]
States
Urged To Elevate Equity In Regional Transportation GHG Program. According
to Inside EPA, “Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states developing the country’s first cap-and-trade program to cut transportation sector greenhouse gas emissions are being urged to ensure that their effort elevates and addresses the equity concerns of disadvantaged
communities and areas on the ‘front-line’ of pollution challenges. These environmental justice issues arose repeatedly at a day-long July 30 workshop in Baltimore on the Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI), organized by Georgetown Climate Center. Poor
and minority communities ‘need to be at the table,’ argued Sacoby Wilson, who directs the environmental justice and health program at University of Maryland-College Park. ‘Where’s the community voices work group? Where’s the feedback work group? The train
is moving, and we’ve got to get on board.’ Wilson argued that such input will be crucial for several issues, such as ensuring that charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs) get placed where these communities can access them as well as making sure there
is investment for proper resilient infrastructure.” [Inside EPA, 7/31/19
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Auto
Manufacturers
BMW’s
Profits Hit By Electric Vehicle And Emissions Costs. According
to the Wall Street Journal, “BMW AG BMW +1.56% , the German luxury car maker, said its second-quarter net earnings tumbled 29%, hit by exchange rate fluctuations and manufacturing costs for electric vehicles. The Munich-based maker of BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce
brands is under pressure as auto markets weaken amid trade tensions and a slowing world economy. Like other manufacturers, BMW is also stepping up investment to meet tougher European greenhouse gas emissions targets that take effect next year, or face billions
in fines. BMW’s net profit in the three months to the end of June fell to €1.45 billion ($1.6 billion) from €2.05 billion the year before. Revenues rose 2.9% to €25.7 billion. New car sales in the quarter rose 1.5% to 647,504 vehicles, slowed by weaker sales
in Europe and the U.S., although BMW bucked the downward trend in China and achieved a 24% increase in sales there. BMW said Thursday the weaker earnings reflected €1.4 billion in development costs associated with stepping up manufacturing of electric and
hybrid vehicles, higher production costs, unfavorable exchange rates, higher raw materials prices, and pressure on pricing due to ‘fierce competition’ in many markets.” [Wall Street Journal,
8/1/19
(=)]
Former
Audi Boss Charged In Germany Over Emissions Scandal. According
to E&E News, “German prosecutors have charged the former head of Audi, Volkswagen’s luxury division, with fraud in connection with the sale of cars with software that enabled cheating on emissions tests, adding another chapter to VW’s diesel scandal, which
has seen its former CEO charged in the U.S. and two executives go to prison there. Prosecutors in Munich said today in a news release that they had charged Rupert Stadler and three other people. The three unnamed individuals were charged with having developed
engines used in Audi, Volkswagen and Porsche models that had software that made the emissions controls work better on the test stand than in real-life driving. Stadler was charged with having known about the manipulation in Audi and Volkswagen cars and with
continuing to sell the models despite that knowledge. Prosecutors said he found out about the impermissible software at the end of September 2015, at the latest, when the Volkswagen scandal broke, but continued permitting rigged cars to be sold.” [E&E News,
7/31/19
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Electric Cars Still Have A Major Education Issue, Study Shows.
According to Electrek, “A big part of the general public still doesn’t see all-electric cars as a viable option for their next vehicle.
JD Power confirms that in a new study and shows that there are still a lot of improvements to be made on the consumer education front when it comes to EVs. This week, J.D. Power released its first ‘Mobility Confidence Index Study’ in partnership with SurveyMonkey.
They surveyed 5,749 consumers about self-driving vehicles and 5,270 about battery-electric vehicles to gauge their level of confidence in the technologies. Unsurprisingly, the level of confidence in self-driving vehicles is still low. It scored 36 out of 100
points. The Index for battery-electric vehicle scored higher at 55, but it still low for a technology that has been around for a while and it has been improving fast. According to the study, almost 4 out of 10 respondents think that electric cars are worse
for the environment: ‘More than half (61%) of respondents say battery-electric vehicles are better for the environment and 48% believe the cost of charging compared with the cost of gas will be advantageous.’” [Electrek,
7/31/19
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Climate Policy For Cars Could Hurt The Poor, Advocates Say.
