Trump admin to gut car fuel-economy standards on Monday

President Donald Trump's administration is set to finalize its rollback of fuel-economy standards on Monday, requiring no improvements beyond what vehicles are already achieving for the rest of the decade.

The news was touted by Trump in a Truth Social Post on Saturday as a reversal of predecessor Joe Biden's "ridiculous EV mandate," with Transport Secretary Sean Duffy adding it would be announced on Monday.

Trump has framed the move as a cost-saving measure, but critics argue it will in fact cost consumers more at the pump, at a time when fuel prices have spiked because of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Transportation is also the biggest climate-polluting sector of the United States, which is the world's second-biggest emitter of planet-heating emissions.

At stake are the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, created in 1975 in response to the Arab oil embargo, which require vehicles to achieve the "maximum feasible" mileage per gallon.

Under the draft rule, the administration said it would roll back past and planned efficiency increases, targeting a fleetwide average of 34.5 miles per gallon by model year 2031, which was already achieved by the year 2024, according to the text of the draft.

Biden's administration had set a target of 50.4 mpg, which it calculated would have saved 64 billion gallons of gas through the year 2050 and, even before the present price hike, delivered $35 billion in savings to consumers.

American automakers had supported the changes.

Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Safe Climate Transport Campaign, told AFP his organization would be suing because the rule ignores the feasibility of clean technology and the millions of fuel-efficient cars already on the road.

"I describe it as a Trojan SUV that will lead to the demise of the American auto makers because they don't have to compete against the best technology in the world," he said.

Even though the rule is only set to be finalized on Monday, Biden-era updates to CAFE meant to spur the transition to hybrid and electric vehicles were effectively already canceled because Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" of 2025 zeroed out the penalties for automakers failing to uphold standards.