{"id":476607,"date":"2026-10-04T09:05:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T16:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=476607"},"modified":"2026-10-04T09:05:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T16:05:37","slug":"legacy-media-weep-as-trump-axes-bidens-fuel-economy-diktat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=476607","title":{"rendered":"Legacy Media Weep as Trump Axes Biden\u2019s Fuel Economy Diktat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A
AI generated by ChatGPT<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From Tilak\u00b4s Substack<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Tilak Doshi<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday, President Trump announced that he had approved new vehicle fuel economy standards, and on Monday the Transportation Department made the final rule official. Within hours, the legacy media covered the rollback of Biden\u2019s vehicle mandates with shrill criticisms. The New York Times<\/em> told readers that the administration was gutting<\/a> a signature federal effort to speed the shift to electric vehicles. Politico<\/em> judged the revision \u201cone more nail in the coffin<\/a>\u201d for Biden-era EV policy. Bloomberg<\/em>\u2019s headline announced that the US \u201cguts<\/a>\u201d auto mileage rules, while the Washington Post<\/em> ran its own story under the banner \u201cAnalysts are doubtful<\/a>\u201d, reporting that \u201cexperts\u201d scoffed at the administration\u2019s claim of a $1,300 cut in new-car prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final rule requires a fleetwide average of 34.9 miles per gallon<\/a> by model year 2031, in place of the roughly 50 mpg<\/a> demanded by Biden\u2019s standards. To the assembled commentariat, this is climate vandalism, a betrayal of drivers and a gift to Beijing. Every one of these claims is false or badly misleading. And the missing context \u2013 what the Biden mandates cost, who paid, and what they actually bought \u2013 is the story the legacy press coverage never reveals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A funeral for a rule already dead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start with an irony that the NYT<\/em> buries in its own reporting. The paper conceded that Congress had already scrapped the fines for automakers that miss the mileage targets, leaving Monday\u2019s rollback more symbolic than substantive. That penalty repeal, part of last year\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill<\/a>, is what mattered. Politico<\/em>\u2019s own expert, Joshua Linn of the University of Maryland, explained that without penalties CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) had become little more than a polite request: Detroit is asked nicely to add technology, with no consequence for declining. Neither outlet drew the obvious conclusion. If the standards were toothless, the handwringing over their formal retirement is theatre. If they still bit, they were a mandate \u2013 precisely what the Times<\/em> insists Trump falsely accuses Biden of imposing. The coverage wants it both ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the Post<\/em>\u2019s doubtful analysts, Stephanie Brinley of Mobility Global and Jessica Caldwell of Edmunds argue that savings will not reach buyers when the average new vehicle already costs around $50,000, and that any saving would first be absorbed by tariffs. In fact, NHTSA itself cautions<\/a> that its estimated $1,289 reduction in average vehicle cost by model year 2031 materialises only if manufacturers pass it on. But whether a cost saving shows up at the dealership is irrelevant to what the vehicle efficiency mandates cost in the first place, and who paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hidden tax on every showroom floor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is not hard to find, though it requires reading beyond the Beltway press. The Heritage Foundation\u2019s Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Andrew Weiss showed<\/a> that Biden-level CAFE targets exceeded what gasoline-powered cars can plausibly achieve, converting fuel economy regulation into a backdoor EV mandate. The Competitive Enterprise Institute\u2019s Marlo Lewis argues<\/a> that this ran afoul of the statute\u2019s own limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To comply, legacy manufacturers had to raise the EV share of their fleets, selling the extra EVs at a loss, and then recoup the loss by charging more for gasoline models or by buying regulatory credits from Tesla \u2013 a compliance tax according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute<\/a>. The gasoline-car buyer subsidised the EV buyer, one sticker price at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Texas Public Policy Foundation and the American Energy Institute quantified<\/a> this cross-subsidy in 2025. On its estimates, each model-year 2023 EV imposes between $94,121 and $152,695 in hidden 10-year social costs, borne by gasoline-car buyers, taxpayers and electricity ratepayers, while CAFE, EPA