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This week, Congressman Bob Latta (R-OH5) joined Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Representative Tim Walberg (R-MI5), and 117 other colleagues in a bicameral 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.

“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 lawmakers concluded, “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. “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 letter in full.

Latta’s work to preserve Americans’ freedom of choice when purchasing vehicles:

• In March 2023, Latta helped introduce the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act, and in September of 2023, the bill passed the U.S. House. The bill would restrict the EPA from issuing any waiver for new regulations that would ban the safe or use of new motor vehicles with internal combustion engines.

·         In 2022, Latta led 157 of his House colleagues in a letter to President Biden opposing the waiver from the state of California that would ban the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles.

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