President Trump just slammed the brakes on Biden’s lofty vehicle mileage mandates with a bold rollback announcement that’s got environmentalists fuming.
On Wednesday, Trump unveiled a plan to scale back the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, a set of rules established by the Transportation Department under the previous administration to push automakers toward sky-high fuel efficiency targets, as The Hill reports.
These CAFE standards dictate the minimum miles per gallon that an automaker’s fleet must average, and Biden’s rules aimed for a whopping 50.4 miles per gallon by model year 2031.
Trump’s proposal, however, dials that target way down to just 34.5 miles per gallon by the same year, a move that’s clearly aligned with his campaign promises of deregulation and affordability.
Interestingly, enforcement of the current standards was already gutted by a provision in the president’s Big Beautiful Bill, championed by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, which slashed penalties for non-compliance to zero.
So, even as Trump lowers the legal bar, automakers face no real stick to meet any target—yet the rollback still sends a loud signal about where this administration stands.
Trump’s plan reverts to the model year 2022 standards, requiring a mere 0.5% annual efficiency increase through 2026, and a paltry 0.25% thereafter, compared to Biden’s aggressive 8-10% jumps for 2024-2026 and 2% yearly after that.
This rollback isn’t just about numbers—it’s a direct hit to Biden’s vision of steering the market toward electric vehicles and slashing emissions by over 710 million metric tons of carbon dioxide through 2050.
The auto industry, unsurprisingly, is cheering, with many leaders breathing a sigh of relief over rules they found nearly impossible to meet in today’s electric vehicle market.
“We’re officially terminating Joe Biden’s ridiculously burdensome — horrible, actually — CAFE standards that impose expensive restrictions and all sorts of problems,” Trump declared at a White House event, surrounded by supportive Republican lawmakers and auto industry reps from Ford, Stellantis, and GM.
Let’s unpack that—while Biden’s rules were indeed tough, they also promised families $600 in fuel savings over a vehicle’s life and aimed to conserve nearly 70 billion gallons of gasoline by mid-century, a tradeoff Trump seems willing to toss aside for quicker cost cuts.
Speaking of savings, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy chimed in, claiming this rollback will save families about $1,000 on the upfront cost of a new car—a tempting carrot for budget-conscious Americans tired of progressive mandates.
On the flip side, environmentalists and Democrats are sounding the alarm, calling this a devastating blow to climate progress since U.S. mileage and pollution rules have long shaped the nation’s emissions path.
“Let’s call it what it is: Donald is handing his Big Oil donors exactly what they want: weaker protections for consumers and bigger profits for polluters,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, stated in a sharp critique.
While Newsom’s jab stings, it’s worth noting that affordability and jobs are real concerns for many, and Trump’s team argues this rollback prioritizes those over what some see as overzealous green policies—though at what cost to the planet remains the million-dollar question.