greenhouse-gas and state ZEV credits can be worth $46,000 to $115,000 per EV to the manufacturer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The academic literature points the same way. UC San Diego\u2019s Mark Jacobsen, cited in a January public comment<\/a> by the American Consumer Institute, finds CAFE three to four times costlier than an equivalent gas tax, with each additional mile per gallon costing consumers $11.2 billion in the first year and $24.1 billion after 10. Cato Institute\u2019s Peter Van Doren puts<\/a> CAFE\u2019s cost at no less than six times that of a carbon tax, and the Mackinac Center<\/a> cites Jacobsen\u2019s figure of $222 per ton of CO2<\/sub> abated. CEI reckons the reset spares buyers about $900 on the average new car. These studies measure different things, but they converge on one conclusion: the mandate was expensive, and the expense was hidden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill came due in Detroit. Ford took a $19.5 billion write-down<\/a> in December as it cancelled EV programmes, including the electric F-150 Lightning, and GM followed in January with a $6 billion charge. These are the balance sheets of firms that built what regulators demanded rather than what buyers wanted. The Times<\/em> frets that the rollback may encourage bigger pickups and SUVs, yet Van Doren\u2019s point is that footprint-based standards already penalise small, cheap cars and subsidise big trucks and SUVs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CAFE doesn\u2019t set one mileage target for every car. The target for each vehicle depends on its \u2018footprint\u2019, which is approximately the area between its four wheels. The larger the footprint, the lower (easier) the mpg target. A small hatchback must hit a demanding number, while a full-size pickup gets a lenient one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reuters<\/a> reports that under the Trump rollback, lifetime fuel costs rise by more than $1,600 per vehicle higher through 2050 than under the Biden rules. The Biden rules added roughly $1,289 efficiency technology costs to a car\u2019s price in exchange for that $1,600 in fuel savings. But if a buyer could recoup $1,600 at the pump for $1,289 of technology, why would a mandate be needed in the first place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non sequiturs<\/strong><\/em> and the China bogeyman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics offer three further objections. The first is that tariffs and dearer fuel \u2013 gasoline at $4.48 a gallon<\/a> since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran began in February \u2013 will swamp any regulatory saving. True, and irrelevant. Tariffs and Gulf-driven pump prices exist whether or not CAFE mandates are loosened. Keeping the mandate would not abolish them; it would merely stack another cost on top. To argue that because one burden is heavy, one should insist on carrying a second, is a non sequitur<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second criticism in the mainstream media coverage is that the rest of the world is \u2018racing toward EVs\u2019 and America will be left behind. Dan Becker of the Center for Biological Diversity warns that Detroit is being told it may be competed into oblivion by Chinese EV exports. But the evidence suggests that EV sales are disappointing everywhere outside China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 2024, CNBC published a widely cited article<\/a> entitled \u2018EV euphoria is dead. Automakers are scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans\u2019. The outlet\u2019s automotive industry reporter Michael Wayland wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

For years, the automotive industry has been in a state of EV euphoria. Automakers trotted out optimistic sales forecasts for electric models and announced ambitious targets for EV growth\u2026 Now the hype is dwindling, and companies are again cheering consumer choice. Automakers from Ford Motor and General Motors to Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin are scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

NPR reported that EVs have held 5-6%<\/a> of new US car sales into 2026, and even the second quarter \u2018rebound\u2019 left sales down 20.5%<\/a> on a year earlier. Detroit is not failing for want of a mandate, it is writing off billions on EVs that it cannot sell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wrote<\/a> in these pages last year on the false promise of EVs. The EV story is overwhelmingly a China-focused one. Europe bought 1.6 million more electric cars in in the first half of 2025 relative to the same period last year, or 27% more. North Americans bought only 0.7 million more, or 3%. The \u2018rest of the world\u2019 bought 0.6 million more EVs or 36% from a very small base. China alone accounted for 4.4 million new EV units, logging a growth of 33%. To call what is essentially a China-dominated story a global EV success story is a sleight of hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