According to E&E News, “Environmental justice advocates worry a proposed cap-and-invest program for cars won’t help the low-income and
minority communities that have historically borne the brunt of air pollution from vehicles. They’re demanding the architects of the program, which would cover nine Northeastern states and the District of Columbia, take a more ‘specific and intentional focus’
on equity. Otherwise, ‘the program is likely to exacerbate the divide between the eco-haves and eco-have-nots,’ a coalition of eight advocacy groups wrote in a letter delivered to the program’s leaders at a workshop in Baltimore this week. At issue is the
proposed Transportation and Climate Initiative, which would cap greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector in the region. The cap would get lower and lower each year, meaning less and less pollution would be allowed (Climatewire, July 10). Regulated
entities would have to purchase allowances at auctions for each ton of carbon they emit. Proceeds from the sale of carbon allowances would go toward state projects that further reduce transportation emissions, such as programs to boost the deployment of electric
vehicles. TCI leaders insist they have prioritized equity from the start. They held a May workshop in Newark, N.J., on the topic.” [E&E News,
8/1/19
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Congress
Grassley Says Gas Tax Hike 'Off The Table'.
According to E&E News, “Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is throwing cold
water on the idea of raising the gas tax to pay for a major highway bill. Grassley told reporters yesterday that a gas tax hike lacks crucial support from President Trump and many Republicans. ‘Now that the president has taken it off, and I’ve never had any
Republican ask about increasing the gas tax, I think that’s off the table,’ he said yesterday after meeting with members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Grassley added he planned to speak with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about
pay-fors after September. ‘All I’ve consented to is we’re going to talk about it after September, we’re going to start the conversation with McConnell because if I’m going to exert a lot of both political capital as well as a lot of work to finance this, I
want to make sure that we get it up on the floor,’ he said. The highway bill sailed through the Senate EPW Committee earlier this week on a unanimous vote. It would provide $287 billion for surface transportation programs, including a historic $10 billion
for efforts to combat climate change (Greenwire, July 30). The Senate Finance Committee now has the daunting task of identifying pay-fors. Speculation has abounded about increasing the federal gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1993 and remains at 18.4
cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel.” [E&E News, 8/1/19
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Barrasso Shoots Down Gas Tax Talk.
According to Politico, “Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Wednesday his talks with Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to fund the five-year surface transportation bill that EPW advanced this week have not touched
on a possible gas tax hike, Pro’s Tanya Snyder reports. ‘That’s not something that I’ve ever been promoting,’ Barrasso said. ‘I’m not a fan of it.’ Instead, the Wyoming Republican said the pair is exploring ‘a number’ of options ‘and the staffs are going to
work together over August and come up with the ones that they feel are most viable.’” [Politico,
8/1/19
(=)]
Election 2020
Inslee To Biden: 'Middling' Climate Plan 'Not Going To Save Us'.
According to The Hill, “Washington Gov. Jay Inslee clashed with Joe Biden during the Democratic presidential primary debate Wednesday over the former vice president’s climate policy,
which he called ‘middling’ and insufficient for the crisis at hand. ‘Middle ground solutions like the vice president has proposed, or sort of middling, average-sized things are not going to save us. Too little, too late is not going to save us,’ said Inslee,
who has focused the majority of his campaign on the issue of climate change. The debate, which hit on the topic of climate change more than an hour and half in, launched a back-and-forth between Inslee and the current Democratic front-runner. ‘Mr. Vice President,
your argument is not with me, it’s with science. And your plan is just too late,’ Inslee said of Biden’s climate action plan he unveiled months earlier. ‘We have to get off coal in 10 years, your plan does not do that. We have to get off fossil fuels in 15
years, your plan doesn’t do that.’ Biden defended his plan, saying it calls for ‘immediate action to be taken.’ Among the proposals in his policy, Biden said he’d rejoin and ‘up the ante’ on the United States’ commitment to the Paris climate accord and invest
$500,000 in new charging stations around the country ‘so by 2030 we are all on electric vehicles.’” [The Hill,
7/31/19 (=)]
Opinion Pieces
Analysis: Auto Emissions End Run By Ford Seeks Certainty.
