people can be governed in the public interest, rather than through faction, that is the mobs that favor self-interest rather than public good. announcer: sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern. with davide talking shepperton about fuel efficiency standards. what did the administration announced last week about fuel efficiency standards? guest: a couple weeks into the administration, president trump announced that they would revisit the standards that obama administers and had imposed. in 2012, the obama administration agreed with automakers to nearly double the fuel efficiency to 50 miles per gallon by 2025, however there was a midterm review, a chance for everyone to weigh in and make sure that these last years were feasible. last week via ministration proposed freezing the standards

at 2020 levels through 2026, rather than the standards continuing to rise by upwards of 5% per year, the administer is proposing to freeze them. and it is also proposing to revoke california's ability to set the standards. those are adopted by 12 other states. agreement, california had agreed to adopt those standards. now california and other states which account for about 35% of the u.s. vehicle market are planning to sue if the trump administration follis there with freezing the standards. the administration also proposed to prevent california from acquiring new rising number of zero emission vehicles, mostly electric vehicles, from being sold in the states. it set up a huge fight between large states like california, new york, and others that adopted those rules, and the administration over the future of vehicles and how many

vehicles will have to be electrified. do these fuelrs efficiency standards apply to? suv's, cars? semis? guest: great question, there are two separate standards, we're talking about light-duty vehicles, passenger cars, suvs, vehicles under 8500 pounds. vehicles you and i would drive. semis have separate standards which were adopted during the obama administration, never having been regulated before in terms of efficiency. drivevehicle you would and can only apply to new vehicles. nothing sitting in your driveway now. standards require auto companies to improve their efficiency of the fleet amid -- and meet rising targets. proposal,donald trump this would be frozen from

2020-2026. that will have substantial impact. host: two phone lines to join the conversation, and the eastern or central time zone, call 202-748-8000. in the mountain and pacific time zones, call 202-748-8001. that california and other states are thinking about suing to stop this but what does the trap administration have to do to get the rule change in? guest: this rule is so big, 1000 pages and the supporting pages are thousands of pages. the federal register, the official way that regulation start the process, they are still uploading all of these documents and we do not know what day that will get registered. from that moment forward, a 60 day comment.

period. after that, they have to take public comments. during those times, a big push by the auto industry to convince california andand administration to make a deal. it takes a long time to design, produce, and build a new automobile, 3-5 years. not like building a small consumer good because the vehicles have 5000 pounds, they are very complicated. the auto companies want everybody to make a deal but the question is what california, and does the donald trump administration have incentive, they are very far apart now because they do not think california has the authority to set rules, but california says we want to keep racing standards by dramatic -- raising standards by dramatic amounts. host: what authorities allow individual states to make these

fuel efficiency standards? it seems like the trump administration is challenging that. host: under the -- guest: under the clean air act, california have so much smog it address the issue before the clear act was signed by president in. -- president nixon. they needed a waiver on the epa to set their own rules and over the course of the last 40 years, they have gotten 100 waivers to do state specific emissions rules. this waiver was granted to them in 2013 and the administration is proposing to withdraw the waiver and suggesting that the 1975 law that set the corporate average fuel economy program, the numbers on your label, that law preempts the state from setting their own rules. that position has never been challenged in court. until now, california has been

allowed to proceed. you will see a legal battle whether states can set their own emissions. standards,eezing the will that mean the price of a new car will go up, down, stay the same? does this change what cars would cost in the future? guest: fascinating question because there are so many impacts. automobiles are one of the biggest parts of the u.s. economy, we buy upwards of $70 million -- 17 million cars per year. they are a huge part of the economy. the trump administration sang by eliminating these mandates, you will dramatically reduce the need for hybrids, plug-in hybrid vehicles. theyn some classes and will go to less than 2%, 3%.

byuce the cost of vehicles $2000 by the end of 20 20's, that would result, they say, in the sale of an additional one million vehicles. they say it will be a big boost to consumers and also argue that , because of the cost reduction in cars, people get rid of old cars and buy cars faster. as a result, they say it will save upwards of 12,700 lives per year because you would trade in the car with no airbags and should not be on the road. environmentalists in california take great issue with that math because when people buy a car, they say they do not care about what the price is but what the monthly payment will be to buy it. on the other side, the administration says this will dramatically increase oil consumption and by the 20 30's it will lead to an additional