News reports in China are opaque and dominated by CCP interests, like so much else of life in that country. There have been reports of vast \u2018graveyards\u2019 of unsold EVs in various cities. A Bloomberg<\/em> article<\/a> in 2023 reported that \u201ca subsidy-fuelled boom helped build China into an electric-car giant but left weed-infested lots across the nation brimming with unwanted battery-powered cars\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third criticism of the Trump CAFE rollback is that this is ceding EV and battery leadership to China. That also rests on a false premise. Chinese dominance is built on coal-fired power and on control of the dirty, energy-intensive global upstream supply chain of mining, refining and processing of rare earths and minerals. Western consumers who believe their EVs are \u2018clean\u2019 never see the dirty secrets of EVs<\/a>. China commissioned 78 gigawatts of new coal power in 2025, the most in a decade<\/a>, and accounting for four-fifths of all coal capacity brought online worldwide, while developers submitted a record 161 gigawatts of new or reactivated proposals. Celebrating China\u2019s EV penetration while ignoring its coal build-out is like admiring the showroom and ignoring the boiler room out of sight behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tailpipes, power stations and philosopher kings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final refuge is pollution and climate. The NYT<\/em> reminds readers<\/a> that transportation is the country\u2019s largest source of greenhouse gases, and the Sierra Club, which has promised to challenge the rule in court<\/a>, says families will be handed the bill<\/a> at the pump and with their health. But cutting tailpipe emissions is not cutting emissions. It relocates them to power stations, mines and smelters, out of sight of the showroom. And on the pollutants that actually damage health, the internal combustion engine has an extraordinary record that the coverage never mentions. The EPA says new cars, SUVs and pickups are roughly 99% cleaner<\/a> than 1970 models for hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particulates, and that total emissions of the six principal air pollutants fell 79%<\/a> between 1970 and 2024 even as vehicle miles travelled rose 195%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Table
Source: https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/air-trends\/air-quality-national-summary<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fuel economy mandates were never about those pollutants. They were about carbon dioxide, which is not a pollutant at all. As the physicist William Happer of the CO2<\/sub> Coalition has testified<\/a>, the real pollutants are fly ash, carbon monoxide, oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, heavy metals and volatile organic compounds, while CO2 and water vapour, the dominant products of combustion, are not among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The larger context is the belief that bureaucrats know better than households how to spend money on energy. In Plato\u2019s Republic<\/em> the philosopher king rules and the plebs obey; if energy efficiency<\/a> were the bargain its promoters claim, we would not need experts at the IEA, the EPA or McKinsey to tell us so. Households and businesses, and motorists for that matter, do not need to be told how to save money that energy efficiency would bring. One Mercatus study<\/a> found that much efficiency policy analysis assumes people never make sound choices. Mandated standards are the philosopher king\u2019s favourite tool precisely because, unlike explicit subsidies, they conceal their costs, which land first on manufacturers and reach consumers untraced. If buyers are poorly informed, the remedy is better information, not a mandate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sierra Club will see Trump in court, and the litigation will be dutifully chronicled. But the real news of the week is not that Washington retired a rule it had already defanged. It is that a mandate born of the 1975 oil embargo has been recognised, at last, as an expensive way of making people buy what they were reluctant to buy. In the same fortnight that New York hosted its annual climate circus<\/a>, the American car buyer got something rarer than another pledge: a little of his own freedom back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strangulation of the regulatory state is to be welcomed, and one should never mourn the end of intrusive mandates \u2013 for motorists as for others \u2013 designed by bureaucrats and know-it-all philosopher kings. As Friedrich von Hayek<\/a> taught us many years ago, \u201cthe curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was first published in the Daily Sceptic https:\/\/dailysceptic.org\/2026\/10\/01\/legacy-media-weep-as-trump-axes-bidens-fuel-economy-diktat\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the<\/em> Daily Sceptic\u2018s Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO\u2082 Coalition and a former contributor to<\/em> Forbes. Follow him on Substack<\/a> and X<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday, President Trump announced that he had approved new vehicle fuel economy standards, and on Monday the Transportation Department made the final rule official. Within hours, the legacy media covered the rollback of Biden\u2019s vehicle mandates with shrill criticisms. The New York Times told readers that the administration was gutting a signature federal effort to speed the shift to electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

