On July 29, 2025, the Trump Administration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the EPA was proposing a rulemaking to strip out greenhouse gas (GHG) emission requirements from federal vehicle emissions standards for passenger vehicles and commercial medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. These standards had just been updated in 2024 (with support from the auto industry) to their most stringent version that would have seen over seven billion tons of GHG emissions avoided across the next three decades.
The U.S. EPA also proposed rescinding its landmark 2009 finding that the top greenhouse gases — including carbon dioxide and methane — harm human health by contributing directly to climate change. Called an “endangerment finding,” this enabled the EPA to act upon its legal duty under the Clean Air Act to protect public health by setting standards and taking other agency action to reduce climate warming greenhouse gas emissions. Read more about the endangerment finding here.
The 2009 endangerment finding led to greenhouse gas requirements being added to EPA vehicle emission standards. Together with previously set air pollution requirements and fuel economy standards, these federal vehicle emissions standards have been one of the most successful policies at avoiding and reducing climate emissions across any sector, while also significantly combatting air pollution and providing consumer savings in the trillions from lower fueling costs over the past 50 years they have been in place.
This latest proposed EPA action goes further than a similar attempt to undermine vehicle emissions standards under the previous Trump administration. Paired with the July 2025 federal reconciliation law, this proposed rulemaking attempts to reverse the tremendous progress made on cleaning up pollution from our cars, vans, and trucks while achieving enormous fuel efficiency gains for consumers that have translated directly into consumer savings.
Fresh Energy strongly opposes this effort to stall climate action and undermine a wealth of scientific evidence that link the rise in greenhouse gases from human-made sources as the leading cause of a rapidly changing climate that has already been linked to a rise in dangerous heatwaves, flooding, winter storms, and wildfires.
“This latest effort by the Trump Administration to dismiss the undeniable facts of climate change and try to wipe out 15 years of tremendous progress made on reducing climate pollution, improving public health, and putting more money back into the pocket of consumers is a grim reminder that the goals of achieving a cleaner, healthier, and more affordable transportation system and economy are not always shared by those in power,” said Anjali Bains, Managing Director, Transportation. “Fresh Energy pledges to keep working with fellow advocates and partners in the public and private sectors to defend progress and push back on this latest overreach of executive climate denial that will only hurt Minnesotans’ health and pocketbooks if allowed forward.”
Read on to learn more about this proposed rulemaking, what it means for Minnesota, and how you can use your voice to push back.
What are vehicle emission standards and how are they set?
Federal vehicle or “tailpipe” emission standards typically refer to a set of requirements set by the EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to limit pollution from new on-road vehicles while also promoting and improving fuel efficiency.
The EPA vehicle emission standards focus on reducing climate emissions and air pollution like soot and smog. They apply to new passenger vehicles (e.g. cars and pick-up trucks) as well as medium-duty vehicles like vans and heavy-duty vehicles like trucks and buses (learn about the various vehicle classes here). The EPA standards are technology-neutral and apply to manufacturers who have flexibility in meeting these requirements across the “fleet” of vehicles they sell in a given year. Read more about how EPA vehicle emission standards work here.
Separately, NHTSA also sets requirements called Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards that make sure new cars, vans, and trucks are increasingly more efficient and use less fuel.
Both these federal standards — the EPA vehicle emissions standards and NHTSA CAFE standards — have been around since the 1970s and have undergone periodic updates and improvements. They are technology-neutral and do not set any requirement for a certain number of electric vehicles to be sold to meet them. However, selling more zero-emission vehicles like electric vehicles is a major way automakers can comply with these standards. Other improvements to vehicle technology (e.g. air conditioning) can count towards compliance as well.
There are also a set of vehicle emission standards that are stricter than federal standards. Called “clean car and truck standards,” these vehicle emission standards are set by the California Air Resources Board and focused on reducing pollution and explicitly increasing the sales of zero-emission vehicles. Because of the way our clean air regulations came to be, states can choose to either adopt clean car and/or clean truck standards or follow federal standards; they cannot set their own. As a result of this choice, about 17 states (including Minnesota) and the District of Columbia have adopted a version of clean car and/or clean truck standards. Read more about clean car standards here and a brief history of all three of these standards here.
Together, these three standards have led to cleaner, healthier, and more efficient cars, vans, trucks, and buses being designed and sold in the U.S. and have helped reduce climate pollution from our transportation sector significantly. An estimated 14 billion tons of GHG emissions have been avoided since 1975, making these standards the most effective climate policy we’ve had in the transportation sector to-date.
But why does it matter for Minnesota?
In 2021, Minnesota adopted a set of clean car standards. Called Advanced Clean Cars I or ACC I, these stricter-than-federal tailpipe emissions standards helped bring more electric vehicles to the state, resulting in almost 8% of sales being electric in 2024. However, ACC I only runs through 2025. As Minnesota has not adopted the next set of clean car standards (called Advanced Clean Cars II), the state will revert to federal vehicle emissions standards in 2026. This means the current actions of the Trump Administration and EPA will have a direct impact on what types of passenger vehicles and trucks will or won’t be sold in our state. Should the current EPA proposal to strip GHG standards from its vehicle emissions standards go through, it will mean the cars, pick-ups, vans, and trucks sold in Minnesota will not be as clean, efficient, or healthy as they would have been.
What comes next and how can I help?
Fortunately, this proposed action from the EPA is just that — a proposal. Given it is a stark departure from federal policy, it is likely to face headwinds and critical examination through the formal federal rulemaking process. There is also likely to be a legal defense mounted by national nonprofit advocacy groups to slow or reverse course as well, given the scientific basis for the 2009 endangerment finding is stronger than ever.
Additionally, the six greenhouse gases that were implicated in the 2009 endangerment finding were formally added to the list of air pollutants that the Clean Air Act covers in 2022, the same year the Inflation Reduction Act passed. This act of Congress means additional protection for limiting and reducing climate pollution via administrative action exists under federal law, beyond the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding.
The proposal is already open for public comment through September 22, 2025.
While the current set of actions by the federal administration goes further down the path of climate denial and fossil fuel favoritism than ever, Fresh Energy and our many partners across the state and U.S. are ready to fight back. Zero-emission vehicles are here to stay, and we’ll continue to pull all the policy levers we can to keep us swiftly and equitable decarbonizing transportation here in Minnesota.