Citing significant investments made by motor vehicle suppliers in research and development, the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA) recently urged the Trump Administration to maintain current Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) standards.
In a Nov. 1 meeting with the White House Council on Environmental Quality, MEMA leaders noted that long-term investments in advanced technologies needed to achieve CAFE and GHG standards set in 2012 contributed to a recent 19 percent increase in jobs in the vehicle parts manufacturing sector.
“Suppliers are urging the continuation of these standards because the consequences of changing them midstream could have a negative ripple effect,” MEMA President and CEO Steve Handschuh said. “If standards are relaxed, it would put at risk the investments, intellectual property, and jobs that are here in the U.S. and shift them to other markets where the standards are more stringent. This meeting was critical to helping the White House understand this complexity and demonstrate MEMA’s growing voice on this issue.”
Handschuh and Catherine Boland, the vice president of legislative affairs at MEMA, also told White House officials that research and development investments made by motor vehicle suppliers have been amortized over a number of years, and delaying product deployment or shortening the lifespan of products would jeopardize further investments planned years in advance.
In August, the Environmental Protection Agency began the process of rewriting CAFE and GHG standards for model year 2022-2025 cars and light trucks by opening a public comment period.