Tesla has asked the Environmental Protection Agency not to roll back current vehicle emissions standards, breaking from other major automakers who want to see the rules eased. The company’s request comes the same week that President Donald Trump — who Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent $300 million to help elect — told the United Nations General Assembly that he thinks climate change is a “con job” and a “scam.”
Tesla also asked the EPA not to scuttle a 2009 legal standard known as the Endangerment Finding, which many modern environmental regulations (like the vehicle emissions standards) are based on. Tesla said that finding is “based on a robust factual and scientific record,” according to the company’s letter to the agency.
The EPA has been seeking comment since August for these proposed attacks on environmental rules. The agency’s administrator, Lee Zeldin, said at the time that, if passed, the rollbacks would drive “a dagger into the heart of the climate change religion.”
Tesla’s nominal mission is to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” But the company financially benefits from stricter environmental regulations. When other automakers fall short of fleet emissions goals, they pay companies like Tesla hundreds of millions of dollars to buy “credits” to make up the difference. (Those credits technically come from a California program that has also been a Republican target.) While Tesla is asking for the standards to be maintained, the company told the EPA it is “open to discussing mechanisms to streamline” them in order to keep them around.
