BMW, Ford, Honda, Volkswagen Group, and Volvo are behind the Californian waiver.
The California Air Resources Board was created in the 1960s.
A group of 17 Republican attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the EPA following its decision to allow California to once more set its own auto tailpipe rules and zero-emission vehicle mandates. In support of the EPA, five automakers filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit.
2021 Mercedes-AMG GLS 63 | Photo: Olivier Delorme
BMW, Ford, Honda, Volkswagen Group, and Volvo, along with 20 other states as well as the District of Columbia and the cities of Los Angeles and New York have joined the effort to back the EPA’s recent waiver reinstatement decision.
“Two years ago, after EPA relaxed federal greenhouse gas emission standards, Ford and four other automakers entered into settlement agreements with California to abide by GHG emission standards that were stricter than EPA’s then-relaxed standards,” Steven Croley, Ford’s chief policy officer, said on a press call Tuesday as reported by Automotive News. “We believe that was right then, and we think so today.”
The EPA originally granted California the right to set its own emission regulations, a move that was overturned under the Trump Administration in 2019. President Joe Biden’s January 2021 executive order requested that the U.S. Department of Transportation and the EPA reconsider California’s waiver.
