WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) led a bicameral group of 121 colleagues in sending a letter to U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman calling for the withdrawal of the Biden administration’s proposed Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for passenger cars and light-duty trucks. The proposed standards, which would require automakers to more than double average fleet-wide fuel economy in less than 10 years, do not comply with federal law, and would effectively mandate the mass production of electric vehicles (EVs) and a phase out of gas-powered cars and trucks. Americans should be able to keep the ability to choose the vehicle that best fits their needs and they can afford rather than having the federal government dictate what they can and cannot drive. 

“We write to express our deep concern with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s proposed Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for passenger cars and light trucks, which represent yet another attempt by this Administration to use the rulemaking process to impose its climate agenda on American families,” the lawmakers wrote. “NHTSA’s proposed standards, when coupled with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) distinct, extreme tailpipe emissions proposal, amount to a de facto mandate for electric vehicles (EVs) that threatens to raise costs and restrict consumer choice, harm U.S. businesses, degrade our energy and national security and hand the keys of our automotive industry over to our adversaries, especially China.”

“The proposal issued in July is mere virtue signaling for this Administration’s extreme climate agenda, but it would actually have only limited impact on emissions while strengthening foreign adversaries and harming American workers and consumers,” the lawmakers concluded. “We strongly urge NHTSA to drop its attempt at central planning and instead put forth a workable proposal that complies with the law and better serves the American people.”

Click HERE to read the full letter.

In October 2023, Risch and Crapo introduced the Choice in Automobile Retail Sales (CARS) Act to counter the Biden administration’s radical environmental agenda and executive overreach by preventing the implementation of a proposed rule and other regulations that seek to limit consumer vehicle choice. The CARS Act passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, December 6, 2023.  

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