Shocking development: Biden plans to roll back rule designed to juice EV push on country

The Biden administration is planning to slow down the rollout of a rule that was designed to juice the United States’s transition to electric vehicles.

The administration is reportedly planning to relax its limits on tailpipe emissions, in an election-year concession to labor unions and automakers, sources told the New York Times on Saturday. 

Instead of forcing automakers to continue producing more and more EVs to hit near-term targets, the administration will relax the rules, giving manufacturers until after 2030 to boost their sales significantly, the sources said. The final version of the rule is expected to be announced in the spring.

The Environmental Protection Agency originally announced a new rule last year that would require nearly 70% of new car and truck sales to have no tailpipe emissions by 2032. But critics claim the sudden shift would have devastated the U.S. auto industry.

The slowdown still requires automakers to transition nearly 70% of their new car and truck sales to have no tailpipe emissions by 2032, but would allow a slower and steadier on-ramp to reach that number before 2030.