For Immediate Release, February 20, 2026
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Contact: |
Dan Becker, (202) 494-5577, [email protected] |
EPA Report: Automakers Made Little Progress Against Pollution
Agency Removes Compliance Information, Citing Tailpipe Rule Rollbacks
WASHINGTON— The Environmental Protection Agency today released its annual Automotive Trends Report, which shows that automakers made little progress against pollution. But what improvements they did make were mostly due to tougher Biden emissions standards, which the Trump EPA has now killed. The latest report, which covers model year 2024, shows that automakers continue to sell millions of gas guzzlers and a relative handful of electric and other clean vehicles.
“This report shows how badly we need strong clean car standards even as Trump sends them to the morgue,” said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign. “Even with the Biden standards, automakers failed to use the best technology on many of their vehicles and made a fleet that guzzles and pollutes too much. With Trump killing strong standards and eliminating penalties for cheating, automakers will be free to guzzle and pollute and consumers will be forced to pay for more gas at the pump.”
“Burning each gallon of gas pumps 25 pounds of carbon pollution into the air,” said Becker. “With every rollback, Trump is loading the atmosphere with more heat-trapping gas, which will worsen heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires, and health-harming smog. Meanwhile Trump’s conceding the rest of the world’s auto and truck market to China, which understands that the future of transportation is electric. Chinese and other Asian carmakers are going to eat the U.S. auto industry’s lunch.”
The Trump-led attack on clean cars continued in this report. The EPA ceased publishing data on whether companies failed to comply with their standard, citing the Trump rollbacks.
Here are the key details in the Trends report:
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.8 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.