Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy likened President Donald Trump’s regulatory rollback to children getting sick after their mother feeds them too much birthday cake.
“Everybody goes to the president to ask for everything … And he said yes. Oops.” McCarthy told an audience Friday at a Harvard University climate conference. She was referring to Trump’s move earlier this year to nix her decision to raise fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks.
It’s like a “little kid eating birthday cake” and “they’re sick now” because “mom” gave in to their demands, McCarthy said, adding that the auto-industry would soon revolt and ask to have the regulations reinstated.
The auto industry championed Trump’s decision earlier this year to begin rolling back former President Barack Obama’s vehicle emission standards.
Stakeholders have argued the rules place undue burden on auto manufacturers struggling to meet emission standards amid low gas prices and lagging biofuel production. They believe the standards could potentially destroy thousands of jobs.
Chief executives at GM, Ford Motor, Fiat, along with executives at Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, and others believe the rule could “threaten future production levels, putting hundreds of thousands and perhaps as many as a million jobs at risk,” the executives told Trump in March.
The president’s move only creates more uncertainty inside an industry that is constantly changing, McCarthy told the audience.
“Technology is changing,” and “the business sector needs certainty,” she explained. “Uncertainty … is not beneficial” for a business sector that must plan production lines decades in advance, she told the forum.
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