500,000 barrels real consumption per year or 2%, 3% more oil because more americans are driving less efficient vehicles. gallon and47 miles a it would go -- there are costs and benefits on both sides but ultimately the debate will come down to whose analysis do you believe and what is the most important to you in making this policy. host: mark calling from michigan. how are you this morning? caller: i do not know. con is, i had a 1996 saturn widen with manual transition. forove over the speed limit a short time, putting it in neutral and coasting but i did not realize my odometer quit.

i could turn back mileage. i added an additive. i did not know what i was doing. with that additive, i drove from grand rapids, better than 100 ,iles, knowing i was low on oil i drove six months without a radiator. just by shutting the engine off and coasting, working a stone throw away, i did not care, i gallon 60 miles per half just by shutting the engine off and coasting. some will restart in neutral an automatic transmission. the vehicles today, you only get whatever grading the engine is graded at miles per gallon.

or you will get highway miles. logistically, if you put more controls into the public doing this, transferring -- i do not know what electronic attitude change the menu so badly but all you have to do is make the transition to the new vehicles, the public can be in control of their own destiny, if they want to control how good or how bad their gas mileage is. they can do it themselves instead on relying on the government to decide, this is how much you can legally get away with. host: what do you think? guest: lots of examples of people trying different strategies to save fuel, coasting behind large trucks i would not recommend shutting your engine off to save fuel given the safety ramifications. a good point about oil changes, fuel use, those are things not

pleasant about owning an internal combustion engine and the electric vehicle advocates say take advantage of electric vehicles, no more oil changes and no more trips to the gas pump. the trump administration assesses the cost of additional refueling because people -- fewer people will have electric vehicles. of the the granularity analysis even if you can't fight how much it will cost and how much time we waste refueling vehicles. do self driving car's figure into this conversation at all or two early -- too early? guest: auto industry says with self driving car's, a lot more fuel-efficient because they will not get into crashes and sitting in traffic on i-95 burning fuel because the cars will be properly spaced and not need an slow down. the auto industry has made the case that they should get credits for self driving cars but the reality is self driving car's in terms of big adoption is many years away but hopefully

self driving cars will reduce fuel use and get credit. host: will from matthews, north carolina. caller: good morning. ridiculous -- are in a ridiculous quest to destroy ourselves. engine cars got into the market, they had high mileage cars. we had a fuel shortage and new cars came in with fuel efficiency. got in the market and now we are just selling trucks. relax the mileage requirements again and it will take a big part of the market and we have a fuel shortage. manufacturers will say we need help but give me a break. we are in a cycle of destroying ourselves.

guest: you make a point a lot of environmentalists have made, the u.s. auto industry is not keeping pace with japanese and european companies. since then,pened the efficiency of crossovers, smaller suvs and suvs have gotten far better and the delta between cars and suvs has gotten smaller. every vehicle has got more fuel-efficient but you are right, not only are american companies not necessarily going to be pursuing big car efficiency but a lot of companies are getting rid of cars. ford said it will stop selling almost all of its cars with the exception of the mustang in favor of these. but two thirds of u.s. cars today are not cars, their suvs and crossovers. a dramatic shift away from cars towards those vehicles. they are still building the chevy volt but there has been a

change from cars and when gas prices go back up, will americans want to ditch the cars and move back to cars. host: kevin calling from marshall, texas. caller: good morning. worker and i gm saw firsthand what raising the standards did, they close our plans, we used to build hummers, h3, and when the democrats took believe, one06, i of the first things they did was to raise the gas standards. we talk about projections and how much it will say. thinking about past projections, they raised standards. people moved out of the city's, they moved to the suburbs. they drove more.

we did not say that much on fuel consumption. furthermore, because cars were so much smaller, you had an increase in traffic fatalities. is,what i was wondering what is wrong with letting the market take care of itself? -- ifple are not getting gas prices go up, we will look for a vehicle that gets more mileage per gallon. that is a check in itself and if you watch, that has happened, it happens all the time. when gas prices go up, people quit buying cars. host: -- guest: a general motors executive said café was comparable to making people where smaller pants to lose weight because the decisions

about what cars get purchased are made by individuals and companies have to meet fleetwide fuel efficiency standards even though they are at the mercy of customers to buy vehicles. but these standards have prompted companies to invest tons of dollars in technologies they may not have otherwise have done to improve the efficiency of vehicles. without standards, the fleet would be much less efficient. tothere a societal benefit demanding vehicles be more fuel-efficient? --n though the marketplace when gas prices go up -- it results in a fleet going up. the environmentalists would say the standards -- companies would not have incentive to innovate at the same level they are today. host: the proposed rule from the trump administration, affordable fuel-efficient vehicle rule, why do they believe this will make

