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Washington sues EPA over fuel economy, emissions standards

Seventeen states are taking part in the lawsuit. EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has said the standards are not appropriate and need revision.
Credit: Pete Marovich
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the mission of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Pete Marovich/Getty Images)

Washington is among 17 states that announced a lawsuit against the Trump administration Tuesday over its plans to scrap standards on vehicle greenhouse gas emissions, which help set gas mileage rules.

The suit takes aim at a plan by the Environmental Protection Agency to roll back and revise emissions standards for vehicles manufactured between 2022 and 2025. Those standards would have translated to vehicles getting 36 miles of real-world driving per gallon (58 kilometers per gallon) by 2025, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) over the existing standard.

"The EPA once again is ignoring the needs of consumers, its duty to protect the environment and most importantly, the law," said Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson in a statement.

"Pollutants coming out of vehicle, out of tail pipes, does permanent lung damage to children living well-traveled roads and freeways. The only way we're going to overcome that is by reducing emissions," California Gov. Jerry Brown said as he announced the lawsuit alongside state Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has said the standards are not appropriate and need revision. They were set in 2012 when California and the Obama administration agreed to single nationwide fuel economy standard.

Pruitt outlined his reasoning for the change in an April 13 posting to the Federal Register.

He argued assumptions about gas prices and vehicle technology used by the Obama administration to set the standards were too optimistic. The standards, he said, would hurt automakers and consumers who can't afford or don't want to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles.

California officials say the standards are achievable and the EPA's effort to roll them back is not based on any new research. They argue the plan violates the Clean Air Act and didn't follow the agency's own regulations.

California has a unique waiver that allows it to set its own tailpipe emissions standards for vehicles, which it has used to combat smog and more recently global warming. Thirteen other states and the District of Columbia have adopted the California standards as their own.

Automakers have argued that the current requirements would have cost the industry billions of dollars and raised vehicle prices due to the cost of developing the necessary technology.

California has now sued the Trump administration more than 30 times on topics including immigration and health care policy.

Brown, who has made fighting climate change a core of his policy and political platform, said the state's fights with Washington over climate are the most essential.

"If we follow the Pruitt-Trump path, we follow our way off the path to disaster," he said.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Joining Washington are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

KING 5's Travis Pittman contributed to this report.

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