WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s fuel efficiency standards for passenger cars and light trucks are about to undergo a major reassessment — something that could end up unraveling one of the president’s signature achievements.
After weeks of wrangling, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are ready to release a report about the economic and technological feasibility of hitting those fuel-efficiency targets.
What’s at stake is one of the most important parts of President Obama’s legacy: Regulations that mandated a more than doubling of vehicle fuel efficiency by 2025 to 54.5 miles a gallon.
The toughened standards remain a cornerstone of the president’s climate and economic policies; they would slash the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and its oil imports.
When the regulations were set in 2012, then-Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood vowed that ‘‘the car or light truck you’ll be driving in 2025 will not be your grandfather’s Oldsmobile.’’ Thirteen of 15 automakers signed onto the deal.
But to get the automakers on board, the administration agreed to allow a reassessment of the standards in 2017— something that critics call a grave political error that could allow manufacturers to lobby the now-Republican Congress, the next president, and the two agencies to water down the standards.
The auto companies have called the reassessment an ‘‘off ramp,’’ implying that this review could be used to avoid higher fuel efficiency standards.
But former Obama officials call this a ‘‘midterm review’’ of the standards that was needed to get automakers to support them and that in any case are a matter of good government. Setting standards in 2012 for cars that could be on the road well into the 2030s requires more foresight than regulators often have.
The report due out this week will help the agencies tailor new proposed regulations and then final regulations by early 2018.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, representing a dozen major automakers, has already swung into action arguing that the administrative targets are overly ambitious. The alliance has also sought legislation that would give it special mileage credits for safety measures.
