Washington DC - 19 September 2019

1. SOUNDBITE (English) Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation:

"The one national program that we are announcing today will ensure that there is one and only one set of national fuel economy standards as Congress mandated and intended. No state has the authority to opt out of the nation's rules and no state has the right to impose its policies on everybody else in our whole country. To do otherwise, harms consumers and damages the American economy."

++SEPARATED BY WHITE FLASH++

2. SOUNDBITE (English) Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation:

"With today's one national program rule, the administration is standing up for all Americans, their needs and their right to choose. We will not let political agendas in a single state be forced upon the other 49 and we will always put safety first."

++SEPARATED BY WHITE FLASH++

3. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Wheeler, EPA Administrator:

"And California's climate impacts are not extraordinarily distinct from those felt in other states in the same way that it's smog impacts are. It makes sense that Congress carved out waiver authority for California to address its unique local problems. It does not make sense to use that authority to try to address national and global issues like greenhouse gas emissions. It's time to put California's waiver back in its box, the box that Congress always intended it to stand, California's unique extraordinary criteria air pollutant issues."

FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: apus123788

The Trump administration unveils a national fuel economy standards rule that would revoke California's authority to set its own auto emission standards, authority it has had for decades under a waiver from the federal Clean Air Act.

"The one national program that we are announcing today will ensure that there is one and only one set of national fuel economy standards as Congress mandated and intended," said Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

"No state has the authority to opt out of the nation's rules and no state has the right to impose its policies on everybody else in our whole country. To do otherwise, harms consumers and damages the American economy."

Chao's comments came Thursday during a joint press conference with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler in Washington.

"California's climate impacts are not extraordinarily distinct from those felt in other states," said Wheeler.

"It's time to put California's waiver back in its box, the box that Congress always intended it to stand, California's unique extraordinary criteria air pollutant issues."

California has 35 million registered vehicles, giving it outsized influence with the auto industry.

That heft was on display in July, when Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom announced four automakers, Ford, BMW, Honda and Volkswagen  agreed to follow California's standards, bypassing the Trump administration, which had been working on new rules.

California officials have been negotiating with other automakers to follow suit, but those talks stalled Wednesday when President Donald Trump announced, via Twitter, that he was revoking California's authority to set its own emission standards.

The administration argues that lower-cost vehicles would allow more people to buy new ones that are safer, cutting roadway deaths by 12,700 lives through the 2029 model year.

But The Associated Press reported last year that internal EPA emails show senior career officials privately questioned the administration's calculations, saying the proposed freeze would actually modestly increase highway fatalities, by about 17 deaths annually.