Start with an irony that the NYT buries in its own reporting. The paper conceded that Congress had already scrapped the fines for automakers that miss the mileage targets, leaving Monday\u2019s rollback more symbolic than substantive. That penalty repeal, part of last year\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill, is what mattered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":476608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"Explore the impact of Trump's rollback on fuel economy standards and the media's reaction in this insightful analysis.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Trump's Fuel Economy Rule Rollback: Media's Dramatic Reaction","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691844862,691846023,691846021,691829997,691845383,691821977,691836062,691818154,691837521,691824770,691821482,691846022,691831255],"class_list":["post-476607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2025-one-big-beautiful-bill-act","tag-american-energy-institut","tag-cafe-targets","tag-carbon-dioxide-co","tag-climate-vandalism","tag-electric-vehicles-evs","tag-former-us-president-joe-biden","tag-net-zero","tag-new-york-times-nyt-2","tag-politico","tag-sierra-club","tag-texas-public-policy-foundation","tag-us-president-donald-trump","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1ZZd","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":401722,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=401722","url_meta":{"origin":476607,"position":0},"title":"Bloomberg News Admits Carmakers to Save Billions in Trump Emissions Rollback","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"09\/12\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Who knew that removing ridiculous eco-extremist regulations could help auto manufacturers save money? Even the green freaks at\u00a0Bloomberg News\u00a0had to concede that point to President Donald Trump.","rel":"","context":"In \"Bloomberg News\"","block_context":{"text":"Bloomberg News","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=bloomberg-news"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0AQPSId_TCEr8gAv37cAFkUSL6MZw2nq6sK0AFk1LFkPPPEbY5IKa1mSghM4hpsQn6vY7Uwo0mthu3PLGDEUjDF9kEMRYTTVu5hQPrT246qZKjxAzTObxSHhWKmp5sAwJpvYJ-4bBQsmIOlF8sqCxKWWH0tkspw-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0AQPSId_TCEr8gAv37cAFkUSL6MZw2nq6sK0AFk1LFkPPPEbY5IKa1mSghM4hpsQn6vY7Uwo0mthu3PLGDEUjDF9kEMRYTTVu5hQPrT246qZKjxAzTObxSHhWKmp5sAwJpvYJ-4bBQsmIOlF8sqCxKWWH0tkspw-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0AQPSId_TCEr8gAv37cAFkUSL6MZw2nq6sK0AFk1LFkPPPEbY5IKa1mSghM4hpsQn6vY7Uwo0mthu3PLGDEUjDF9kEMRYTTVu5hQPrT246qZKjxAzTObxSHhWKmp5sAwJpvYJ-4bBQsmIOlF8sqCxKWWH0tkspw-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0AQPSId_TCEr8gAv37cAFkUSL6MZw2nq6sK0AFk1LFkPPPEbY5IKa1mSghM4hpsQn6vY7Uwo0mthu3PLGDEUjDF9kEMRYTTVu5hQPrT246qZKjxAzTObxSHhWKmp5sAwJpvYJ-4bBQsmIOlF8sqCxKWWH0tkspw-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0AQPSId_TCEr8gAv37cAFkUSL6MZw2nq6sK0AFk1LFkPPPEbY5IKa1mSghM4hpsQn6vY7Uwo0mthu3PLGDEUjDF9kEMRYTTVu5hQPrT246qZKjxAzTObxSHhWKmp5sAwJpvYJ-4bBQsmIOlF8sqCxKWWH0tkspw-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":408773,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=408773","url_meta":{"origin":476607,"position":1},"title":"Increasing Power Prices Are Being Wrongly Blamed on the Trump Administration instead Biden’s Climate Cult Policies","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"10\/17\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Residential electricity prices increased 25% while Joe Biden was president, and they are continuing to increase. 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Renewables offer NO energy independence, as America has never imported electricity from foreign countries. 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The lack of UN progress on climate change is so desperate, Gutteres tried to diversify; But with China and the USA going all in on the race for artificial\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Chris Bowen (Climate Change and Energy Minister )\"","block_context":{"text":"Chris Bowen (Climate Change and Energy Minister )","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=chris-bowen-climate-change-and-energy-minister"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/0-ChatGPT-Secretary-General-Antonio-Gutteres-is-on-Track-to-be-the-UNs-Biggest-Climate-Loser.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/0-ChatGPT-Secretary-General-Antonio-Gutteres-is-on-Track-to-be-the-UNs-Biggest-Climate-Loser.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, 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