Hyperdrive
Three Reasons California Is Trump’s Worst Nightmare in Clean-Car Fight
America’s biggest car market has just as much pull as the feds.
U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on April 10, 2018.
Photographer: Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
President Donald Trump, much to the delight of Big Auto, wants to roll back the Obama-era regulations that require cars to burn gasoline more efficiently and run cleaner. Well, California regulators have a message for the president: Do it, and we’ll go it alone.
If this showdown over transportation emissions involved any other state, the federal government would probably come out on top. But it’s the Golden State, the one that stretches across most of the U.S. West Coast and has the GDP of a not-so-small country. (Think: United Kingdom-sized.)