According to Daniel Howes in The Detroit News, “The emissions deal that Ford Motor Co. and three foreign rivals struck with California implicitly defies the Trump Environmental Protection
Agency’s plan to cut fuel-economy targets. Yet the political rebuff is mostly beside a far more salient point: Automakers whipsawed by shifting standards in the United States are desperate to achieve regulatory certainty at home as such major markets as China,
India and the European Union use their rule-making power to stiffen emissions rules and speed adoption of electric vehicles. Credit rising environmental awareness and Volkswagen AG’s global diesel scandal for quickening the pace of change. Two dozen European
cities accounting for 62 million people are banning diesel-powered vehicles over the next decade, Bloomberg reports. And 13 of those cities plan to bar all internal-combustion cars altogether to reduce emissions, effectively favoring EVs. The Trump plan to
ease Obama-era standards and strip California of its exemption under the Clean Air Act to set its own emissions targets threatens to create at least two standards in one market — precisely when the trend toward electric and self-driving vehicles exacts increasing
capital demands. The automakers ‘are drawing a line and saying, ‘We need some certainty,’’ Anna-Marie Baisden, head of auto macro research for London-based Fitch Solutions Group Ltd., said in an interview Wednesday.” [The Detroit News,
7/31/19 (+)]
Analysis: United States Risks Lagging Internationally On Fuel Economy.
According to Jacqueline Toth in Morning Consult, “As the United States moves closer to finalizing light-duty vehicle fuel economy and emissions standards, the Environmental Protection
Agency may be considering a small increase in required improvements, rather than an outright freeze on standards as proposed. But while a source familiar with the situation said the Trump administration is planning to implement a 0.5 percent annual increase
in the stringency of fuel economy standards, a change that small would be negligible in light of efficiency improvements automakers are already implementing — and would risk the United States slipping quickly behind the fuel efficiency goals of other industrialized
nations. Data provided to Morning Consult by the International Council on Clean Transportation shows that a full freeze on fuel economy standards at Model Year 2021 levels through Model Year 2026 would, by 2025, place the United States 32 percent behind the
European Union’s enacted target and 24 percent behind China’s enacted target. Collectively, countries have a long way to go to make the kind of fuel economy improvements necessary to meet decarbonization goals: In 2017, global light-duty vehicle fuel consumption
fell by 0.7 percent, a slower rate than the average 1.8 percent drop from 2005-16. And global transportation emissions as a whole increased by 0.6 percent in 2018 — an improvement from the last decade overall, according to the International Energy Agency,
but a small one.” [Morning Consult,
7/31/19 (+)]
Op-Ed: Will Electric Vehicles Ever Become Affordable?
According to an op-ed by Eric Peters in The Detroit News, “Elon Musk just acknowledged something interesting, even though he didn’t actually say so. What he did was raise the base
price of the Model 3 by almost $4,000 — to $38,990. Which is an admission — without formally saying it — that the $35,000 price point he promised for years isn’t tenable; that Tesla would lose money on each sale at that price point. Which raises several important
questions. Will electric vehicles ever be affordable? If not, how can they ever become mass-market vehicles? If they can’t ever be mass-market vehicles, what is the relevance of their being ‘clean’? Put another way, economics trumps politics and mandates.
People buy what they can afford. And the economic truth is that most people can’t afford a nearly $40,000 electric car like the Tesla 3, or even a $30,000 electric car like the Nissan Leaf, which is the least expensive electric car on the market. It costs
twice as much as an otherwise-similar compact economy car without the electric drivetrain. Unless the cost of gas doubles, which seems unlikely given the massive increase in supply, it is unlikely the Leaf will ever save its owner any money, even if he never
spends a cent on gas. The $15,000 price difference between the Leaf and the non-electric equivalent — a car like Nissan’s Versa hatchback, which stickers for $12,460 to start — buys about 6,250 gallons of regular unleaded gasoline at current prices (about
$2.40 nationally).” [The Detroit News,
7/31/19 (-)]
Chad Ellwood
Research Associate
202.448.2877 ext. 119