the roadways safer and vehicles more affordable? guest: the argument -- there are two arguments, one is about mass, but a small portion and the primary argument is that cost will go down. that relies on assumptions. auto companies face standards in a lot of different places. the european union, china, japan. companies announced plans to invest tens of billions of dollars building new electric m, this analysis assumes companies will not make those investments, they will not need to have some of the vehicles, like hybridized pickup trucks to meet the standards and as a result will reduce the cost of new vehicles. assumes that those costs

will be passed on to consumers and consumers will buy cars -- why more cars, faster -- buy more cars faster and ditch laissez vehicles but that is a lot of assumptions -- bit less safe vehicles, but that is a lot of assumptions. they say this will result to one million vehicles sales by 2029 and forecasting the u.s. global selloff vehicles. to determine what motivates people to buy vehicles. know,y factors we do not the economy, the price of gas, employment, we challenge anybody to forecast this. host: elizabeth in san diego, california. good morning, elizabeth. caller: good morning. the name of this proposed bill is -- says it all, like something out of "1984."

to call this a safety initiative because more people can ditch their old cars is neanderthal look at the way we should conduct our automobile industry. it reminds me of -- remember the auto industry did not impose safety standards on its own. they had to be pushed to do that. now we have safe automobiles that save millions of lives over the decades. really, this whole proposal is a gift to the oil and coal industry through the neanderthals that are running this country now, trump. guest: you are right that this would benefit the oil industry because as the proposal lays out, the administration forecasts this would result in additional 500,000 euros of oil

used per day in the united states. 2%, 3% higher oil consumption. this would be a benefit. would be using less electricity for the tv's, you could argue because of coal-fired power plants are still a large percentage of the electrical grid, it may not be as beneficial to the coal industry. but no question that environmentalists in california have aggressively rejected this contention that this is about safety. it is fair to say the trump administration is using safety as a way to market this change because the alternative is the fact that they are saying americans will spend upwards of $150 billion or as much as $450 billion more on gasoline as a result of the shift away from electric vehicles and into internal combustion engines. --t: a congressman

congresswoman, debbie wasserman schultz, says by reducing fuel efficiency standards, donald trump want you to spend more money on gas, threatening our clean air and worsening climate change to reward special interest and giant oil companies. what other reaction from congress about these proposed changes? guest: that will clearly be a part of the democrat strategy in 2018 because they have already had a couple of press conferences. they went to an expensive gas station on capitol hill notorious for high test prices to say this is what is going on. this is a pocketbook issue. they will try to make the argument that this -- they can point to the numbers, this will raise the american spending on gasoline. will that argument point for for people with electric vehicles? the argument could have legs if

gas prices unexpectedly rise between now and election day. host: geronimo calling from new york. much forhank you having me. to thisn when it comes ,hole republican and democrat and how they take situations agendais, to push an group.nefits one set of efficiencyng vehicle is to benefit all of us. benefits the environment. benefits safety concerns. ar is to transport yourself from point a to point b.

there was a man earlier that said something about why not have the consumer basically push for their own -- like driving behind trucks. that is what most consumers are trying to do. consumers, we are trying to look at ways not only to keep down the cost, but at the same time, safety, environment, keep safety issues in check. by having electric cars, not only do we bring down the consumption of gas, which is basically, i would not say as it is ansaid before, old solution we are trying to get away from to become more

efficient. guest: i think the caller makes good points. it is true that without california and other states requiring auto companies to build rising numbers of zero emission vehicles, we would not have the large number of electric vehicle offerings in the market today. you are speaking to where the auto industry is today, the industry does not support freezing the standards at 2020 deal, and they want the they want california and the administration to get together and get certainty and not spent years fighting in court. the argument will be, does the administration seek political advantage in fighting california and saying, we will make sure you can still build your pickup trucks and suvs, we will fight california to the end, or do they seem advantage in researching a deal. can california muster the

political will if they get their authority? that is not certain because it will be difficult for california to agree to make concessions to the donald trump administration given how unpopular he is in california. herald in california for y couldn't - harold in c alifornia, good morning. caller: why have we not gone to hydrogen? it is clean, you can run it directly into your carburetor on the older cars. , but theyimple to do have not figured out how to charge us for the water. guest: hydrogen powered cars. you are right. only waste product is water

that comes out of the tailpipe and some auto engineers will drink the water that comes out for you the companies -- comes out. the water companies for decades -- the auto companies for decades -- there are a lot of problems for hydrogen. the technology is very expensive. get thepensive to refueling stations near people so there is a lot of cost associated with that.