With 2025's 54.5 mpg corporate average fuel economy standards set to be finalized towards the end of this year, carmakers will also have to meet a 34.1 mpg average by 2016.
Alongside these economy targets, carmakers--and perhaps other businesses--will also be bound by the EPA's greenhouse gas emissions limits. Well, that's if the House Appropriations Committee doesn't have its way.
The committee has concerns over the affordability of the regulations, which would see the EPA setting CO2 limits for the period from 2017 to 2025. As such, it has voted to bar the EPA from setting tailpipe emissions limits for the 2017-2025 period.
The 2016 requirements are already expected to cost the industry $51.5 billion, and the house suggests that in a time of high unemployment and economic downturn, the EPA's changes are too much, too soon.
According to The Detroit News, the committee also voted to cut the EPA's budget by 17 percent, or $3.2 billion.
"These cuts and restrictions represent the committee's concern that EPA's unprecedented regulations are strangling American business and industry," explained Rep. Harold Rogers [R-KY], chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
It seems unlikely the committee's vote will pass however, as the Senate and the Obama administration both support the EPA's targets.
The 2017-2025 rules are expected to be finalized by this August.
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