This week, the Transportation Department finalized its plan to roll back fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. Automakers will now be required to achieve an average fuel efficiency of 34.9 miles per gallon for new cars and light trucks starting in 2031, down from the standard of 50.4 miles per gallon established during the Biden administration.
President Donald Trump claims that lowering the fuel standards will save consumers money. In actuality, it is yet one more way that his policies are making life more expensive for most Americans. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s own assessment finds that reducing the fuel efficiency standard will force drivers of new cars to pay an average of $1,624 more for gas over the lifetime of the vehicle. That outweighs the estimated savings on car prices.
Consumers are already struggling with sky-high prices at the pump, which have spiked in recent months as the war with Iran grinds on. The national average price for unleaded gas is around $4.40 per gallon, up about 40% from a year ago.
Much of the world is responding to soaring gas prices by speeding up the transition to electric vehicles. Consumers in Europe and Asia, bolstered by supportive government policies and/or a flood of cheap Chinese models, are buying EVs in droves. This year, a record-breaking 28% of new cars sold globally will be battery-powered, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency.
In the U.S., we have neither supportive federal policies nor cheap imports to ease the pain of the current moment. EVs cost more here than in other countries, and the Trump administration has worked hard to stymie efforts to make electric vehicles more accessible.
States have managed to find ways to keep some momentum on EV adoption going. This summer, the Newsom administration launched a $3,500 rebate for first-time EV buyers. Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and other states also provide various EV incentives and rebates.
Transportation is the second-largest household expense after housing, so the pain Americans feel when filling up their cars is not marginal. But it’s the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Trump administration policies that render it harder for Americans to make ends meet.
More big energy stories
The long-awaited permitting deal is here
Easing energy development is a white whale for Congress, which has long struggled to come to an agreement on what permitting reform should look like. But this week, lawmakers at least took a step in the right direction.
A bipartisan group of senators unveiled a permitting package on Wednesday after months of closed-door negotiations. At over 400 pages, the bill’s got a lot to unpack: It would streamline transmission development and require power line–boosting tech, helping bring more clean energy online, Jeff St. John reports. And Democrats managed to work in language that aims to prevent presidents from unilaterally blocking projects, as Donald Trump has repeatedly done to the offshore wind industry.
